Liliya

The Thing That Should Not Be - Aibhilin vs Zande

On mutually agreed upon hold due to general confusion and because Ewoks vs. Predator seemed like more fun.

Predator Vs. Ewoks (Liliya Vs. Doc)

@Doc Doctor Post is up. For those who might find this random bump oddly timed, yes me and Doc talked about revisiting this idea before my seemingly random post.

Predator Vs. Ewoks (Liliya Vs. Doc)

"Click, click, click, clack, clack, clack," the unknown, unseen hunter, a brain so alien to that of the prey it stalked so as to be unrecognizable even as the lizard brain native to the land creatures of fur and warm blood which it stalked. This was the brain of a shark, an octopus, something reverted so far beyond the teddy bears as to harken to the primordial beginnings of life. This was a mind that knew only movement and not movement, meat and not meat. This was a mind that was hungry. Not with the physical sensation of desire for sustenance but with the urgings of a darker mind. It cared not for the flesh of that which it stalked. It had a taste for darker, more primeval reward. It would make trophies of the lesser beings which walked, beeped, hummed and made merry unaware that an eye was upon them, the eye of God. It would make them bear witness to the trophies it took, the shattered remains of those of their kind, the pathetic waddling non-beings would cry in terror when they discovered the rib cages torn asunder and the spines wrapped about poles with the viscera still attached as though flowering vines. They would see, and they would know fear.

It ran a pair of armored fingers across the bark of one of the jungle trees which comprised the outskirts of the camp, itself a veritable tree village. There were too many of these non-beings in the center to strike there. They could not, would not see It even if they were three feet away, but they would see a glimmer pass over the broken body of the first which It claimed, and should they turn upon the glimmer with their weapons they would catch one another in the crossfire and cause massive casualties to themselves in their folly. It would not let a single one of the lesser beings bring death to another. Death was It’s and It’s alone, and would be delivered to the moving balls of fluff and viscous wet only when It deemed it the proper time and place for them to meet the void nothingness of non-movement. It had no notion of an afterlife, and cared not if these beings believed in a God or Gods, some metaphysical representation of the planet their mother and progenitor. It was God, and It like the cold dead nothingness of space cared not for these beings save for their value as meat trophies and the validation they offered It in the eyes of the other Gods.

Their’s was a shared understanding that the moving world must kill to continue moving, and to prove themselves worthy of their mark as Hish-qu-Ten they must take trophies to prove themselves Gods among Gods and differentiate themselves from the spawnlings, who were mere Gods over animals and lesser beings. It would take trophies, and would return Hish-qu-Ten or not at all. The first thing that must happen, must always happen, was to establish the killzone. There was no strategic meaning behind this principle, whether aimed toward giving It the best chance at victory or otherwise. This was a principle which must be observed, a law of the Clan, the Gods among Gods. The killzone ensured that after the first several kills which would be carried out in secret, hidden from the other non-beings and done in complete silence to keep from alerting them would allow It the opportunity to construct a shrine to house and display It’s trophies in a place close enough that the teddy bears would find it when they went into the wood around their village in search of those missing members of their kind. They must see It’s trophies before the hunt began in full, must witness and know the fear of the outsider, the unknown hunter in the wood.

It was some three hundred meters from the lesser being’s village and had made It’s way around the perimeter by use of the trees and It’s immense physical power and bodily control never having stepped foot onto the solid ground below. It had noted the crude traps which the animals laid out around the camp, and if It was less focused on the task at hand It would have mocked them for their clumsiness. Their traps focused entirely on beings which must walk on the ground to reach their settlement, and were constructed of felled trees, boulders, and other nonsense which marked them so clearly as the lesser being when compared to It, their God for the time being. It could simply be in the center of town without ever having set foot on the ground, the things lived in scalable and defenseless trees. It assumed they were not very good climbers, or else they would have been killed long ago by another group of the non-beings which lived around them. Among the Hish-qu-Ten to leave such a breach in defense would invite the reproach and assault of another clan and with the full endorsement of the Exquisitely Blooded Great Hierarch, likely resulting in the total destruction of the Clan’s Mothership and surrendering of their lives and planetary holdings.

It would touch the ground however, but only once a proper teddy bear strayed too far from the center of camp and the supposed safety of their number. It had no concern for the tactical reason of taking one who was alone. It could launch an orbital strike from It’s Recon Ship and annihilate their species should It so choose, or even prime It’s control panel and lob it into the center of their town awaiting the inevitable explosion which would follow and vaporize everything within the camp leaving not but shadows of what once was burned onto the scorched earth which served as the foundation of the tree village. It stalked in the trees invisible, hunting for visible heat signatures which had strayed too far from the others not because It feared them, but because it was the law of the Clan, and as It was God over the teddy bears the Clan were Gods over It. This would be no longer after today. It would be dead and cast into the void of non-movement, or It would return to the clan Hish-qu-Ten. That came later, It knew. Now was the time to wait, to take three or four of the lesser beings by surprise and with absolute silence and then to construct It’s Shrine for them to find after they noticed members of their kind unexpectedly missing from their number.

The Australos Fight Camp

@Silver Carrot Posted. I love this part of a fight, where I can really get into the head of the character and consider how they would react to a change in circumstance. Aighrit is a student himself, and this is all still fairly unfamiliar, so he just went with what he knows, which I decided was enough not to get chicken winged but not enough to avoid giving Rags several interesting openings to strike at him, and it's where Rags now has a unique and odd circumstance which she has to respond to. It's way more entertaining than a more straight forward fencing match or something with clearly defined rules where twirling with an opponent and headbutting them would just be an obvious no-go.

The Australos Fight Camp

Aighrit matched Rags smile for grin. Her guard hand had indeed been his target, and her having used it to grab for his sword arm showed strategy on her part far beyond what would normally be expected of a beginner. She was learning, and matching him blow for blow, swipe for swipe, counter for counter. His next would show how well she could adjust to one of the fundamental aspects of arena fighting and combat in general, however. In the wild it was usually over once a human got its mitts on something, be it a rat, a snake, or even a large animal without the hands and leverage necessary to overcome the hinderence. Against a human opponent, however, having a hand gripping your opponent’s wrist meant little more than your opponent having a grip on your own wrist. Both resulted in having a point of contact that could be utilized by the other, the only difference being who was in the position to release. As her hand made contact with his left wrist and stopped the downward swing he had been intending on attempting Aighrit stepped forward and to his left, Rag’s right, with her arm either accompanying him or not at her discretion. Either way, her body was now in between her right arm and the blade held in it and his own body.

Had he tried to stand and wrestle for control over his sword hand she would have been in a great position to simply run him through with a thrust from her blade into his abdomen, but those who stand still usually die on the sand. She could either keep her grip and allow Aighrit to move with her arm or release and pivot to try and strike him across her if she still intended on landing the thrust he was expecting to follow her grab. If she had something more exotic in mind then he may well have walked into her trap, but the numbers were on his side so far as he could see it. He hadn’t waited around to see what her other hand would be doing, and had simply accepted that his arm and sword were now in her grasp, and he had accepted this as such because he knew how to take advantage of an opponent who was grasping you. With another step he could be well behind her, but he was also aware that in that time she could simply turn her arm, step into the grab and chicken wing his arm. Likely strategy for a beginner? No, but Aighrit didn’t have time to think that far ahead.

He had stopped considering Rags a beginner when she managed to get to her feet after their short stint at wrestling on the ground, and was for all intents and purposes fighting at his best so far as a practice bout was concerned. Because of the skill of his opponent he would treat her as an equal regardless of her never having taken the sacramenta, a notion important to the thinking time away from the sand and considerably less so in the fighting, doing time upon it. She could have yanked back on his arm while thrusting upwards or slashing high and downwards from her left to her right while turning at the hip and managed to hit him in the back or the back of the head, something he wouldn’t be able to stop her from doing without the second step which would place him in danger of giving her all the leverage over his awkwardly situated sword arm in her hand needed to break it in twain, so he attempted to change the paradigm as would be expected of any competent fighter.

He didn’t consciously think it, but his subconscious mind which the fighter or the hunter reverts to instinctively in the midst of a dangerous meeting with a second predator intent on your own destruction told him that as he was moving to the right and she in the same direction as him if she kept the grip on his arm. This he knew would put her into a position where, unless she released and dramatically changed her course or pulled away would put her into a tailspin should he manage to keep her momentum following his without taking a blade to the gut, and so he attempted the best he could to accomplish the feat despite the silliness of the technique with which he accomplished the task. Shooting his right arm around Rags back while continuing to move to the right while pivoting in the same direction and assuming that Rags wouldn’t release the grip, something he didn’t have time to consider the alternative to before jumping into action and which should she have released and simply slashed might well catch his right arm as he moved it out and into her potential strike range, and attempted to grab at her waist or flank.

He used his right hand mostly because it was available unlike the left, though it would take a quarter second or so longer to get around her than the left and closer arm would have, having to travel across his own body as well as her’s in order to find purchase on her opposite side. Should she slash or throw her body weight into him after he got to her side she would certainly succeed in hitting his right arm or knocking him to the ground conversely, but he didn’t have time to consider these options. He instead attempted to grab, and if successful he would pivot on his right hip once more, stepping outward with his right leg in some macabre version of a waltz. He wasn’t trying to be obnoxious, but that’s the closest to keeping his arm in a relatively unwieldy but safe position and not take a blow or risk her getting leverage on the arm. If she had kept the grab and continued moving to her right, the direction his arm and body were moving, and assuming he had successfully grabbed her he would pull back on her with at least the arm she was grabbing and the potentially successful grab on her left side into himself and, unlike in a sweet ballroom dance, or depending on your partner exactly like in a sweet ballroom dance, aim his forehead downward and forward towards Rag’s own.

A headbutt from an opponent pulling you and potentially your momentum in a centrifugal direction into their strike would almost certainly cause her to lose her grasp on his arm if not be knocked to the ground and, should he send her bouncing off of his head and towards the ground he certainly would not try and stop her from falling, but he had offered her a lot of potential chances at taking advantage of his strange and largely on the spot technique. A better trained fighter might have tried something less silly, but Rags was keeping Aighrit on his toes and at this point it was the best he could come up with on the spot.

The Australos Fight Camp

@Silver Carrot Post is up.

The Australos Fight Camp

Aighrit could have made a move while she was twirling, it took longer to turn your entire body around on its axis than to step forward with a leg placed in between an opponent’s to interrupt their circular movement, but he didn’t. His strike was already in the air, and she would be returning with her own. His would hit first if she had moved too far from her center of mass with her arm, and would hit at the same time if she kept the blade at waist level which, as it soon became apparent as the clash of their blades resounded across the courtyard, it had been the second option. As she stepped back and into a crouched position with her blade raised he attempted to catch her eye, smiling all the while. It showed that she had the ability to adapt to changing conditions which was critical on the sands, but it also put him into a position where he had to be the aggressor. Being proactive was good on in a fight, especially when taking ground and options from the opponent, but she was now prepared and ready to move as soon as he made his own attempt at putting his blade upon her.

He would still need to make a move regardless of his thoughts as to her position and her capacity to learn on her feet, and so he did, though it was unlikely she would have expected the exact nature this attempt would take. She would likely be expecting a strike geared at disarming her or at bringing her back to the ground with the off chance of a direct blow toward her body, probably toward her head as she was now crouched. He instead would make an attempt at disrupting her and her plans. He didn’t charge, and should she have wanted to she could have made an attempt to move out of his way or even backpedal in a circular pattern to keep him at a distance, at least for a while. Regardless of if she did, assuming she was still holding her blade in one hand and keeping her other hand up in an attempt to guard he would simply wait until he was within striking range, taking care never to get so close as to allow her to dart out unexpectedly with her blade and take him in mid-step or to have no room to maneuver and no time to block if she lunged and struck at him.

As soon as he was within a step of striking range and assuming she made no move to change tack and slash or charge toward him, he would half step forward and stand with his left leg just slightly in front of his right leg and thrust low toward her leg before slowing to a near stop midway and instead turning at his left hip and shoulder upwards, sending his blade in a looping arc to her raised hand held to attempt to grab at him, a relatively speaking slow strike but one he expected she would either be led to think was actually a thrust towards her legs and which she might respond to with a block toward that direction leaving her opposite off hand and arm open to his strike and her blade moving in the wrong direction to stop it, or which in the worst case scenario might elicit her to simply move forward and into her own strike which would still leave his blade in between himself and her unless she managed to fancily dart around him and toward his right, her left. In case of this he had not lunged or even more than half stepped into his strike, keeping his right leg open to either backpedal, sidestep or even kick or knee forwards if necessary.

Should the strike land or at least swing through thin air and assuming he didn’t need to backpedal he would once more slow in the air before bending at the shoulder and hip in the opposite to his original direction and downwards, sending the real blow hurtling down and toward either her still exposed hand, her sword hand or her clavicle depending on how she moved to intercept his first strike or if she had moved at all. This, because she was crouched, never caused him to have to move his arm at any point above her height level which had she been standing would have left him uncomfortably exposed in the lower body and underarm to a potential thrust from her direction, still allowing the blade to float at least at her shoulder and head level at its highest point before being brought back down upon her, allowing him the option of using it to instead be placed point towards her body assuming she did charge while he backpedaled or sidestepped, leaving him the most options and taking advantage of the maximum amount of potential openings as well as putting together a brutal series of blows whose angles would be difficult to predict, his own right and off hand held open and at a reserved place a few inches in front of and to the side of his head.

Aighrit was a student, but he was no beginner. He knew enough to know that placing the most obstacles in the opponent’s way while striking at and weakening if not outright taking one’s opponent’s tools away from them was the path to victory in an extended bout. Quick kills were rare on the sands and weren’t possible in a training bout with practice swords, and the tactics and discipline which reigned supreme on the battlefields of the war fighters held little and less viability when alone and staring down an opponent who knew where you were before the fight had commenced and whom knew that no reinforcements, no fire support in the form of peltasts, and no shield walls or palisades would be found. If she reacted to the first feint she would be likely to be caught by the second, and if she caught the feint in time to react to the second blow it was still unlikely to expect the third. Low and straight, upwards and looping, downwards and slashing, changes in angle all in a matter of moments was not something that was easily understood without years of practice, he himself having only gotten it after the first year of being caught by the same type of techniques. Rags could of course have ran toward him, lunged and thrust before he did or forced him to change his plans in any other way, but this was why he would wait until he was in the range he wanted to be to attempt any of this, and left himself the distance and the time which comes with it to be able to react to her movements if she did anything which would necessitate a change on his part.

The Australos Fight Camp

@Silver Carrot Post is up.

The Australos Fight Camp

A crash, a rip, a tear, and Aighrit was all smiles once more. This was good. Rags could fight, and here that was what bought and paid for your meat. The possibly unintended side effect of tearing at his skirts, a tactic which uniquely avoided the normally heavily defensible snakeskin and bronze plated material which under normal circumstances could hold up well even under the stress of taking an incoming blow but which had no practical defense against ripping or tearing and in that effect was little more than a strip of leather worn hanging from a skirt for decorative purposes, was that it placed her head and his at a conflicting angle. Whether or not she had even realized the back of her skull had connected with Aighrit’s nose as she tore, her body naturally seeking out a counterbalance to her upward momentum as she tugged and having found it in the flesh of his face, and hard. He did not resist as she stood, not because he wouldn’t have but because the suddenness and violence of the potentially accidental strike had taken him completely off guard. By the time he was reacting she had already stood and moved with haste toward her blade, having cleared enough distance that he couldn’t strike her in the back.

He could have attempted to run her down, of course, but he didn’t. Should he take her by surprise he could have put the weight of his practice blade to the side of her head and landed her on the ground, but if she turned and struck first, something that was entirely within the realm of reason as he assumed she would want to face him and strike as soon as she could to keep up her momentum she could in turn do the same to him. It seemed a largely unreasonable gamble to the cautious youth. Blood was running down his chin, and around his mouth from the nose above. Still he smiled and waited the second for the girl to turn and run toward him. It hadn’t actually been necessary to use the leather strips which comprised his skirt to grip his blade, it was a blunt practice sword which could be gripped hard as one might without risking even so much as a papercut, but it showed thought, intelligence. Maybe he would grow to like this thoughtful fighter. For now he would merely do his duty and continue the fight until one or the other was on the ground. He may be bleeding, his nose might even be broken, but it wouldn’t be enough to finish the fight in the eyes of the Doctora.

Blade gripped in his left hand Aighrit made no move to stop the girl as she charged him swinging. He too was a thinker, and in this the art of the blade dance upon the sand he had more understanding than she. She would learn if she so chose, and might well grow to be an incredible force in the camp if she showed as much growth as she showed thought and gumption, but for now he would stick to what he knew. As she swung diagonally and downwards from her right, his left, he stepped backwards and to the left with his right foot, his body now facing her right side, raising his blade at a left diagonal angle relative to his position, the angle being to her right and upwards gliding along her own blade, and simultaneously stuck out his own left leg. Not enough to comically cause both of her legs to fly up into the air and send her into summersaults even if she didn’t react to it whatsoever, but enough to cause her to lose balance if she didn’t move around it and possibly enough to cause her to misjudge her footing and wind up on her right knee with her left leg lunged forward in front of and to his right.

As his leg extended he would make a downward, looping slash at what would either be her back at her waist level or, if she did indeed wind up on one knee, the back of her head with the practice sword in his left hand. If she avoided the leg entirely she could of course just keep on with her forward charge now aimed toward thin air and miss his attempted slash entirely. He had struck before he would consciously know what would happen to her if anything from his extended leg, and couldn’t know for sure that he would hit anything. It didn’t matter. If she legitimately kept running despite his having moved from her direct path it would just look like he had swiped at thin air for some reason. Even if she dodged the leg, stopped running, and turned to strike it would put his blade in her direction and able to be adjusted to block or hit another target so long as her angle didn’t change markedly, and he didn’t expect her to fall entirely especially without sliding along the sand and well out of range to strike him, or to jump and strike while swinging backwards as she charged though if she did that it would be pretty impressive.

Dramatic changes in angle were unlikely in this case, and it was more important here that his blade remained in a relative position to be useful in the ongoing fight regardless of whether it hit or not. This was no longer going to be a measure of quick finishes on the ground, but a protracted bout of skill at blade and sharpness of wit. She had the advantage of proactivity for the moment, though his block, attempted trip and slash might well force her into the defensive posture of having to react to what he was doing, but he had the advantage of a presumably far greater amount of moons of training with the blade and at the particular form of fencing common to the pit fighters of the arena. Even those with significant training at other fighting arts often found the change to facing an opponent on the sands to be a difficult one to adapt to. Here it was rarely a battle of quick deaths delivered by a particularly devastating parry and riposte on the part of a superior duelist, but the long, protracted contest of death by a thousand painful bruises. She had smashed his nose to a bleeding if not a broken state, he had elbowed her in the face. They would continue to inflict minor pains upon one another until one simply could stand no longer. This was the way of things at Australos.

The Thing That Should Not Be - Aibhilin vs Zande

@Doc Doctor Post is up. Sorry about the wait, I was way too out of it to even try and attempt to get anything out last night. I think we were on two different pages, but I assume we aren't any more, right? Seeing as the position has changed to the ground and there isn't as much wiggle room to have on where they are. The distances are basically touching at this point and the angles and threat ranges are easier to ascertain because of it.