Through the eyes of a nervous demon
What have I gotten myself into? It was just meant to be a dumb question to kill time... Diala looks up at the imposing figure of the elf before her, his arms stretching and twisting as he warms-up. Is there a way out of this? No, I already said I would... What if I feign sudden illness? I... What am I thinking... I can't even lie... "Are you ready?" Fluffy asks, loudly cracking his knuckles. "Any time." Diala responds without thinking, her internal panic failing to be tamed by her careless demeanour. "Good. I'll let you have the first strike." "Ah. Thanks." What if I just don't attack? Then it will always be my turn and the fight will never progress. I'd look pretty stupid though... Whatever. It's literally my job to fight, so I have no real excuse here.
The demon bounces on the spot, gentle clinks echoing across the expanse as the elf stands on guard, sword held in front. Tap. Tap. Tap. Nothing. Her body vanishes from the ground at the moment before contact is made, reappearing behind the elf with a sweeping kick. Fluffy stays put, an absolute confidence in his ability to defend the whip-like appendage, allowing it to slam into his neck with the force to shatter the earth below him, rend the air into a loud burst, and throw his centre of gravity off balance. A moment of stunned realisation gives Diala the chance to land and hop away before he regains stance, turning to face her. "So you've gotten stronger since our little game after all. Good. Now let me show you what I can do with my blade, Beast Hunter."
Her body trembles as a harrowing premonition, or rather a declaration presses into her. A saturation of will into the very air asserting the inevitability of an oncoming attack. A simple downward strike. Diala watches in slow motion as the blade held high comes crashing down, air compressed into a visible mist around its path and forming into a shock-wave of immense force. Focus consumes her, a single path of escape, of attack before her. The blade meets the ground, stone seeming to melt around the edge, and Diala leaps towards the advancing blast. No room for mistakes, no time for delays, her body meets the precipice of the pulse, shards of crystal splintering away before she vanishes once more.
Heavy force is replace with an absence of pressure, her body slicing through the vacuum left behind by his attack to launch a heavy thrust of her legs on Fluffy's chest. The unexpected attack pushes the air from his lungs, but he remains standing, feet locked to the ground as he slides his stance back to swipe his blade upward in retaliation. Using her own lingering upward momentum, she lands her feet on the blade edge, the fang eating away at her crystal body and forming a wedge in her feet as she is thrown into the air. Broken crystal reforms, growing back into a smooth surface before she lands. He's as absurd as always. I barely have room to think just trying to dodge.
A brief glance behind showcases a straight wedge of melting rock, carved deep and carrying up to the edge of the expanse. Magma pools back together, the wedge moulding into a trough before hardening into black glass. Is he trying to kill me?! "I suppose I don't need to hold back then. You won't get hit, right?" He grins, sword calmly resting upon his shoulder as he taunts Diala with his eyes. How would Lyla put it? Fuck this overgrown dust bunny? Maybe I'll just leave the insults to her... Legs compress like springs and launch the demon back towards the fight, Fluffy responding with a one-handed sweep of his blade which pulls up a layer of earth in the wake of its shock-wave. Before she can leap over he follows with a wide-arcing uppercut, uprooting the terrain with a second blast of wind. I can't dodge that!
Aleph was right. A single foot plants itself into the ground, rooting her stance against the oncoming wave of desolation. To fight above my weight class... Crystal shimmers a deep red, demonic energy swirling ravenously with the desire to bite back. I really should... Her body turns soft, a sharp tug originating from her grounded foot firing a building impulse of energy up her entire form. Kinetic energy grows rapidly, swiftly pulling the tip of her arm into a supersonic swipe which tears at the wind, refusing to slow down. Use every advantage I have. Every part of her body cracks and splinters under the strain, rapidly reforming to accommodate until her arm reaches the apex of her strike, shattering in a burst of sonoluminescent light and reverberating to her core.
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Onomatopoeia fails to adequately describe the magnitude of sound formed in the resulting explosion, throwing both combatants apart as friction ignites the air in a violent burst of cataclysmic force. The ground is compressed by force, shattered by vibration, melted by friction, and scattered in a tumultuous storm of heat and debris. Winds propagate outward, trees straining under the sudden typhoon which weathers the surrounding rock into a smooth crater. Diala and Fluffy lunge back into the fold before the tempest can even dissipate, her arm hastily extruding back into its rough shape as he winds for another attack.
The storm is reignited by the collision of two equal forces, air sliced and torn by the duplicated attacks as they scrape at the ground to pull themselves back into the fray once more. Another swipe rends the air towards Diala, this time missing its mark as she warps past to land the first decisive blow. Her left side is destroyed from the force of her own strike which crushes the elf to the ground, a deep pool of violently churning magma surrounding him from the unyielding exchange. Before she can land, a black tip juts from the rapidly cooling magma, piercing through her other arm and scraping away at the dense energy protecting her core. Barely able to wind herself away before he can follow up, she lands at the edge of the solidifying stone, her other arm nearing restoration
Stone hardens to basalt, then fractures and bursts under the forceful escape of the entrapped elf, cracking his neck as he shakes away the clinging rocks and dust. "This is starting to get out of hand. Let's bring this to a close with one final strike." Oh good, we're done. I was almost out of ener- Wait! One more attack?! Fluffy holds his blade forward, tightly gripped in both hands as he narrows his attention to a single concept. I don't have the energy to defend, or the strength to counter. Tiny clinks emit from reforming crystal a tremble in the energy fuelling it. I don't think I can... No, wait. I'm thinking about this wrong.
Demonic energy burns, her body reconstructing in an instant and humming with a dull red glow. I want to win. Crystal compresses, winding up with an intense pressure as even the earth around her seems to compact and smooth over. I will win. Her body softens into a malleable medium, ripples forming under the resonance of her building energy. That is all that matters.
A line of green is cut into the air, cleaving apart a vertical slice of the world. A wave of crimson soaks the earth, jagged stone rippling like jelly under a heavy impact, yet refusing to shatter. Faster than she can think, within the realm of instinct and muscle memory, Diala launches towards the oncoming blast of air and strikes. The air bends, warping with her body to oscillate around her. The distance narrows, neither able to perceive fast enough to observe their imminent collision. The world goes dark.
Through the eyes of an eased dragon
"I guess I wasn't needed after all." Aleph muses with a relieved sigh. Fluffy turns in shock, a bemused expression at the dragon's unexpected proximity. "When did you..." "Around about when you suggested the final strike. I didn't want to interfere, but I know you have a habit of overdoing things. She made it out herself though, so it was fine." Aleph closes in on the immobile demon, crystal dimmed black and cracked, no motion made to regenerate. A gentle violet hue coats the small body as Aleph lifts her into the air. "I didn't see what happened in the end... There was no recoil. Did she-" A slight flinch, fingers brushing against raw skin on his side and returning with a trickle of blood. "Look around you. She met your attack, then hit you with her own."
The elf peers around him at the warped terrain, not jagged or ravaged like one would expect from their exchange, but curved and wavering like an ocean frozen in time. Directly ahead of him lies a crevasse, carved perfectly straight by his slash before veering and rotating unpredictably into the distance. "This is my loss." "If you insist. Here." A hunk of unmoving crystal is unceremoniously dumped in the arms of a dumbfounded elf. "Uh... Is she okay?" "Probably. I don't know her biology, but if she was in real danger she'd be summoned back home and we'd probably be put on a list. Her soul isn't wavering or anything, so she's probably just sleeping." "That's good..."
Lumbering steps follow in from behind, amber eyes regarding the inert demon with concern before gracing the elf with a nod. "A fine battle." Goldy remarks. "Now it is our turn."
