Altair VS. Xenos

Altair had two days to rest from his last match.  He was well rested, having not done much more than routine exercises to keep himself fit and ready.  Now today, he had another match.  He walked to the waiting room where he was given the usual briefing on his opponent.

The man's name was Xenos.  He fought using a similar style to Altair's, as a combination of might and magic.  Altair thought this interesting.  It would be like fighting himself.  The gate opened, and Altair walked to his side of the Arena.  His name was announced and the crowd cheered.  Altair smiled.  It was a good feeling having all these people watch you at your best.  Altair heard the announcement of his Opponent's name.  He wondered what kind of person it would be.

Spoiler:

After having been in Reim all this time, the only time Azix had visited the Colosseum was during a job with Jafar. It had been late at night when the place was empty, they attempted to take out the Contractor, the mysterious magician who had been behind many of the events on that fateful day. Azix decided it would be interesting to test his fate by entering in a match.

Dressed in loose black clothing under a black cloak, Azix waited for his match to begin. Around his waist hung his leather belt, with a loop that held his Staff of Refractions. He wore two black gloves of similar design, except the right glove had a magical symbol, stitched in white, on the back. He wore two necklaces, the God's Necklace and Weather Maker, under his shirt. A black eye-patch covered his left eye, while a tight-fitting cloth had been wrapped around the lower-half of his face, revealing only a single purple eye. His Magic Carpet was wrapped around his waist, over his belt, allowing him free movement, but able to quickly release it if need be.

The gate opened as he heard his codename called out to the crowd. The cheers of the crowd seemed more for the thrill of a fight and less of his presence, which was expected of a newcomer. Azix stepped onto into the arena, squinted his eyes as they adjusted to the brightness of the afternoon sun. Across from him stood his opponent, a man named Altair.

With his hands held at his sides, Azix gave a bow to his opponent and pulled back his cloak, revealing his staff. He gripped it in his left hand and stared at Altair, thirty feet away. The man was lean with brown hair. Azix tilted his head, giving Altar the first move.

As his opponent entered the arena, Altair noticed a few things about him.  first, he was wearing unusual clothes.  His face was covered by a mask, and he had an unusually colored waistcloth.  The man carried a staff, giving Altair the impression that he was a mage first and foremost.  "Interesting."  Altair thought.  He had never fought a mage before, but he knew a few of their tricks.  For instance, before he could even hurt the man he would have to get through his special defense, the Borg.  They tended to be very tough to crack, so Altair would have to save something special for it.

Altair grinned.  This was going to be fun.  He whipped out his own staff, and with a flourish for the crowd yelled, "Caesin!"  The ground erupted in growth as his spell activated.  in a matter of seconds the dragon of life, Caesin, had formed and was hovering over Altair waiting for its command.  "Caesin, attack Xenos!" he said, pointing to his opponent.  The dragon roared, and flew at top speed towards his prey.  Drawing his sword in his other hand, he Quivered towards Xenos and readied an attack.  The dragon would home in on Xenos, and attempt to bite him.  If he resorted to his Borg, the dragon would bite, and then travel straight up, allowing Altair to dash forwards at 10 m/s towards Xenos to land a strike with Slay the Jackals.  But, if the mage retaliated to destroy Caesin, Altair would use its destruction to soak up the damage from whatever attack he might use, and use his remaining momentum to land a strike with Slay the Dragon.

Attacks 1:

Attacks 2:

Magoi/Stamina 1: 180/250
Magoi/Stamina 2: 170/250

Watching his opponent pull out a staff of their own, Azix pulled free his Staff of Refractions with his left hand. Azix observed purple Rukh fluttering close to Altair as the ground erupted into the form of a dragon, it was good to know that his opponent was a life magician. It was certainly a useful magic type to have in the Colosseum. The orange magician immediately began muttering commands to the Rukh, conjuring his Distortion spell. Orange Rukh flickered into stream of magoi, absorbing the light in a five meter cube around Azix, leaving him immersed in darkness.

Instantly proceeding the conjuration, Azix muttered another series of commands. Within the cube of darkness, Azix vanished from sight and ran out of the cube to his right. Invisible, Azix angled his run in a semi-circle around Altair and stopped eight meters behind the brown-haired man. Taking slow, deep breaths Azix quieted his breathing to prevent giving away his location.

Tilting his right boot upwards about twenty degrees, Azix extended a Dagger Nail aimed towards the middle of Altair's back. The dagger nail would grow to fifteen meters in length and was sharp enough to deal some hefty damage. The ability and its instinctual nature surprised Azix, unsure of why he had thought to do it or how it was possible. Nevertheless, he waited to see how his opponent reacted.

[230/300 magoi]

Spoiler:

Altair ran after Caesin, expecting his opponent to rely on his Borg to protect him from the dragon. But soon after the attack was launched, Caesin seemed to become confused. It had lost its target. Instead of ramming into the wall, Caesin instead took to the sky in an attempt to get a better view. Altair sustained him in order for him to do so. The only thing on the battlefield he didn't create was the circle of darkness ahead of him. If his opponent was anywhere, he was in there. But the circle was large, too large for him to have any effectiveness in searching for him. Altair thought for a moment before having a startling discovery: It was a diversion! Immediately Altair turned around, only to be struck in the chest by something very sharp, long, and apparently invisible. The object pierced him all the way through his back, nicking one of his lungs, but thankfully missing any other organs entirely. the pain was excruciating, but instead of focusing on it, Altair used it to clear his mind.

His opponent was invisible. He had access to tools or weapons outside of his staff. He was most likely an orange mage, due to his ability to manipulate darkness. And most importantly, if Altair couldn't mark him in some way then his opponent's invisibility trick would win him the match. Altair looked down at himself. he was bleeding quite a bit. What if... Yes. That would work nicely.

Altair angled himself so that he could see the blood flow down the object to it's base. His opponent was smart, and would realize what he was doing and retract his weapon. The problem with doing that is that all of the blood that had collected on it would then splash against his body. Using that moment of surprise, Altair would activate his Crown of Locusts to surround, blind, and deafen his opponent. With no way to see it coming, Altair would shout to Caesin, "Attack anything besides myself that smells of blood!" With that command, Caesin would be able to home in on the opponent regardless of whether he was invisible or not. And with the swarm distracting his opponent, he would have no way to defend himself from Caesin's attack.

Spoiler:

Magoi/Stamina: 175/250

While Azix maintained his Vanish to remain invisible, he was amused to see that Altair figured out his tactic so quick. Unfortunately, Altair spun around only to get hit by Azix's long toenail, which retracted shortly after, but not before splashing some blood on his boots. Realizing the error of using that ability, Azix quickly went over his options in his head.

Azix didn't have much time before he saw a flutter of purple Rukh from Altair. Out of instinct, a thin film of magoi formed around Azix's body in preparation for his Clear spell. With the briefest of moments, Azix saw a cloud of insects forming before they headed his way. The cloud of locusts descended upon the orange magician surrounding him in a buzz of wings, preventing him from hearing Altair's command to Caesin or seeing what was going on outside of the cloud.

Azix attempted to bat the locusts away before realizing that the technique was a distraction of Altair's design. If it was Azix, he would use the surprise attack to hide the oncoming dragon. A smile curled on Azix's lips as he realized the cleverness of his opponent. Remembering the position of Caesin before the cloud, Azix attempted to time the release of his Clear spell to when he thought Caesin would be in range.

The thin film of magoi around Azix's body rapidly expanded in a transparent wave of force, stretching out into a dome shape. The force of the blow would blast away the locusts and while it struck Caesin, it wasn't enough to destroy the spell, instead simply lowering its effectiveness. Azix's Borg flared up reflexively to block Caesin, creating a dent in it.

Azix looked over at Altair to see what his opponent did next, the thin film of magoi retracting back around his body.

[185/300 magoi]

Spoiler:

Altair smirked.  His opponent might not have noticed it yet, but that useful trick with his magoi just gave away his location to Altair as well as Caesin.  If he had just accepted Caesin's full attack, Altair would still have no way to locate him.

Altair sustained his Crown of Locusts and recovered Xenos before he could see Caesin deteriorate. Altair twirled his blade in his right hand, and infused it with magoi.  His most powerful attack, Slay the Dragon was just the thing he needed to take down his opponent's troublesome Borg.  Altair charged his opponent.  If his opponent tried to blow him away with his veil of magoi, the locusts would absorb most of the blow, and Altair would be able to cut through the rest.  At the time Altair would reach the circle of locusts he would end the spell, causing them to turn back into dust. If his opponent noticed his fault, and tried to hide in his invisibility again, his own bloodstained shoes would lead the way to Xenos.  Luckily, Altair's legs had recovered enough for him to manage another Quiver again should his opponent launch an attack at him, allowing him to get out of the way and continue his attack.

Attacks:

Magoi/Stamina: 115/250

'Pesky insects', Azix thought to himself as Altair reformed the Crown of Locusts spell. He released his invisibility, it was doing him no good with his opponent's blood revealing his presence. With a wave of his staff, Azix summoned a Large Force Wall to form a thin, translucent wall of magoi to blast through the inspects and find Altair. The two spells would clash against each other and fizzle out in a crackle of magoi.

Azix spotted Altiar moving towards him and the orange magician expected a strong attack coming his way. With Altair trying to close in the distance, Azix guessed that the man would be using his sword. Reforming his Clear spell, Azix waited until Altair was swinging his sword to perform Slay the Dragon, using it to clash against the sword strike. Unfortunately, Altair's attack was stronger than expected and it tore through Azix's spell and struck his Borg. Azix's Borg shattered from the impact, but blocked the damage that would have occurred to the magician.

With the opening, Azix conjured Makihige, summoning two seven meter long shadow tendrils before him. Makihige's tendrils shot forward, each aimed at a different one of Altair's arms to disable the sword-and-staff slinging man. Altair would find that if he used Quiver to escape the tendrils, they would catch up to him before he left its range.

[120/300]

Spoiler:

With his opponent's Borg now shattered, Altair could finally focus on chipping away at his opponent directly.  But Altair could feel it.  He was running out of Magoi.  And quickly.  His opponent couldn't be far off from exhausted as well, but he was showing it far better.  If Altair was going to win, it would involve not only his strength, but his sheer force of will.  Altair could almost hear Caim's voice in his head.  "Show me the will of the blade."  

"I WILL NOT FALTER!" Altair shouted, even as his opponent followed up with a counter-attack.  Black tendrils whipped outwards and lashed at Altair, threatening vicious wounds.  Altair batted the first away with his First Wasp's Dance but allowed the second to strike him.  The tendril sent a large gash up his forearm, and almost caused him to drop his staff, if not for what Altair did at the same time.  Bliss.  it was a very simple spell.  Simply stop the pain response, and one could continue fighting for hours no matter the injury.  With this spell in place, Altair stood up straight, no longer feeling any of the pains of battle.  It gave him a fierce look in his eye, almost manic.

Altair looked Xenos in the eye then.  With a whisper, four sheep appeared around Xenos's legs and bit at his heels, grabbing hold of the fabric around his legs and preventing movement without much difficulty.  Even as the Tendrils continued to lash at him, Altair felt no pain.  He simply raised his sword to Xenos' neck and said, "Surrender."  Nothing but a slight breeze broke the silence in the crowd as everyone waited for Xenos' response.  It was clear to everyone what Altair's intentions were.  He was willing to die to secure victory.  He was testing his opponent's resolve.  With his only defense gone, and both of them running out of magoi, would Xenos do the same?

Attacks:

Magoi/Stamina: 85/250

His focus was so intent on his opponent, Azix didn't notice the sheep that had appeared around his legs. Before Altair would have a chance to raise his sword to the orange magician, Azix reformed his Clear spell. A wave of magoi burst outward once again from Azix and would deliver a crushing blow of force towards Altair, even knock him back. The orange magician could feel the drain of using so much magoi during this fight, but his life was on the line, so he had to suppress the urge to take a few moments to recover. It had been a while since a fight had lasted so long, but he had experienced fights that took him to the brink of fainting from using a ridiculous amount of magoi.

Not wanting to give Altair a chance to recover either, Azix quickly followed up the burst of force with Makihige, reforming it once again. The tendrils would curl together into a single point, aimed for the center of Altair's chest, hoping to impale him. Azix wasn't looking to kill Altair, but deliver enough damage to have the brown-haired man surrender. In the back of his mind, he wasn't sure the two attacks would be enough to do that, especially with the rumors he had heard of the Colosseum, yet he had to try.

[90/300]

Spoiler:

Altair was surprised by the force of the magoi wall that blasted off of Xenos.  Altair was forced away from him, almost eight meters away, but thanks to Bliss he didn't feel a thing.  Then the tendrils came for him again, both pointed towards his chest.  Altair was able to simply swat them out of the way with his Second Wasp's Dance, and charged back in towards Xenos.

The plan was simple.  With a flick of Magoi, a fifth and final sheep appeared just behind Xenos' feet.  Altair would move forward and use his Slay the Bear Technique to leave a gash on his opponent's neck.  Altair would then help out Xenos' inevitable recoil with a kick, knocking him down.  And on the way down, Altiar would thrust his sword straight into the ground just milimeters away from Xenos' face.  Even with this exertion, Altair didn't slow down.  He could feel nothing with Bliss in place.  With his eyes now bleeding, and various veins popping up under his skin, Altair almost growled his next few words.  "I.  SAID.  SURRENDER."

Attacks:

Magoi/Stamina: 35/250

The way Altair continued to carry on after being hit by the wave of force, struck Azix as peculiar. It was as if, the man did not care or did not feel pain. If the purple magician had used a spell to ignore pain, that was a handy spell. At certain times, ignoring pain is fine, allowing you that extra edge. Other times, it is simply shutting down your body's emergency alert system, not allowing it to tell you to abort.

Azix's last burst of spells had taxed him, a total of two-thirds of his magoi had been spent so far in this battle. Azix certainly felt the drain, but when he looked into Altair's eyes, he saw the man was not ready to give up. Altair bat aside Makihige's tendrils with his sword before attempting to charge in close. Azix reformed Makihige once again, conjuring the two seven meter long tendrils on either side of him. Instead of using them to block Altair's attacks, Azix waited, instead lowering his stance, switching his staff to his right hand, while raising his left to block the attack aimed at his jaw. Azix winced as the sword's sharp teeth sliced through the skin and muscle of his forearm as if they were butter, cracking his ulna where it struck. With a kick, Altair sent the magician back, over the sheep that was strategically placed. Azix landed with a thud, clutching his staff tight and winced as the sword thudded millimeters from his face.

Azix stood his ground, glaring with his visible purple eye at Altair and responded, "I refuse to submit, I choose to remain sovereign." With that, Azix sent both of Makihige's tendrils shooting up towards Altair's chest from below, while the man leaned over him. With Altair's sword in the ground, even if he saw them coming, it would probably be too late too stop them.

[55/300]

Spoiler:

Altair hesitated for a fraction of a second. Did he know? This masked man. What did he know about him? About his other self? No. there was no time to think about it. Xenos' attack was already in motion. His Bliss continued, as Altair Quivered straight up, pulling Xenos by his shirt along with him. Using Xenos' own body like a shield, he blocked the tendrils in their trajectory, and crashed back down to the ground pinning the tendrils beneath Xenos, and Xenos beneath Altair's body.

Altiar stood then. He kept one foot on Xenos chest and grabbed his sword. With that, he attempted to impale it near the wrist on Xenos' wand arm. He wouldn't lose the hand if medical was quick. This should prevent Xenos from casting any more spells. Shifting his weight, Altiar positioned his foot on Xenos' other hand. And with his staff, Altair put pressure on Xenos' windpipe. He was just going to wait for him to tap out.

Attacks:

Magoi/Stamina: 20/250

[This fight is officially being called as Azix's victory! The Orange Magician's spell formed at his sides and attacked Altair from below which would have prevented him from using Azix as a shield from his own spells. Altair would have taken two C-tier blows in this post on top of all the damage already sustained such as B-tier damage from Azix's Clear spell. Even with the effects of Bliss Altair would be suffering from several broken bones which would make normal movement simply not possible. Adding up all the damage sustained throughout the entire thread, Altair has taken a total of 1 A-tier, 1 B-tier, and 1 C-tier's worth of damage. This should be sufficient to successfully know him unconscious with the final Makihige.

In addition, with this last post, Altair is below 30 Magoi and will have begun bleeding from his eyes. Collapsing from Magoi exhaustion is just one post away and Azix has yet to even reach the first stages. The winner here is obvious. Post your final exit posts reflecting this decision.

Congratulations to both fighters! It was a hard fought battle!]

Altair's plan might have worked. In fact, he could have sworn he saw Xenos' hand twitch before it happened. Bliss expired. Immediately all the pain that he had been avoiding struck him like a ton of bricks. He crumpled. As he would discover later, many of his bones were broken, and he couldn't support his own weight anymore. His vision was red, blood almost pouring from his eyes. He had pushed himself too far. Altair blacked out.

When he woke up, he was laying on a cot. Nearly his entire body was in a cast. a nurse approached him and made him drink some cold water. "Bunch of fools you Coliseum men are. You're lucky to be alive you know." Altair chuckled. It hurt like a bitch. "Yeah. You're right."

Altair would have to remember that name. Xenos.

[exit=Loss]

Still laying on his back, Azix turned over to look at Altair's unconscious body nearby. Azix crawled, favoring his right arm, to check to see if the man was still breathing. He felt relief to know that he hadn't taken Altair's life. The thrill was nice and so was victory, but it hurt. Azix cradled his left arm in his shirt and wondered if it worth pushing oneself to the brink. He wished he could use his necklace to heal his arm.

Blinking, Azix looked back at Altair, remembering what his God's Necklace could do. "Alas, if you were dead, I would be able to heal all your wounds."

Standing up, Azix ignored the crowd and slid his staff in his belt. As medics rushed in, Azix demanded that Altair be seen to first, before getting light headed. He fell on his butt, and tried his best to apply pressure to the wound on his arm. After both contestants were helped out of the ring, they were tended to.

Once Azix was patched up, he checked on Altair once last time, the man still asleep, before collecting his winnings and leaving the Colosseum. The battle had been taxing and he learned much. Azix couldn't remember the last time he fought an opponent so challenging. He hoped the man had a speedy recovery and that their paths would cross again one day.

[Exit]