Duelist League: Vertina vs Wisteria

Vertina shifts her weight from side to side, stretching out one long leg, and then flexing that one as she shifts back to the other side and stretch the opposite leg. The worst thing you can do before fighting is not limber up, regardless if it is before a big important raid or just dueling with one of your friends. Doesn't really matter if it's not a big deal physically in this world, it's a good mental motivator to get oneself ready for the real action. Besides, it's easier to do more complicated leg excersizes when you've got a tail you can lean on for extra support.

    Wisteria smiles, the tall albino girl dressed in her new armor, the dark aura around it. She goes through her own warmup routine including checking her sword clearance and movement in the new armor. "Looking good V." she says brightly "Hope you are ready to rack up the loss." she says playfuly, her smile not moving into her 'game face' just yet. When the duel request comes up she settles into a more serious expression. "Lets do this." She says resting her hand on her hilt and sliding her right foot back to brace for the start of the match.

"Don't count your racks before they're hung!" Vertina replies with a laugh, not caring that it didn't really make any sense. They're both very competetive individuals so this is certainly going to be a tough, and thus enjoyable, match. "I'm surprised it took you this long to join up, though." Duel requests are made, accept, and there's the signal to start after a brief countdown. As soon as it says go Vertina leaps into action.

Literally, as she launchs herself towards Wisteria, twisting in doing so to use the momentum to bring her foot down into an axe kick with the force of a landslide behind it!

    Wisteria smiles at her friend, but this is the smile she gives her opponents, friendly happy smiles will wait until the fight is done. "Had to get all the Enchanting ideas out of my head." she says as she waits for the countdown. When the kick comes down she slides back with a blur of speed, fast enough to make the crushing blow into a glancing one, however that glancing blow might have been intentional as the dark aura of her armor snaps into physical reality, dark chains of energy grasping onto Vertina's ankle and then sinking deep into the earth, the reactive curse of her armor kicking in. Then she slashes out, the strike from the draw hiding the black crackling energy around her blade until it is in motion, the dark curse of her sword reaching out hungrily as the blade seeks flesh. The albino girl's smile has become hard, her eyes like pale pink diamonds as she settles back onto her back foot after the quick shuffle and strike.

Vertina yelps as the chains snap out to grab her leg. "I forgot about that trick armor of yours!" She jerks a few times against the chain, then decides to deal with it later. Instead she looks up, inhales briefly, and spits out a wave of fire to force Wisteria to leap through to strike at her. She backsteps as much as she can with the chains, managing to keep the blade at a glancing distance. Too bad the damage wasn't the main problem.

"Well, when you say don't hold back, you mean don't hold back. Good!" Vertina sucks a bit of that fire back in, then spits it at the ground. It tears up some the dirt, allowing her to meld the two elements together quickly and then use her other foot to kick the ball of flaming earth at the cursed bun!

    Wisteria grins that confident almost wicked smile that has put fear into many an opponent. Then as the flames lick at her while she cuts through them, she shifts her skin becoming white fur, teeth turning to razor triangles in her short muzzle. The added height and stronger legs lets her snap back and to the side, the thundering boom of a lightningstep announcing the move but only shortly AFTER she's changed locations. Her sword is already back in it's scabbard and her arms cross over her face to protect her, the armor made from some of the best monster drops she'd managed to hoard before having it crafted. The move and the armor let her deflect the massive hit to something that chips at her HP bar rather than crushing it. Then she's charging forward and past the shackled salamander, her blade snapping out, crackling with a twisting green and black energy, no curse this time but poison to slow and harm.

Less fear and more admiration at formidable technique, but it's just as good. Vertina finally manages to break one of the curses, grabbing the chain representing it and snapping it off herself. But she doesn't have time to do much more before Wisteria comes rushing her. The Salamander grits her teeth, and tries to catch her friend offguard by not defending against the poisonous jabs, and instead waits for the bun to get close and swinging a flaming fist at her in return.

    Wisteria ducks under and rolls past the burning fist, she might not avoid all of the fire but the solid hit she can skirt around. When her shoulder hits the ground she rolls, plants her feet on a glowing air rune she called up to start one of those pinball passes she's famous for, feet bouncing from air rune to air run to propel her past. Her blade snaking out the dark curse of her sword flickering black in the arc of her swing. It looks like the blade recharges faster than it use to. A dark chuckle in her throat as she enjoys a one on one battle for the first time in some long while.

Vertina grins, showing her sharper fang-like teeth. It makes her look a little unhinged, but nowhere near as much as the mouth of needles her opponent has. "Yeah, now this is the kind of faceoff I can get behind! But not so much your sword!" Vertina takes a moment to focus, charging her aura to help offset some of that poison effect. Then stomps a foot on the ground, using the resulting shockwave to launch herself away from Wisteria's swing, though not enough to clear the magic effect that ripples around the sword. Some dirt kicks up as her heels hit the ground and skid to a stop.

Then charges herself right back at the rabbit girl, clenching her fists tight to fully deploy the claw-like blades on the backs of her battle gloves and swipe in rapid succession at her opponent.

    Wisteria laughs "Ooh this IS fun." she says brightly. She doesn't dive back or evade, instead her sword comes up catching in the claws and turning to lock the attack up. "But I don't just use curses." she says lifting one foot to slam it into the ground, the shock of earth magic slamming the ground up in a thick pillar under Vertina's feet. Then she disengages her blade snapping it back into it's scabbard to shuffle backwards quickly. Still dealing with the flickering flames of the previous attack.

The only downside to the technique is with how intune she is with Earth itself Vertina feels the vibration in the ground and is able to step back a moment. It's enough to let her step into the attack and slam the stone pillar with her fist as it comes up, which puts some painful strain on her arm but knocks the protrusion down before it completely crashes into her. And quickly follow it up by twisting around to swipe her other dire claws at Wisteria. Then keep spinning to swing her tail, charged with ki energy, like a whip at the were fang as well.

    Wisteria draws her blade up in a classic kenjutsu parry keeping the claws minimal chip damage, at the same time that the dark aura around her armor hardens almost like a direct reaction to the glowing ki in the tail slash deflecting that blow as well. Then dark energy coats the blade, not the chaotic rippling of her primary curse, isntead a tight black shell as she lunges in with a controled slash of the tip of the blade, working to get this curse under the skin.

Weapons collide several times before the two combatants are forced apart by the combined force of their blows. Wisteria readies her sword and launches another attack... While at the same time Vertina does a quick series of hand gestures to help focuse her ki and a bit of elemental air. "Mirage Phase Jutsu!" There's a faint distortion as Vertina somehow seems to move in several directions at once, resulting in multiple mirages of her in the wake. One of which is unfortunate enough to be struck by Wisteria's sword, and poof in a plume of motes and expended ki.

While the real Vertina has maneuvered behind Wisteria with the evasive technique and is already heaving a roundhouse kick into motion to try and blindside the other fighter with it.

Wisteria is suddenly not there as the kick comes swinging in, the rumble of thunder from the sudden movement announces her use of Lightningstep to dodge, exepecting an attack from behind after the mirage phase. She spins, foot sliding in a circle as she comes to a stop from the sudden rush to avoid getting brained by her friend's foot. Then she opens her mouth, but it's no taunt or quip that comes out, instead it is the battle cry of the Caerbannog. That shreeking scream that sounds like bloody murder in a woodchipper, and then she's moving forward almost as quickly as she dodged, her sword striking out, that rippling crackling black energy of her cursed blade reaching out for the Salamander hungrily.

Vertina visibly cringes at the horrid sound. "THAT'S GONNA GIVE SOMEONE TENANITUS!" she shouts, louder than necessary. The cursed sword on the other hand she deals with better, darting to the side with such a burst of speed that it leaves a trail of fire in her wake like she suddenly hit 88mph. There's no time traveling involved, though. Just a really fast Salamander throwing herself back into the fight, hands hitting the ground to move her body as she assaults her opponent with a cartwheel kick of flaming feet.

    Wisteria grins, all those triangle razors on display. She slams her foot down, a slab of stone jutting up to catch the falling foot engulfed in flame. She lets the earth magic drop away causing the stone to disolve only to suddenly release a coursing electricity along her blade, the dark to light shift like looking into a plasma welder.

Vertina lands on her feet after rebounding off the block, only to yelp and hold up an arm in vain of shielding her eyes. "That's bright alright!" She's going to be seeing sparkles in her vision for a bit after that. She'll manage, though. She's honed the mystic arts that allow her to not rely entirely on sight or sound alone, along with a Salamander's natural hunting insticts. "But after all those curses, you've got this coming Wisteria!"

Vertina clenches her fists and flexes her arms, drawing strength from the environment around them to farther tighten and tension her muscles. But the real force that comes into place as her focus brings her fiery competetive spirit into manifestation. She erupts forward in motion, coming in low for a brief moment, just to get as much momentum as possible behind the upward swing to turn the maneuver into a big blazing uppercut that hits with the fury of an erupting volcano!

    Wisteria says "Love you too." she says even as her speed increases even more, her sword being raised to help slope the hit away while her feet punch forward, the flames englufing the werefang even as she manages to direct most of the physical impact away from herself. She then turns with the motion, and her strength jumps much as her speed did the blade flashing in a vicious arc down across where Vertina is standing.

Vertina whistles as Wisteria manages to deflect the main force of the blow. "That's pretty skilled." But she's not going to let it put her off her own footing. In fact she slams on down on the ground hard, which channeling her pyrokinesis through it into the ground as well. The resulting combination is something akin to a geothermal burst, shaking the ground violently as flames erupt from it. It's enough of a diversion for Vertina to follow it in, letting the sword cut light across her side, in order to get back into her prefered range of up close and strike again with her direclaw cestus.

    Wisteria shuffle steps back and then dives into another roll trusting her new armor to deflect the slashes of the Salamander. At the end of the roll she plants her foot and a few quick shuffles forward and her blade slashes out again. The dark roiling energy of the curse reaching out to stack debuffs again. Fighting a Shadow is like fighting smoke... it gets everywhere and keeps your eyes watering and lungs burning.

There's an audible crunch of terrain underfoot as Vertina takes a step back and digs in her heels to brace herself while bringing up her hands palms forward. The stance channels her ki in front of her, creating a barrier of supernatural energy to help hold back Wisteria's cursed sword from completely eviscerating her. The shield shatters after resisting as long as it can, the blade scraping the scales on the Salamander's left forearm. But as the defense crumbles Vertina steps in to capitalize on the moment, executing a palm thrust with one hand that delivers a taser-like shock to the body, and then ... just slams a headbutt into the other fighter while her horns glow with fiery heat.

    Wisteria steps back with the hit to her chest letting that electric jolt roll through her dazing her a little, but not enough to keep her crossed arms from coming up to put her armored forearms between burning horns and her face. That solid hit to her arms, lets Vertina know that the curse on her armor has recharged, as the dark aura solidifies and snaps into several black chains, holding Vertina by the horns as they snap down in the ground to bind her movements.

Vertina growls as the cursed chains manifest again. "Well if you meant that technique to be annoying, you succeeded!" Vertina concentrates her capability for great speed... and not being able to move very far because of the binds becomes a moot point as she can still move her arms with blinding speed to intervene and deflect the sword strike, even if it still exposes her to the dark magic leeching off of it. Doesn't matter though, as she brings up one of her long legs and immeadiately drops it in a heavy axe kick.

    Wisteria grins "Oooh don't worry, this fight is the first real test other than against bosses." she barks a laugh "I'm getting so many more ideas." she says even as the ground slams up from below the bun to toss her into a gracefull backflip, when her feet touch the ground she rushes in for another slash with her sword, again the black curse energy reaching out hungrily from the metal itself.

This time Vertina catchs the sword between her hands, just like you see them do in those old kung-fu movies. Of course she's got the advantage of doing it with her battle gloves on, but its safer than doing it bare-handed. "Now you see why I joined the League in the first place Wis? It's experience you just can't get fighting pre-programmed or bug corrupted monsters. People think. People -learn-, and adapt." She toughs through the dark magics of the weapon, finally sweeping the blade aside, and stepping in to thrust a ki enfused knee to the other girl's side while her weapon is out of the way. "And we have to adapt with them!"

    Wisteria laughs her sword snapped away into it's scabard in a blink, to thrust down her arms into the upcoming knee, and then the sound of thunder follows the movement she makes backwards away from the knee ablating almost all of the damage while snapping more chains of dark energy into her friend's leg. "It's good to see how people can work around my chains." she says even as the snap free of her armor's aura to hook into the ground. Then she shuffle runs in and slashes out again, her blade picking up that black hungry aura once more to reach out and try to lock onto the Salamander.

"I've learned something too." Vertina bolts into motion even as the chains spring to life once more, leaving a streak of flame in her wake to lick at her attacker's arms when she blazes away from the sword. The cursed chains grab onto her... and that's when Vertina turns to come charging back. "I can get more room out of your binds if I'm moving when they grab me!" She bears down on the bun warrior in a flurry of flaming kicks and lashing swipes of her direclaws.

    Wisteria smiles "I knew you'd figure out at least that much." she says "But how many curses can you really handle stacked on before you just wind down." she says as the dark aura of her armor solidifies again to help deflect the blows along with the movements of Wisterias arms and the shoulder guard coming into block and deflect, before that dark energy snaps close to the blade again before she slashes out with that secondary curse.

"Are you underestimating my stubborness?" Vertina retorts with a smirk. "You shouldn't do that, either." She kippups back... but evidently not to dodge, because she just takes the sword strike straight on, leaving the red slash of damage visible. She wants Wisteria to finish the strike instead of withdrawing from it being blocked, so she can jump on that brief moment after a sword swing that the attacker is not entirely centered and balanced. That's when she lunges in to strike, first with a quick jab of her claws, and following it up with an upward spin to bring one of her flaming kicks down hard and fast. "RAGNAROK AXE!"

    Wisteria shakes her head "Nah I know you're stubborn." she says with a grin. Over exension isn't something Wist is guilty of often, and not now, her Zanshin is on point as ever, and she's ducking and crossing her arms to catch the blow, however even her reflexes can't stop over powering force, the blow driving her to her knees and her hp bar flashing red before the the duel notfication popup declares Vertina the winner.

"You are really annoying to fight, you know?" Vertina chuckles as she walks over and offers her friend a hand to help her back up. "And I mean that in a good way. Those curses do put a kink into things." She rubs the back of her head with her other hand. "I just... y'know... don't slow down to think too hard about it, so they don't get in my head as much."

    Wisteria chuckles even as she gets to her feet with help "Yah... I need to put in more curses... my dark chain bindings are a good step, and my blade shock helps with all of the stun debuffs it adds... perhaps more ... damaging curses. Or curses that function in a different debuff stack." she inventories her helmet and shifts back to human running her fingers through her short now damp hair. "Maybe I need more blinds... if I'd made my avatar to actually do combat I'd probably have gone with heavy blade and enchanter secondary rather than Shadow. Really is more of a support class."

Vertina waves a hand horizontally over her head. "Yeah.. half of what you said just went whoosh. I just punch and kick things and kick things into things before I punch them." She pats her arm across her friend's shoulders. "But I'm sure you'll figure it out in the end. We're not limited just to whatever tricks the classed did anymore, after all. So... that was a work out, time for a post excersize hot springs bath?"

    Wisteria smiles "I didn't know any of this stuff before the black wave." she says "I just used this as a chat program... with occasional festivals. Now I know my class growth is focused on support not attack or defense so I'm kind of... on the back foot compaired to what I did back home." she chuckles and inventories her armor putting an arm around Vertina's shoulders. "Very yes please." she says laughing.