Bliss Vs Z

This is an open challenge, any and all can accept it.

The style is obviously T1, Mild-Powers the sub.

My character and character sheet can be found "Here."

If you accept, state so and provide your character sheet.

{I'll accept then, I suppose. Character sheet can be found Here }

A wonderous night it was in the deep-rooted forests of the West; the night clear and cool, stars all alight in the sky and a sweet little treat awaiting all who looked above: a lunar eclipse. The moon was tinted a shade of red, almost that of blood. Beneath, it cast dull reflection upon small streams and brooks--even a large lake, scattered clearings of various sizes, and a myriad of trees ranging from saplings to massive red oaks. All was quiet on this night save for the whisper-quiet movement of a lone man darting through the trees.

He moved with the true grace of a predator, his form lithe and agile to the point of being nearly wraithlike; a shadow of a shadow passing between trees and through undergrowth. On his back was strung a longbow longer than most and a quiver of arrows, their tips dipped in a highly potent neurotoxin. A single prick could be enough to kill. Sheathed on his left hip was a large hunting knife, crafted almost flawlessly from an assortment of various rocks, the base edge serrated and the entire length speckled with glittering diamonds sharpened to hairpin edges.

The young man, if that happened to be what he trully was, approached a small clearing and let eyes black as coal dart among the arrangement of flowers and grasses, studying it silently. Yes, this was where the battle was to be--but his opponent, his prey, had failed to show as of yet--and so he waited in silence, letting his senses expand to encompass a roughly kilometer length circle. All movement, no matter how small, he could feel. As it was he began to prepare, quietly, absoring power into his body through the earth beneath his feet, the wood against his back, and the soft feel of grass against his fingertips.

Maybe Z was blind, or he just had trouble seeing in the dark. Bliss wasn't hiding, nor was he late. He was sitting cross-legged in the tall grass, bent foward to pick at the sleeping flowers as he peeled them pedal by pedal.

Bliss did, however, glance Z's way as he made the scene. A smile birthed across his lips, through he kept quiet and finished the remaining pedals of the flower he held already before he sat up straight and called with a calm voice, as if a fight for lives wasn't something to be worried about. Just another day, just another victim.

"Ready?"

A subtle smile tugged at the corners of his lips; he could feel the humanoid form the second his wave of perception passed over him, and in his mind counted the petals of the flower as he picked them. He allowed himself a moment to wonder just why people had to destroy nature, even in so minute a form, to find some sort of amusement.

"A predator is born ready..." he returned, just loudly enough for the man to hear. As he stepped forward away from the tree at the edge, he carried with him a gentle snapping sound; the sound of a twig pulled from the trunk. Quickly enough, a new one grew back to replace it, and he triwled the object in his hand. It was thin and limber, yet sturdy; a perfect whip-like item.

Through his feet and legs, he could feel the power of the earth around him, and in his hand he slowly channeled the energy into the twig. It grew in length, seperating into threads that tied themselves ornately into a geometric pattern of knots and loops. All in all it was approximately twelve feet in length, six inches in diameter at the handle, and divided into ten individual strands the last three feet of its length.

And he complained that Bliss picked the pedals off flowers? He had just snapped a branch off a tree, despite its regrowth. The pain, surely, he inflicted on the tree was equal if not more than what Bliss was doing against the smaller plant-life.

"Well, aren't we just the cold-blood killer?"

He laughed, mostly at Z, as he watched the formation the branch within Z's hand had assembled.

"Honestly, don't be giving yourself names if you haven't earned them. If anything, we'll call you Tree-Hugger."

The mocking laughs stilled to muffled chuckles, Bliss beginning to take to his feet. Rather, his head cocked to the side whilst his arms folded over his chest. What would Z try first?

"Well, get on with it. Predators strike first, right? Come on Tree-Hugger, claim your name."

He felt no ned to justify his actions to this man, who knew nothing of the ways of nature. In all ways, those that could helped those that could not--be it directly or indirectly, willing or unwillingly. The object within his grasp was transferred to his other hand, the right hand, and it flickered softly.

The insult lingered for a millisecond in his mind before the icy calm of his predatorial mind took over and he breathed the night air into his lungs. His right hand snapped outward in a lighting quick flash, sending the whip cracking like a gunshot toward Bliss--far too distan to directly harm him, but what was not seen were the multitudes of barbs unleashed due to the intricate web of knots and loops.

Barely an inch long and half as thick, no less than a hundred and fifty of these projectiles cut through the air in invisible patterns, interspersed at randomly determined angles of forward momentum; some would miss, others would hit randomly upon Bliss` form were he to remain standing where he was--but how to avoid an attack that created a web of projectiles nearly eight feet wide and seven wide? He may see soon enough.

The man was creative, but Bliss was always two steps ahead.

With the crack of the whip, his orbs glowed golden as the reflected eyes caught every sense of light. He could have been noctornul. This, of course, was just a visual presentation to the man Z. Bliss's senses were acute, deadly. He could of gone without.

Regardless, the throrns were seen. However, their path would be quick to turn around. The tempest armor brought with it a harsh gust of wind, blowing the barbs back to their assailant. How would Z escape? The wall of needles was eight feet wide and.... seven feet... wide?

Oh, how funny.

Bliss stood still, still. His eyes watched, and his arms kept folded lazily.

Z noted with a complete lack of emotion or surprise as the eyes of his adversary flashed in the night, and he knew the obvious eaning of such an action: the other could now see the thorns and their sinful little sneak attack.

What he had not particularly counted on was a reaction by the clothing of his enemy, and suddenly his barbs were on a return course. Foolish. It took merely the twitch of a muscle in his fingertip to rearrange the projectiles, and they dropped harmlessly to the ground, their purpose and ability to harm all but elmininated. So it was the he would have a fight on his hands, perhaps.

For one who was so confident, so cool, he seemed unaware of the intimate link Z shared with all around him--the very earth that gave foundation to his footsteps could be ripped from beneath his feet. That was not to be done, however. Not yet. First he would merely shake things up. A flick of the wrist curled the whip and he tossed it aside, then began to approach his enemy one step at a time. One. Two. Three.

With each step, his left hand closed and opened, again and again, until the power build up was ready to be released. With a nearly imperceptible angling of his wrist and an opening flare of his fingers a burst of power erupted from the ground beneath Bliss. Shockwaves generated beneath the surface, causing a spiderweb of fissures to erupt.

These fissures spread and shook violently, and with the final release of tension, his fist clenched so tightly the knuckles turned white--and pressures that were again generated beneath the earth's crust in a localized epicenter compressed the rocks and maerials in the ground to boiling magma that escaped through the fissures and sought to sear the very flesh from Bliss' bones.

He rather smiled, amused laughter caught in his throat, as the wall of thorns cascaded down to earth. Why would it bother him? He wasn't the one wasting energy and exhausting himself. Bliss liked to give the other the first move, it made him look better when he shrugged it off with ease and went in for the kill in one shot. But, hell, why not make this battle different? He could have fun with this one.

However, attention fell to his feet as his arms finally unwrapped. The ground beneath his was breaking up. That was his que to move before something devastating happened. He could of just... Flown up above? Levitate, he liked to call it. Instead, he did something he had just named up right here on the spot: windwalk.

He ran forward toward Z, or so it seemed. His feet wouldn't meet soil, but walk and find footsteps in the air. He was safely above the magma and the fissures weren't an issue.

A grin lingered on Bliss's lips, sprinting toward Z. What was next, a wall of earth? Hell, it was a good idea even if Bliss couldn't do it. Running into a wall would be funny as hell. However, to get Z motivated, a katar slid past the back of his right hand. Would could that mean?

Z was yet again unsurprised by the miraculous dodge the man performed, in which he reacted--mainly out of a purely precautionary measure--by deftly sidestepping a few feet to the right of the direction of the man's initial 'flight' pattern. However, the appearance of the blade was something that set him on edge by a mere fraction, and with a flick of the left wrist he slid the blade he held on his hip from the sheath and readied it in a reverse grip for knife fighting.

So it was that the battle was divided amongst a user of air, and a user of the earth. The question it brought forth was indeed puzzling: could the earth rise up to overtake the air? Could the air descend upon the earth and become victorious? Those concepts wrought themselves into a frenzy somewhere off in his conciousness, but within milliseconds were gone.

With a transfer of power, he now controlled the boiling magma with his right hand, digits interweiving with themselves in a series of fast twitches, and his wrist flicked ever-so slightly. The reaction began to manifest as a pooling of the superheated magma in a central area--rock slowly fell to its all-consuming hunger, and waves of heat shimmered in the air above it. He devoted a fraction of a percent of his mind to containing and controlling this pool of molten rock, and the rest focused upon Bliss. This time, he would wait.

The reflective eyes shimmered, an amber aura emitted from them. The sprint would come to a quick halt, whilst Bliss's hands oddly rose to the skies and, like a sling-shot, swung harshly down to the ground in the direction of Z's feet.

The earth was quick the crack, the crust rather collapsing than splitting apart, as spits of lava erupted from them. Did Bliss just mimic Z? I believe so. However, the radius was big enough so the man couldn't just jump out of harm's way in the nic of time. It wasn't as easy as that.

48 Hours To Reply.

Times up, you lose.