[IC] MT-R2: Enki Vs Everett

[Everett]

The sun was high in the sky over a forest that seemed to be populated with thin, tall, trees that were spaced quite a distance away from each other with canopies reaching 100 feet or more above the forest floor. The name of the forest itself had been long since lost and even though paths through the trees remained they weren't always the easiest to see. It was a nice 70 degrees and the sky was clear, no sight of rain in the near or distant future. Between the trees, off the beaten path, one would see low growing shrubs and fallen timber of trees which had reached a point in their life that their trunks could no longer support them. Birds could be seen, in wide varieties, fluttering around from branch to branch. Multiple chirps filled the air as they all seemed to echo softly between the trees, perfect but natural acoustics made clear to any who had been passing through. The birds seemed to be in contest with the squirrels over who was going to get various nuts growing on the trees, each side racing to get more than the other. Other than squirrels and birds no other animal life seemed to exist and there was a distinct lack of flowers.

"It seems my next opponent is a contractor of ShinRa. What are the rules of engagement?" He asked to Enki on the other line, his left index finger placed against the area behind his hear. "Understood. Will report back after the fight." His left arm lowered and his right hand shifted the spear propped upon his shoulder a bit. The head of it rested almost behind his head, fighting without killing or maiming was going to be hard if he wanted to continue to use the weapon.

The one he had been told he was going to be meeting in this forest he did not know much about. From what he had gathered between his last bout and this one was that ShinRa had contracted somebody, but that was where his information ended. Apparently they liked to play things fast and loose in whatever realm he was in now. He didn't care, in the long run, he'd learn more about her from Enki later on regardless of the outcome. Those sapphire hues watched his surroundings as he traveled down one of the beaten paths, if one could call the remains of such a thing by that name. He took a moment of pleasure in the wild life around him, both flora and fauna. A place like this reminded him of his home, the forests that he use to roam and the people that lived there. It seemed like such a long time ago. Regardless of the nostalgia business was never far from his mind and as he reminisced he continued to survey the area, looking in between trees and up into the canopies.

[Enki]

Uzuki was just in a barren and rocky place with the only thing to counter against the rocks was the big lake in the middle of it all. Everything was going fine when suddenly the person she was there to fight suddenly vanished before her eyes and that was it, over...round one a slight let down, but whatever she will get paid either way.

After waiting a while she was sent to the next location and boy was this different from the previous. Looking around at the serene forest landscape with the birds and squirrels fighting over the food, the small shrubbery, and fair weather only one thought crossed her mind.

"What kind of fucking shit is this? I went from Mordor to god damned Disney. Is my opponent snow white or some shit?!"

The girl walks down a path that seemed like it was used a long time ago but has sense had started to grow over, but it was a path none the less. Her red sneakers seem to be fine, but the short black skirt was doing her no favors as a branch protrudes out and scrapes the side of her skin.

"What the hell!" She looks down at her leg and the branch, then back at her leg, then back at the branch. With just a sound of metal on wood, one could see the branch fall to the ground as she just keeps walking past it. Her sword strangely seems like it never left its black Saya on her left side. Her brown jacket might be a bit to much for the seventy degree weather but she keeps it on over her black dress shirt and loosely tied red tie, mostly because the jacket hides her gun, the Bang-n-Go Machine. The truth is the gun is the same as the pot-shot-o'matic, she just changes the name whenever she feels like it since she never actually knew what it was called to begin with. She stole it from some renegade captain's room who was in a coma years ago! Naturally her long red hair is in a pony-tail with her green eyes scanning over the forest for her opponent.

Knowing that there is chance for surprise in such a setting she leaves her headphones out of her ears as they dangle from her shirt collar, but it still plays some music.

Music that is playing

youtube.com/watch?v=-IfNT04ydDE

Anyone with any special hearing could probably hear it for themselves. After what seemed like a damn eternity(A whole ten minutes), Uzuki finally sees her opponent in the distance. Slowing her pace up some she finally stops and calls out to the man.

"Alright, first I had Salad, now I get a Roman...or greek! Ah screw it, yadda yadda, I'm Uzuki and I know you're SRI I read the stupid file they sent. You're Sky of some special project that is super duper important. Let't get it on shall we?"

The girl wastes no time in beginning to rush towards her opponent, her goal is mainly to close in distance to see how the spear wielder will react, as she runs her left hand does reach down to her Saya and grips it loosely. On the outside of her right hand, it begins to glow charging up some ether directly into her right hand.

[Everett]

It was the sound she made after she had been nicked by the branch she had been passing that first caught Sky's attention. He adjusted his path and made sure that he was generally heading in Uzuki's direction. The closer he got the more he heard the music that was coming out of her headphones, it was a noisy racket that he didn't much appreciate. Sky was more of a strings instrument kind of guy, acoustic guitar would be more his thing rather than the metal that she listened too. Regardless though he'd eventually stop when the other started to almost yell at him. He couldn't help but look down at himself. He was dressed more like something out of Aladdin at the moment. A simple synthetic silk vest with baggy pants and leather thong sandals. His head snapped back up to attention when she so suddenly decided to get right to the action. His right foot slid to the rear as his spear was simultaneously lowered from his shoulder, the left hand reach out to catch it so that the back of his hand was facing the ground.

His knees bent, putting him in a low stance, his left hand gripping upon the first 1/3 of the shaft of his spear while the right hand gripped the last 1/3. Her dash across the distance told Sky a lot about her. She seemed impatient and hyper active, wanting to start things off quickly. She used a sword and seemed to be skilled in the art of drawing, simply from the stance she was taking and the fact that she didn't have her sword out already. The glowing rune on the back of her hand told him that magic was on the way. His own reserves were tapped into and pulled forth, funneling his spiritual energy into his spear so that it'd become infused and glow with a slight white luminescence. The point of the spear would lower toward the ground and as she approached it'd suddenly swipe from low to high with a slight motion forward. If she didn't draw her sword to counter act the blow she ran the risk of running herself onto his spear, but the overall intention was to run the tip of the spear from low to high and attempt a small cut along the front of her torso or whatever he could hit.

[Enki]

Uzuki seen the stance change of sky into a more or less typical spear stance. She knew that if she planned to get in close, that the spear would have to be dealt with. He was trained in the spear and she knew that an attack was going to be coming. The energy gathered into the spear wasn't exactly a large concern however the stabbity end impaling her didn't sound like a pleasant idea. Although the thought for just a millisecond did cross her mind to impale herself to get really close and cut his head off...not exactly what her contractor would want though.

It was decision time as she got close enough and she knew what she had to do, gripping her saya fully she detaches it from her belt moving it so the curve matches the back of her arm. She alters her step slightly to the right about a foot and for just one step. The low to high thrust is met with her swinging her left arm down and out to meet the blade just at the side of its tip, with the back of her arm which basically uses the black saya as a shield against the bladed portion of the spear. Now using that step she presses herself back into the spear attack while raising her arm up, grinding her saya along it as it rises and hopefully letting her slide up under it. As she grinds along the shaft of the spear, her right hand dips into her gun holster under her brown jacket and on the left side of her body. Pulling out the Bang-n-Go pistol, she quickly begins to shoot at the spearmans midsection and thighs(non-lethal targets) unloading as many(likely 2-3 at this speed) shots equivalent to a normal 9mm projectile with her trigger finger she could at point blank range.

Possibly still in motion from this, she would press back off the spear and shift her feet to run away from him at a side angle. The right hand still glowing with the ether required to pull something off ready to go

[Everett]

In any combat situation he knew that things rarely worked out how one wanted them too. One of the key aspects to being a good fighter was learning how to adapt to the situation as it unfolded. With this in mind he didn't know what Uzuki was going to do but he knew that she wasn't simply going to run herself onto the end of his spear, that's not something that a normal person would do. The fact that she considered such a thing was lost on him and showed him how wrong he actually was about his opponent. But the method that Uzuki chose to use to deal with the spear worked more to Sky's benefit than to her own and that was for two different reasons. For one Sky was a master at manipulating his energy and using it from various sources, like his body and his weapon, in a much similar way to Uzuki. The other is that his spear wasn't a normal spear, it had the blades on the sides that flanked the weapon and made it look more like a trident. The first that happened occurred when the spear itself collided with the black Saya that she used to protect herself. The energy within the spear struck out, passing through physical obstacles much like a ghost would.

At the close proximity and the fact that she had ran with full momentum into his spear avoiding it may be tricky. But the goal was for the spectral image of his spear to pierce straight through into her body and pass right through, doing damage along the way. He had been told that he couldn't kill a fellow SRI, nor would he want too. So he aimed to damage and weaken the spirit/soul of his opponent and force her to experience fatigue and exhaustion as her spirit took the damage. The equivalent would have been taking a physical spear straight through the chest. The pain would be associated with the strike, she just wouldn't take any physical damage. If she had tried to continue with closing the distance by using her Saya as a barrier between his spear and herself she'd find that her action would be stopped with a simple turn of the shaft. Whether she tried to slide down the inside of the spear or the outside of it one of the two flanking smaller, curved, points would catch her Saya and prevent it from going any further. It'd be like trying to pass a butter knife through the prongs of a fork, physical objects didn't move through physical objects. At least without tremendous effort.

Should things play out to this point she'd find drawing the gun might be harder than she originally planned. Since her own motions would lock her within the prongs of his spear he'd have sufficient leverage to put against her as she started to draw. He'd angle his spear down and to his left while stepping to his right. This served two purposes. Her left arm and Saya would be angled down toward the weapon she was drawing, trying to put the limb between himself and the weapons barrel or serve to interrupt the draw by pushing the left arm into the right as it tried to pull the weapon free of its holster. Stepping to his right also circled him out of the line of sight of the weapons barrel just in case she was able to still draw and fire. This put his circling out and around to her left, with the spear still between himself and her it'd make it more of a hindrance for her to turn fully and follow him with her weapon. This hopefully keeping him clear of the line of fire, which caused her rounds to destroy the trunks of trees some distance behind him.

[Enki]

"Shiiiiittt!" She thought to herself as she connected. She has no idea why in the hell she could have made such a blatant mistake of not noticing the actual shape of the spear. It was like someone was controlling her movements and was doing a shitty job of it! The spiritual attack that lashed out on contact with her saya and spear simply found itself not able to penetrate past the black material of the saya for reasons that will be brought up soon!

Things were going the same way as she was still moving forward and that is when just pure instinct kicked in. Her body reacting without thought as her left thumb quickly flicked on the tsuba sending the blade out of its sheath like a bullet. With the handled pointed down at the time, it's only destination would be straight into the ground...handle first up to the aforementioned Tsuba. The sword once out of its saya is already pulsing red hot in correspondence with the rune on her hand. It's apparent at that point that the saya itself is "different" from a normal one. Composed of a black dark exotic material that completely stopped ether from traveling through it, be it magical, spiritual, or any kind. It's main purpose was to contain and hide the energy inside the blade so others could not tell it from a normal weapon until drawn and to keep the weapon in check. In other words, the spiritual attack would hit the saya and be repelled from it like it was a physical object.

Still reaching in for her gun to pull it out to shoot, she finds that the saya is now locked into her opponents weapon as he gets leverage to pull her left as he turns to the right. She made the only decision she could and lets go of her saya to keep moving forward like she was before. Him side stepping would make her gun fire even more erratic and no were close to actually hitting him as she unleashes a series of nine shots. Meanwhile the ether stored up in her hand unleashes itself, but not from her hand. The sword that was jettisoned out a moment before and the rune on her hand are now one, a fused entity that shares each others powers to become more than what they were. The Ether erupts into a geyser of flame that would have easily been a large fire arc if it was drawn into an attack, but stationary it only has one way to go and that is up. In a circle radius of about three feet around the blade and straight up into the air about one-hundred feet the flame rose up. The sword would likely be between them now due to their movements and the attack was more to create some distance and make sure to keep stabbity and it's wielder at bay for a few seconds.

Still trying to fire erratically over her left shoulder now, the girl stumbles right into a large section of shrubbery. Down on one knee she sees one of the nice friendly squirrels from the scenery. It looks at her for a moment and blinks. With her green eyes she returns the stare and before she can even get the words out "hey there little guy" the little shit jumps up onto her face and begins to bite at her nose. Quickly she raises out of the shrubbery and Grabs the nut gatherer with her left hand. At this point she looks to where the Russian Aladdin would be using her extra sensory perception from the Relic/Rune Combination.

With her almost empty of ammo gun in her right hand and a squirrel in her left with only a few minor scratches on her nose she just nods at him. "Alrighty then, I'm ready for the next go around. Your turn to come at me buddy! And by whatever god thingy you believe in, I will win with this god damned squirrel!" It squirms in her left hand as she holds it by its back, her right hand once again starts to charge up with her sword still in the ground pulsing along with it.

Up above the canopy seems to not have gone unscathed from the flames as it has caught fire and is slowly moving from leaf to leaf foreshadowing the forest blaze to come.

[Everett]

The peculiar interaction between his energy and the material that the sheath for her sword was made of was the first thing that he noticed, considering how ti responded it turned out well for him in the end. The spiritual energy that he had used to issue the attack wasn't dissipated since it was repelled, meaning that when it shot out to try and pierce her it was sent back to where it was from. This put the energy back into the physical form of his weapon where it was once more locked in place, so that turned out for the best if he were to have an opinion on the matter. It transpired as he had started to maneuver her arm since she was holding onto the sheath while he stepped to his right, aiming to circle around to Uzuki's left and out of the line of fire. She released the sheath before she was thrown off of balance too far but that didn't mean he was going to give the sheath back, at least right away. The erratic shots that were fired were avoided by his continuous circling, now balancing the sheath of Uzuki's sword within two of the prongs of his spear. At about the same time a geyser of flame erupted from the ground and struck toward the tree tops.

Sky immediately sought to take advantage of this, using Uzuki's sheath to do so. Before the fire died down, which more than likely would take place either shortly before or during the exchange between Uzuki and the squirrel, Sky applied considerably power with a swing of his spear in a wide arc, launching the Saya like a missile at the blade of the fire spewing sword. Since he was on the opposite side of the fire geyser from Uzuki when the sheath to her own sword would hit the sword itself, despite its deep anchor into the ground, the sword would tilt in her direction which hopefully started spewing flame either right above her or practically on top of her. He considered from what he saw of the length of the hilt and the width of the tsuba how much pressure would be needed to knock it over, uprooting the soil that would have normally held it in place. More than likely she wouldn't have the time to speak, but if she continued to do so after she dealt with the redirected fire attack there wouldn't be a single response from him. Meanwhile he backed up quickly from the growing heat and positioned himself next to a tree.

With a swing from his spear the tree was severed from its stump roughly a foot off of the ground. By the time the fire geyser had ceased he spun and smacked the tree, now essentially sitting on its severed stump without a tether to the ground, with the flat side of his spear head. It took effort but that tree, burning canopy and all, would be sent sailing toward Uzuki. He was sure that, although an annoyance, she'd be fine dealing with something that was her own attack. So he needed to follow it up with something. The tree, slightly over 100 feet high with an appropriate thickness of trunk, would impact severed trunk first on the ground not too far away from her and then fall the rest of the way like a tree normally did, aiming to slam down on her from above with branches spread all around which would interfere with attempt to avoid if she chose that route and was too slow about it. Meanwhile Sky watched, maintained his stance and position next to the newly made stump, and funneled more energy into his spear.

[Enki]

The fire that was the geyser was smacking into her backside as she had her encounter with the squirrel so at least he was safe. She was mostly safe as well being highly resistant to the flames, but such compressed version of the flame arc would finally make her brown jacket catch fire. Still standing up and yelling at him she sees the tree being smacked at her. If the severed tree would land not to far from her, then it would be easy to side step it, also since its descent would be slowed slightly from the snapping of the other trees branches trying and failing to stop it falling as they collide with the falling trees own branches. Rather sad how they grab out for their fallen comrade but he is just to heavy...

What this means is the tree attack was slightly pointless as it was smacked near her, so the angle of just moving around the trunk would be more than easy. That's exactly what Uzuki does moving about ten feet to the right she keeps facing Sky to make sure he doesn't try any funny business. Knowing there are just two more shots in her gun...and realizing her brown coat is on fire she throws the gun violently towards sky not really aiming for a place in particular and juggling the squirrel from hand to hand she takes off her jacket and throws it to the ground with a loud noticeable thud. A sound that Sky would recognize and deduce having a weighted jacket, which now being off of her would stop hindering her.

The squirrel keeps squirming in her right hand now as she lets some of the ether from her hand move into it. "Calm down...nibbles, sheesh." It works, subduing the creature it seems to like the transfer of ether into it. "Hey Sky, I think I found a new pet!" She knew he wasn't just gonna wait there for long especially with her seemingly defenseless, well with a squirrel in hand so as far as she knew he just had a weird phobia of critters. She had to come up with a plan for this guy instead of relying on her reflexes like she normally does.

Raising her right hand up into the air, with squirrel attached, the Eclipse Rune began to shine as a dark orb the size of her fist forms above it and shoots up high into the sky above the half blazing canopy. The orb will then shift itself into a disk shape flattening itself out as it just sits there waiting.

She knows he can't possibly be just sitting there as she keeps watch of him ready to react. The squirrel in her right hand had felt some of the energy in her hand as she readied whatever spell it was she launched into the air and felt content. Strange little ether addicted squirrel...

[Everett]

To say that the spectacle that played out before him was a tad ridiculous would have been an understatement. The girl that had been contracted to work for his employer at one point had her jacket on fire, which she tossed to the ground with a heavy thud, while trying to calm down a squirrel that was flailing around in her hand. It all spoke of comedy but he didn't seem to laugh in the least, he found some entertainment value in it though. The jacket was weighed, judging by how it hit the ground he'd figure how much it weighed and try to make an assumption on how much it probably effected her movement. She was stronger than her appearances showed, much like himself. With his power continuing to flow into his spear as the moments went on he'd look to the sky to the disk that hovered above them, it was dark. But then suddenly he heard something in his ear. His head looked down to the ground, eyes turning to the left as if he were trying to look at his left ear. He'd lower his spear, now holding it mid shaft with his right hand so that the head hovered mere centimeters from the ground. The middle and index fingers of his left hand pressed against his ear.

"Pack your pet away. The Company is calling us back. Apparently something happened." Then, casually, he'd turn and walk off while drawing the power in his spear back into himself.

[Enki]

Getting ready to bring the pain at a moments notice with nibbles her opponent curiously told her it was over. Kinda thinking it is a trap she doesn't stand down until the headphones still dangling out of her shirt collar start to beep. Tucked away in a pocket she custom put on the inside of her shirt she pulls out the ShinDroid the company gave her to stay in contact with them. Sure enough the guy on the other end said something major had happened and the objective was already achieved.

"So I still get paid right?" She asks curiously, "What do you mean not the full amount? Oh wait till I get back there!" The girl looks down at nibbles and scowls. "Well little guy, I guess its time to pack." Raising her right hand up her weapon pulls from the ground at astounding speed flying tip first towards her hand. Its blade moves under her hand and she reaches to grab the handle.

"Damnit...where the hell is my saya?! Fucking Sky and launching the son of a bitch into randomness!..." She looks around and notices the fire is still spreading. Then the thought dawns on her, the best way to find her saya is probably to just burn down the whole damn thing first to get the shrubbery out of the way. Without hesitation, she starts to fling her sword around sending out more fire to burn the forest down faster.

The squirrel now calm resting in her left arm watches as the reflection of the fire shines off his glassy eyes. It's beautiful...