Argent Roan vs Berry Caerulus Balaur
Argent saw his picture up for the next match so he stood and made his way down to the sparring ring, Raphael strapped to his right arm and Michael held loosely at his side.
Taking off his red hoodie to reveal a tunic with the right sleeve ripped off under a lamellar vest, Berry grudgingly handed it to his team leader, but not before delivering a quick message.
“Anything happens to this I’ll finish what the snake started.”“I can fix it if it gets damaged, you know.” the lemur teased, resting it on the bench beside her
Not bothering to reply to that, he ran a finger over his neck before following the knight to the locker room. He emerged with an oversized vambrace with a scowl so natural you’d be half tempted to believe it was set like that all the time. As his opponent stepped into the circle Argent firmed his grip on the sword and nodded respectfully to Berry, receiving a short nod in response..
“Good luck, Sir Argent!” chirped a now Violet haired teen in the stands, too exhausted to stand, but not enough to shout.
As his partner called out Argent flashed a tiny smile, though he didn’t take his eyes off his opponent he spoke loudly enough for her to hear him.
“Thanks.”“Students, are you ready?” the white witch of Beacon asked.
“Yes.”“Yeah,” Berry said while pulling out a short sword from below his vambrace with his left arm and taking a stance with the sword forward, his right hand balling into a fist.
”Begin!”Argent exploded into action, dashing forward and striking out with a short downward chop. Quickly lifting his sword, Berry parried that strike and aimed a punch at Argent’s face.
Argent raised his shield and deflected the punch, aiming a low kick at Berry’s left knee. Moving his leg slightly to his right, Berry allowed the kick to lightly graze his shin as he did a quick jab with his sword at Argent’s stomach, not necessarily to land a strong blow, but to place his sword between his stomach and shield, as he made another right hook, this time at his torso.
Argent didn’t attempt to deflect the punch, instead he slammed the hilt of Michael into the wrist of Berry’s sword arm and slammed his shield into his face, the two strikes landed practically at the same time, causing both fighters to reel back.
Taking advantage of the moment of respite, Berry massaged his jaw with his right hand before resuming his stance and slowly approaching Argent while flanking his left side.
As Berry edged to Argent’s left the silver knight shifted Michael into it’s gun mode and fired three shots at his opponent. Surprise quickly gave way to annoyance as his vambrace released a wrist blade that fanned out to become a kite shield with his hand pointing at it’s really sharp tip. Not wanting to waste time he closed the remaining distance and jabbed with his sword arm to force his opponent to stop shooting.
Argent sidestepped Berry’s sword thrust and shoved his revolver towards Berry, firing a shot at point blank range over Berry’s shield. Or at least he tried to, but a simple movement of Berries right arm caused the bullet to nick him in the arm instead, and he wasted no time to deliver a right kick to Argent’s stomach.
Argent barely managed to turn and lessen the hit slightly, it still hurt like hell, but he shifted both his weapons and swung Raphael to fire at Berry’s leg. Moving back a step to block the shot, the redheads shield turned 90 degrees, it’s tip pointing down to offer the best protection as Berry took an inhumanly long intake of breath before stepping forward to bash Argent with his shield.
Argent spun on his feet out of the way of the shield bash and lashed out with pommel of of his sword at Berry’s head on the tail end of his spin while shifting Raphael back to it’s shield form. Trying to move his head with the blow, the strike nonetheless connected, casing Berry to exhale a strong gust of wind in Argent’s general direction.
The gust pushed Argent back, but the moment it stopped he charged in slashing at Berry’s right side with his left while lashing out with his shield at the same time. Mirroring his opponent's movement somewhat, Berry struck with both weapons, shields and blades clashing together; not wanting to wait for more trouble, Berry swung his head forward into Argent’s.
Berry’s head slammed into Argent’s but he managed to hold his ground despite the pain and made to elbow Berry hard in the face. Reeling from his self inflicted damage, Berry continued to back away from Argent’s elbow while pulling back his now freed shield arm, which was transforming back from shield to its compact form. Once the transformation was done, Berry punched with his right arm towards Argent’s mid while releasing his wrist blade once more, sending a piston like punch towards the holyer of the two knights.
Berry’s blade clanged off of Argent’s breastplate, the impact caused Argent to stagger back a step, only to bring shield down on Berry’s outstretched arm. The sound of metal on metal could be heard once more as the their shields clashed from the first time this fight, causing Berry to take a long intake of breath, one that seemed to vacuum in the surrounding dust bunnies, before Berry blew a gust of wind at Argent’s feet as he made a downward slash with his now free sword arm.
Argent got knocked off balance by the blast of wind, and, taking advantage of that unsteadiness he dropped to the ground to his right, allowing Berry’s sword stroke to whistle past his ear. With the vambrace still in it’s wrist blade form, Berry thrust after the falling knight.
Argent barely deflected the wrist blade with his sword and turned mid fall to land on his butt. Undeterred and with his right arm still reeling from the parry, Berry slashed horizontally with his sword arm.
From his seated position Argent slashed up at Berry with Michael, content to take the hit from the red head’s sword in exchange for one of his own. Weather he regretted that decision it was hard to tell, as his thoughts were assaulted by a sharp pain as Berry’s sword connected with Argents face. Through the fog of pain, he could barely make out the sound of a buzzer.
Looking up at the panel, Berry saw that Argents hit, despite nowhere near as powerful due to the lack of footing, managed to dip his aura in the red, causing him to facepalm with his shield arm while shaking his head,
“You still alive there dumbass?"Argent shook his head hard and bit his lip to clear his thoughts.... and started laughing.
“I’m fine, though that was NOT one of my better ideas... ow. Damn I haven’t had that much fun in a spar in a long time, let’s do this again sometime.”“If you two are quite done,” spoke Glynda in a very unamused tone,
“you may continue this some other time.”As the pair cleared the arena, she rolled the selection process again. The images barely spun before they stopped on a picture of a slightly feminine man with extremely pale skin and cool blue eyes topped by messy platinum blonde hair interspersed with blue streaks, opposite a darkly tanned androgynous face set with clay red eyes and dark blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail with a crimson streak through one side.
“The next match shall be between Kalte Blau and Haldis Nicanson.” The fight was a good showing of dust skills from Kalte and pure physical strength boosted by the blonde’s terrakinesis from Haldis. When Haldis had the chance to get closer the boxer did large amounts of damage with each hit, but Kalte’s evasion skills paired with his semblance meant it was difficult for the muscular teen to do so.
Haldis’s own physical resilience meant the fight drew out as well, as Kalte whittled away at his opponents aura with range spells and countered what few ranged attacks Haldis had with skillful dust use. Being able to keep his distance, even if it did look like he was on the retreat for most of the fight, meant that eventually he was able to drop the blonde into the red, with his own aura levels being not far behind.
“Good fight, the both of you.”Professor Goodwitch congratulated the pair as they left the arena, and started the program again. The pictures that popped up were almost identical; a pair of mouse-eared teens with caramel hair and blue-green eyes.
“The next match shall be between Rost Waldgrun and Lila Waldgrun.”