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Hello!

I'm Pollen, hope you're not allergic. I like writing a myriad of characters in all kinds of genres, so I'm pretty much down for anything roleplay-wise.

Come talk with me if you want! I'm friendly.

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Tiamat flew away, fast and far, and fled the scene of battle.
"Ha!"

The dragon bared her fangs, her forked tongue taunting him through their deadly points. "The mightiest of the ants, challenging the heavens themselves! And he thinks himself eternal!" A fresh bout of laughter shivered through her, and she had to raise one set of claws to hide her vicious grin. "Oh dear, little one. I haven't heard such comedy in centuries..."

Her biting words slithered through a storm of oncoming blows, pricking at the griffin's fluffy ears. Archontikos had taken no significant damage from her claws, and other than a faint tingling sensation in his arm, there was little to stop him from launching his brutal retaliation. Those wings of his were veritable siege weapons, and their barrage would have pulverized even the thickest of castle walls—but Tiamat was a leaf on the wind, and against such a simple assault she was all but untouchable. Strike after strike ripped through the empty air beneath her, and her stinging claws snipped and sliced at the lashing wings, punishing every attempt to bring her down.

Once again, positioning was key. She'd launched her previous attack from above, and the impact had cost Archontikos just a few feet of altitude. Not an insurmountable obstacle, but here was the thing: every action produced an equal and opposite reaction, and the same impact that knocked the griffin down had pushed Tiamat upward, the recoil of her own blow giving her a burst of extra lift to gain distance. Her opponent had begun his counterattack without bothering to close the distance first, and though his sizeable wingspan gave him sizeable reach, Tiamat had only been gliding up to this point. As the beast unleashed his first mighty strike, her own wings beat down, and she darted up still higher, so that her body passed beyond the maximum range of his blow.

It was the flying equivalent of footwork, the kickboxer's agile backstep adapted for use in aerial combat. Any oversized bird could use its wings as weapons, but Tiamat had honed them into the primary tools of a full-blown airborne martial art, one that many a former foe had learned to fear and respect.

More quick wingbeats kept her clear of the initial follow-up strikes, but the dragon knew better than to wait for her enemy to change targets. The griffin's remaining four wings might have sufficed to keep him aloft, but in this moment his lift was nonetheless reduced, and it couldn't be easy to stay balanced in the air while constantly throwing out one's wings like that. Tiamat had used her wings as bludgeons many times in the past, and it only took her a couple of seconds to figure out the timing, and spot her opportunity. An upward strike, a missed blow... And before the next could arrive, her own wings snapped closed. Without any remaining lift, the dragon dropped like a stone.

And this, too, was a part of her art.

In the air, gravity became yet another weapon, another tool to use in outmaneuvering one's enemy. Archontikos had just thrown up a wing to try and strike at her, and that wing had yet to fully draw itself back into position after the blow. Before it could, Tiamat came down on it like a fucking guillotine, leading with a brutal axe kick powered by the full gravity-assisted weight of her falling body. The raw force of it absolutely dwarfed her skimming slash from before, and no amount of toughened hide was going to keep that from leaving a bruise.

...But that wasn't the point, or not entirely. The fact was, in using two of his wings to attack, Archontikos had sacrificed a degree of balance and stability. And while his physical toughness could reduce damage, it didn't prevent transfer of velocity, meaning it wouldn't keep him from being knocked out of the sky and sent hurtling towards the ground in an uncontrolled spin.

@Griffintaur
The scaled woman's horned head tilted just slightly on hearing his growled insults. "I am Tiamat, you little bug. Mother of life, and first goddess of the primordial sea. That you are graced with my gaze at all is far more than you deserve."

Her knees bent, and she spread her arms wide. Each of her fingertips bore a great curved talon, as long as a carving knife and wickedly sharp. A mere flick of her wrist would have sufficed to slice an ordinary man into a half-dozen pieces, but in this case that would evidently not be enough. She beckoned, instead, egging on the beast as he rose up and drew level with her. "Much better. You may be uncouth for a meal, but at the very least..."

A stream of fire erupted in her direction, and she sprang up off her perch. "...You have the good grace to come to me already well-cooked!"

The stone where she'd stood less than a second before was promptly blasted into molten slag, but the dragon was already beyond the reach of the flames. Her wings snapped open, and she threw her weight forwards, plunging headfirst towards her prey. The blazing river rose to follow her, but she bobbed up a little further with every inch it adjusted, always flying just barely out of its reach. She did not beat her wings, nor attempt to desperately maneuver, but merely glided along the full length of the attack with an almost effortless grace. The searing, vaporizing fire of the phoenix might as well have been a bright orange carpet laid out to welcome her arrival.

Was it magic? One of her six godly powers? Hardly! This was only the natural result of the attack itself, and Tiamat's own mastery of flight. Any mass of fire so formidably large and hot created waves of heated, expanding air around it, which naturally rose upward due to the resulting loss of density. It was this air that Tiamat was gliding on, catching the upward flow with her extended wings and letting it buoy her just above the raging inferno as it moved to follow her. In this way she rode the flames straight to Archontikos, their crackle and roar mingling with the sound of her mocking laughter.

Perhaps the lion would realize his mistake and stop the torrent, but by then it would already be too late. Tiamat had altitude, she had momentum, and her agility in the air was such that a mere tilt of her wings brought her swooping upward just a fraction of a second before collision. As she flashed past above her prey, her left leg whipped downwards, a full set of talons extended to rake across the back of his uppermost right wing.

@Griffintaur
It arrived in the form of a shadow, a winged silhouette passing in front of the sun so high up above that for a moment, the entire arena was cast into darkness.

A circling vulture, perhaps? No, there was no bird alive with wings like that. Bony, chiropteran, like great webbed hands extending to grasp the sky itself. Any denizen of any fantastical universe ought to recognize the wings of a dragon, and know enough to cower in fear at the sight of them. When their shadow fell upon you, chances were it was already too late.

The wings folded, and the distant shape dove downwards in a spiraling arc towards the half-buried Colosseum. Sunlight glinted off bright crimson scales, the red hunter swooping in to eye up its latest prey. After circling one final time, it slowed to a gentle glide and alighted delicately atop the highest point of the arena ruins, where it stood up straight and cocked its head at the tender morsel sat down below upon the sandy floor.

"Oh good, you're already kneeling. I do prefer mortals with some semblance of self-awareness."

Not quite a dragon, as it turned out. She certainly had the wings of one, and the nigh-impenetrable red scales, but up close her form was almost fully humanoid, a slender and feminine shape clad in nothing but her own reptilian hide. Her delicate features and soft black hair were more elven than draconic, and her voice brought to mind a beautiful siren luring sailors to their deaths in the open sea. Bright, inquisitive golden eyes fixed themselves upon the feline champion, and the hunter's lips curled into a gentle smile.

"I hunger, beast-man. You may be thankful that it is so. Slit open your throat, and I will do you the honor of taking your flesh as my sustenance."

@Griffintaur
I apologize for the absence. Doing this on mobile gives me no notifications. But here you go, one of my more physical characters


Alright! He seems pretty fun. How about this for an opponent?



If you think she'll do, then feel free to pick a battleground for us and/or post up a fight thread. If not, then just let me know and I can check my roster for someone higher- or lower-powered.
Hello yes I enjoy the violence also

Much like yourself, I'm comfortable fighting with just about any level of powers, so pick one or slap down a character sheet and I'll see what I can offer.
Hello yes can I sign up for the ass-kicking please
I'm also interested! It seems like superhuman abilities are a focus here, but would a Batman-esque no-powers-but-many-skills archetype be workable as well?
No worries. I did another reply myself, just to wrap things up on Favian's end. You can do a closing post for Aslain if you want or just leave things here, either way I think we've reached a good stopping point.

Thanks for the good fight! If you ever want to write stuff again together (arena or otherwise) then feel free to hit me up in PMs.
Shadows loomed overhead. Hands grasped as his arms, pulling him away from Aslain and lifting him to his feet. Favian gasped for breath, the dagger falling from his loose hand while he blinked the sweat out of his eyes. It was over. He'd done it... To his own satisfaction, at least. Had it been a real battle, had he truly met his end, he would not have been ashamed of his performance.

His muscles were burning from exertion, bruised flesh beginning to throb beneath his armor, but he was quick to recover himself. Finding his balance, he shrugged off the attendants and waved them away, pulling up his visor and blinking in the fresh daylight. His heartbeat slowed, his breathing began to steady, and at last the calm returned to his mind, like a cold shock after being caught in a fire.

Well. This was more than I had bargained for. He'd presented himself for a duel on foot hoping for a challenge to keep his skills sharp, and had received one of the most difficult fights in his life. Not since his encounter with the stranger in the forest had someone pushed him to his limits like this, forcing him to leave calculated movement behind and rely on his instincts and raw ferocity. He would think over this battle many times, he knew, and perhaps learn something from it as he did.

Smiles did not come naturally to the cold Sir Favian Procell. But he made an effort, at least, as he reached out and shook Aslain's hand. "You are formidable, Sir Aslain, and there is not a man here who would doubt that now. The next time we meet, I will have to be sharper and quicker still—and that need will make of me a better knight. So I say to you: godspeed." He inclined his head, and his humility in the gesture was awkward yet sincere.

But the training and anticipation could come later. For now, he released the hand of his worthy foe and went to retrieve his sword, to rest and recover and sleep before embarking on the next steps of his journey. If today had shown him anything, it was that he still had a long way to go... And that there were still foes out there who made those violent, martial heights worth reaching for.
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