Colosseum - Round 1, Group B - Alexyana vs Courier Six

[Storyteller]

Alexyana stood in silence before the giant colors of the Kingdom. Somewhere, on the other side of the battlefield that stretched out before her was Courier Six, who stood before a small armory and the rebel colors of the Deserters. Up above them, a packed crowd cheered, waiting for the signal that would commence the 'festivities.'

Someone gestured for silence, and just like that, there wasn't a sound in the building as Victor von Magnus walked onto the small platform near the center of the massive structure. With a smile, he picked up the padded hammer and smashed it into the gong, signalling the fights to commence.

Judge – Sinestro

Alexyana posts first, and she may do so anytime after 6 pm CDT/7 PM EDT.

Description of fight area and other information can be found here - <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://omniverse-rpg.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&p=44961#p44950">viewtopic.php?f=28&p=44961#p44950</a><!-- l -->

Please refer any questions to that thread.

Word Limit: 750
Posts: 3
Time Limit: 48 hours
SP use is enabled. SP does not regenerate between rounds. Injuries may occur. Neither injuries nor SP use are factored into judgment, only the quality of writing.

[Undyne]

Alexyana took a deep breath as she entered the arena. As she waited for the unknown man in the center to initiate the combat for them, she examined the wall behind her and the items on it. Crossbows, longbows, swords, halberds, spears, clubs... the Colosseum hadn't spared expenses to make this fight interesting. She then turned her head back to look down the arena and involuntarily grimaced at the sight of her foe. She hadn't thought that her opponent would be someone wearing a mask. She couldn't read his - no, her - facial expression and she couldn’t tell what type of combatant she was.

"Let's hope for the best!" She told herself. The moment that the gong resonat-ed through the arena, she spun around and reached for whatever weapons she could get her hands on. With no idea what to anticipate from her foe – they might just be a ranged mage for all she knew - she dropped forward as if a fireball would whizz over her head. She grabbed a medium-sized crossbow with a leather pouch holding a few bolts attached to its stock, and her tail wrapped around the hilt of a small spear intended for throwing.

Courier reached for the weapons herself rather than bringing out her own from the start, and took hold of a large crossbow which, like Alexyana's, had a pouch with a handful of bolts in it attached. She knelt down to use the walls between them as makeshift cover as she loaded the crossbow, then aimed and fired across the arena. The size of the weapon she had selected meant brutal recoil, but she had handled bolt-action weapons before so she was prepared and handled it. Due to the great distance however Alexyana was able to move away in time, and the bolt only hit the wall.

"We'll see about that." Alexyana mumbled and pointed her own crossbow at her opponent, then fired. However, she had picked out a smaller crossbow than Courier, thus its reach was far shorter. The bolt lost its momentum and harmlessly dug into the ground almost five meters away from her. Cursing, the dragoness hooked two claws into the bowstring and, rather than using the rewinding mechanism, pulled the string back by hand with raw physical strength. Whilst holding the spear with her tail she loaded a new bolt in and rushed forward, then stopped behind one around halfway between the trench in the center of the arena and the armory behind her. She briefly caught her breath, then emerged to attack again.

Because Courier lacked the strength to imitate Alexyana - although, to be fair even the dragoness would have had trouble rewinding the big crossbow - so while moving to the closest low wall for protection she discarded the crossbow and instead drew Ratslayer, her bolt-action rifle. Alexyana was just emerging from her cover and aiming her crossbow for a second shot. Before she could fire, Courier took aim and fired before chambering a new round without waiting to see if she had hit.

Alexyana had been entirely unprepared for a follow-up move and much less for one this early after the crossbow shot. The shot hit her forehead, not aimed perfectly how Courier had tried because she had lined up the shot rather rapidly, but the bullet caused the dragoness to stumble backwards and growl in pain. She was damn lucky that her forehead was one of the more protected parts of her body, had she been hit in the eye things would have gotten ugly. But even so she fell on her back behind the wall, dropped the crossbow and was dazed for several seconds before she recovered enough to pick the weapon back up.

She put the bolt back in its place, took a deep breath to contain the pain and moved, briefly peeking out around the right side of the broken wall as if she was going to try to retaliate - only to slip back behind cover after a second. Her ruse worked out as planned, Courier aimed and fired a second shot just as she withdrew her head again, missing it entirely. While she was busy chambering a new round Alexyana emerged from the top side, briefly aimed then fired her crossbow. While she was far from an expert with weapons she knew where her op-ponent was, and a crossbow was a weapon she had used before on occasion. Perhaps this second bolt would strike more accurately?

[Morene Fellon]

Almost chuckling at the sight of the the dragon lady going for another crossbow shot, the Courier couldn't help but see where she was going with this this, at least slightly. Not being able to get up close, Alexyana seemed to be trying to outmatch the wastelander in a ranged fight. Getting up from her crouching position and unholstering her Blood-Nap knife, Six continued reading Alexyana's strategies with a slight tinge of morbid glee.

Seeing as almost anybody with have a brain or any sense of sanity would use this obvious distance to their advantage, the Courier thought it would be interesting to lure the obvious melee-based dragoness into a sense of security on her home field. Smiling beneath her mask, Six got a bit lost in thought before she soon realized a crossbow was still being aimed at her.

Alexyana's big eyes squinted, trying to focus her already dazed vision, before eventually firing.

The distinct crack of the crossbow immediately fired, and then a short grunt from the Courier as she felt a tinge of blood seeping down her left shoulder. Six immediately stepped backwards from the shock of the bolt stabbing into her light cloth with ease. It was at that moment all of the confidence from only a few seconds ago had faded into an aggravated stare-down with her opponent.

As the Courier raise her knife to her shoulder, she tugged at the bolt with her left hand, before digging deep into the wound with her knife, prying at the wooden projectile still lodged in her arm. Of course, this didn't come without a few yelps of pain, but Six was surprisingly stoic otherwise, her unforgiving glare still focused on Alexyana as they began circling the arena.

"You take a bullet to the head, and then you still manage to hit me," the Courier spoke suddenly, sucking air through her clenched teeth as she finally managed to break the bloodied crossbow bolt, now snapped on the floor.

Six continued, "lookin' more and more like a Deathclaw by the minute, I like that."

Twirling Blood-Nap in her hand, Six ran forward with a mighty war cry, a wicked look on her face only covered by the mask she wore. Beyond all of that however, was a slight crooked smile as result of thinking what she had in store for the dragoness. Alexyana was still a bit surprised she even hit the Courier, but pleased nonetheless. Other than that though, she had to wonder to herself what exactly a 'Deathclaw' was.

Only a few moments had passed, and the Courier was already closed in on Alexyana, the latter stepping back to defend herself. It was then Six leapt into the air, pulling her arm back to slash at the warrior only a few feet away from the Courier now. Alexyana, however slow, was not a fool. She had her doubts, but looking at the Courier, face masked to hide the look in her eye, she could only assume that the messenger girl was indeed that crazy.

So, with a new-found smile on her face, Alexyana swung too, all claws sprawled out, ripping through the air at the exact speed of the Courier's blade.

Then, the Courier vanished.

A thunderous crackling of electricity filled the dragoness' ears, and time seemed to slow down as she simply watched Six turn into nothing as they both swung. More and more of the Courier vanished, and as soon as she was completely out of sight, all before Alexyana's brutal swing hit nothing but air in front of her.

Alexyana was confused once again for a second, only being able to mumble out a simple, yet a distressed and aggravated, "What?"

The dragoness looked only for another moment before she looked down to see dust flying up out of nowhere. Alexyana got the cue immediately, jumping towards it's general direction, biting into the air again.

Then, the crackling began once more. This time, when Alexyana turned around, she could only see a dark blue blur that was now the Courier appearing seemingly out of thin-air, swinging her Caravan shotgun up, aiming directly at the dragoness for a split second.

After this, a deafening gunshot slammed through the air, turning the crowds deathly silent. A few moments passed through the silence, but before the quiet ended, the crowd then saw the lurid sight of claws digging deep into the Courier's gut, both women's blood being mixed on the pavement beneath them.

[Undyne]

Alexyana had never seen the item that Courier was pointing at her, but she knew it couldn’t be anything good. She flung both arms forward in an effort to interrupt whatever was going to happen, but split seconds before they dug past Courier's armor and into the flesh beneath, the sharp crack sounded through the arena.

Even without the pain that came up from her chest and stomach to her head she knew that Courier had landed a brutal strike. Her vision began to blur even more than it already was from the shot to her forehead and she parted her jaws for a feral scream as she ripped out both claws. She brought up her right knee to slam it against Courier’s hand and make her miss the second shot if she was going to strike. Courier was smart enough to not risk it and go for a second shot and protected herself from the incoming hit with the Caravan Shotgun, using the impact force to propel herself backwards. This all happened within around two seconds, so the pain only really set in once they were separated from each other.

The dragoness shut her jaws again and grinned at Courier. ”We… got each other good.” Alexyana remarked with a pained grin. ”But… I’m winning this.” She then took a deep breath and reared her head back. Courier backed away and towards the trench in the middle of the arena whilst holstering her Caravan shotgun then grabbing her Lucky revolver with one hand, and her Blood-Nap knife with the other. But Alexyana didn’t attack, instead she lowered her head and breathed a steady stream of flames onto her stomach. While this did nothing to get the pellets out of her body or heal the injuries it cauterized enough of them that the bleeding was cut in half and her pain was slightly numbed out.

Doing so gave Courier enough time to cut off a few bits of her cape and loosely stuff it into the openings of her armor to create a makeshift bandage in the handful of seconds she was given: similarly to Alexyana’s first-aid treatment it kept her from bleeding out immediately. She ducked behind one of the low walls and used her Stealth Boy again to vanish from sight. She shifted around the wall and towards the dragoness once more, then raised Lucky to line up a shot before de-stealthing again. Getting too close for another Caravan shotgun blast was too risky, but Alexyana’s stomach had taken the pellets with little resistance, making it evident to her that the scales there were thin and the flesh vulnerable.

”It’s useless.” Alexyana then said, shifting around on her feet and flinging the spear she had picked up from the weapons rack from her tail into her right hand. It was a throwing weapon by design, but by grabbing it at the far end it made for a makeshift stabbing weapon. And she stabbed it straight in Courier’s direction, who only barely kept the tip from going through her eye by deflecting it with Blood-Nap and redirect-ing it to whizz by her cheek. Her cloak flickered but continued to function.

Alexyana breathed deep as she pulled back the spear, then aimed it again. ”You got me by surprise the first time… but your stealth won’t work. Because I can SMELL YOUR BLOOD!” She backed her last screamed words up with a forceful spear thrust which Courier handily dodged. Just as she lined her Lucky revolver back up to fire, the dragoness used the momentum of the stab to spin herself around counter-clockwise and slam her tail forward in a narrow arc.

Once again the sharp sound of a gunshot pierced the air and Courier appeared from stealth just in time for the spectators to see the massive tail slam into her, sweeping her off her feet and flinging her backwards in the direc-tion of the central trench. Alexyana gritted her teeth, but her spin had removed her frontside from being exposed to Courier and the bullet had “only” pierced the scales beneath her armpit and dug into the flesh beneath. One of her ribs had taken part of the hit, but it felt like her lung had been grazed, as every breath hurt. She turned back to face the direction she had sent Courier flying at, threw the spear and immediately leapt forward to follow up before she could recover.

[Morene Fellon]

Desperately jumping back to avoid the oncoming attack, Six tripped slightly while the spear flew in the air, and as soon as Alexyana came down on her, the spear was already stabbing into the Courier's leg. Wincing in even worse pain now that another wooden object with a bladed end was sinking into her body, the Courier's entire body shook as more of her bodily fluids spilled onto the ground, almost breaking a few teeth from clenching on them so hard.

As quickly as she possibly could, Six clenched at her knife, before shakily stabbing into the dragoness' arm. It only cut a few inches deep, before immediately flying out of the Courier's hand as soon as Alexyana yelped and let go of the spear, but Six was lucky enough to slam at the spear's handle until it broke off with a loud snap just before her opponent came crashing down on her again.

Despite all of it however, Six still had the breath in her to speak.

"You're pretty good, you know...!" the Courier coughed out, before she raised her left knee, slamming it into Alexyana's strangely warm shotgun wound. It loosened up the dragoness' grip slightly, but unfortunately for the Courier, the lenses covering her eyes were smeared in her adversary's blood she had coughed up a second ago.

Alexyana's eyes squinted to stare at Six with a clear aura of disdain. As the Courier wipe the blood from her mask, both opponents took the few split seconds they had to distance themselves from each other, thinking for the short while they could.

Six could admit, she hadn't had a fight this intense in years, and she loved every bit of it. Though, the Courier could only assume what was going through Alexyana's mind during all of this. The moment in which the two combatants hesitantly let one another alone for a short moment allowed the Courier to get back on her feet, almost falling over a few times however. The broken spear still lodged in her leg would definitely be a problem in a bit.

Soon enough, the dragoness began storming towards Six, her feet making a slightly noticeable trail of red liquid on the ground. Had not been for her past experiences in the wastes, this sight would have probably made the Courier gag a bit.

Limping towards Alexyana, Six pulled out her Lucky revolver once again, twirling it in her hand a bit before eventually firing off the entire chamber onto her enemy's scaly skin, and only some of the bullets penetrated at all, mostly due to the fact that the dragoness was quick enough to raise her hands to her more weakened points to defend them from the Courier's oncoming barrage of bullets.

Seeing the dragon lady continue to charge at her, Six only sighed in the short moment she had to herself, thinking of a good way to counter this. Though Alexyana was slow already due to her size, her wounds not helping, the Courier painfully admitted to herself that she wasn't faring well either, so running wouldn't be the best course of action in this situation.

Standing as straight as she could, Six waited, clenching at her fists. The Courier knew how painfully obvious she was being, but she was about ninety percent sure to think of any possible outcome to this. Well, Six hoped she did, anyways.

Almost right before leaping at the Courier with utmost confidence, Alexyana couldn't help but shout in her certainty, "I've got you now!"

Six almost chuckled at how happy the giant, demonic dragon lady seemed, about to claw into the Courier's insides once again. Almost chuckled.

Pulling out her Sleepytyme SMG from the back of her duster, she immediately pulled it up to aim at Alexyana's chin as the Courier's head slammed into the concrete beneath the two of them, the dragoness toppling onto the Courier only moments beforehand.

Camelot didn't seem so pleasant now, Six managed to think to herself, before pulling the trigger once again beyond her now completely dazed vision.

[Undyne]

"Ohh damnit..." Was all that Alexyana could say when she saw the new black item being pointed up at her. By now her opponent HAD to be out of weapons, right? She'd lost her knife, the other item (the Lucky Revolver) she'd pointed on her seemed to be out of charges and the big item she’d used at the beginning of the fight seemed to have been meant for high ranges, it was big and unwieldy. But she had another weapon? And on top of that she was pointing it at her chin, where her scales were thin and leathery.

Pain exploded in her head when Courier pulled the trigger. At point-blank range the bullets pierced through her scales and maw, and shredded her tongue. Some tore through her tongue, but none pierced her palate. Some 15 bullets tore their holes, each very close to each other, before Alexyana slammed her hands which she had raised for her pounce downwards, pushing Courier’s hand. Five more shots were fired in that movement, drawing a line over Alexyana’s chest and further adding to the pain that her burn marks on her stomach were causing. Then the Sleepytyme SMG was pointed between both their bodies and Courier lifted her finger to avoid injuring herself. The dragoness rapidly brought her tail around her back to wrap it around the item to keep Courier from using it.

Alexyana grunted and opened her maw to finish her off. Rows of bloodied teeth were exposed to, closing in to bite her head off, but then the dragoness coughed and splattered blood over Courier’s face. She had severely underestimated her injuries, due to straining her jaw to this extent she had torn the wound further. The drops that landed on Courier’s face caused small sizzling sounds but didn’t cause any damage. The pain flinched her for long enough that Courier could reach up and tear her knife free from Alexyana’s arm, and stab it into the charred mess that was her stomach. Alexyana gave a pained howl but didn’t open her maw again. Instead she pressed her left hand against her chin to keep the blood in and slammed her right hand against her opponent’s right shoulder, in an attempt to hurt her enough that she would drop her SMG.

But she had underestimated her opponent. Fighting Deathclaws and other big critters in the wastelands had taught her some basic wrestling against bigger opponents. Although she had to take the hit from Alexyana’s left hand she used her own left arm to use the dragoness’s momentum against her. She pressed her hand against her right side and flipped her over, off of herself and onto her back so she could free herself even though it forced her to leave her knife in the dragoness’s belly, and her SMG was still held in the dragoness’s tail. “Damn it!” she cursed as she let go of the weapon, her only consolation being that Alexyana’s claws were too big to fit through the metal loop around the gun’s trigger, so she couldn’t use it.

Alexyana struggled to get to her feet again, keeping her hand against her chin all along. Because she didn’t know what Courier knew she tried to use the SMG, then cursed when she realized that she couldn’t. But to keep her opponent from using it she threw the weapon away, where it bounced off the arena ceiling shield and landed somewhere near the other end of the arena. With her left hand she pulled out the knife and threw it the same way.

On her side Courier grabbed Lucky and reloaded it whilst getting some distance from the dragoness. “I got the advantage… she’s more injured than me.” She raised the firearm but Alexyana had already ducked behind one of the low walls.

Readying her next attack the dragoness took a deep breath. ”Fire won’t cut it… for this time…” she murmured to herself. Molten rock began to drip between her fingers mixed with her blood, and the lines along her neck glowed brightly. After several seconds she emerged from her cover and leapt straight for Courier, bending as far forward as she could to protect her stomach and guarding her eyes and snout with her left hand. Courier fired once, hitting Alexyana’s palm, then the dragoness opened her maw and spewed out a huge amount of magma. More was dripping between her fingers but the vast majority was aimed at her opponent.

Post length for my 3 posts here:

Post 1 - 749 words.
Post 2 - 740 words.
Post 3 - 746 words.

[Morene Fellon]

After a few seconds of standing there waiting for whatever unworldly punishment the Courier was being put under, her brain began registering the seething pain as a result of molten rock scolding Six's uncovered skin, her wounds included. The woman felt as if she was drowning in sea water, just a lot less cold, and possibly much more painful.

Swiping away at whatever magma was still lingering on her body, the Courier tried to hold back a scream, but there was no way to bite her tongue and stop the agonizing yelp from leaving her lips. Alexyana almost felt a tinge of regret for this fact.

Almost, for as soon as Six stopped trembling, she dropped her Lucky revolver, before eventually making a mad charge towards the dragoness, tackling her opponent as soon as she got the chance. Unfortunately enough for the Courier, Alexyana's height and weight didn't allow Six to do much else other than make her flinch a bit.

Alexyana immediately grabbed the Courier, before using the momentum she already gained to slam her back on the ground. At this point, Six couldn't feel much else, her skin still at a boiling point, giving the Courier a bit more time to swipe her leg at her opponent's, throwing her off balance. As soon as Alexyana tipped over slightly, the Courier pushed herself on top of the dragoness, grabbing at her throat to try and keep her down.

However desperate the Courier was at this moment, Alexyana took her still free hands, prying away at Six's fingers ever so slowly, while using her other hand to sink her claws down into the Courier's already burned skin. Both women couldn't help but let out tiny groans and chokes of pain as they had this exchange, neither of them stopping for a moment.

Six's hands and arm shook as Alexyana ripped away from the Courier, finally breaking free from the Vegas queen's grasp. The dragoness drew a sharp breath, before looking the Courier right in her masked eyes as she raised her right leg to kick Six's body off. The Courier's body slid across the dirty, rough floor, making a faint trail of blood behind her.

Alexyana stumbled to get up, the Courier rolling on the floor. Had the dragoness been in better shape, she would have immediately ran for the chance to attack and finish Six off, but the only thing she was capable of doing now was shakily wheezing. The Courier picked herself up once again, just about mortified at how much blood she had already lost in a span of a few short minutes.

Though she wasn't complaining at all, the Courier couldn't help but notice it to be a bit strange. Coughing onto her hand, Six turned to face Alexyana, both combatants breathing heavily, anticipating one another to make a move. Six just about pulled out another one of her weapons, but stopped herself seeing the dragoness tense up as the Courier reach for her belt.

It was about time to end this anyways. Both adversaries began moving towards each other as slowly as they possibly could, inching along the dirt-packed and bloodstained floor, before they sped up into a jog, no weapons for either of them to wield now. A few split seconds passed, and the crowd grew silent as they ran into a jog, both women raising their fists in the air for the final strike of the match.

Though nobody could really see the look in either of their blood-shot eyes, both women knew this would be the last thing one of them was going to see before consciousness would fade. Though both Six and Alexyana felt empty physically, the thoughts going inside of their heads were filled to the brim with nothing but conflicting thoughts on each other. They could only hope now that they'd make this final strike connect, and after that, they could only pray to Omni himself that would be the last of it.

Alexyana and the Courier drew closer and closer in the manner of a few split seconds, yet for them, it might as well have taken hours. They closed their eyes as they swung forward, the crowd bursting into an almost frenzy as all of it took place.

This was it.

[spoiler]

Post lengths:

Post no. 1 = 746 words.
Post no. 2 = 678 words.
Post no. 3 = 715 words.

Also, this post is in fact a few hours late, so I must my sincerest apologies for being so sluggish.

[/spoiler]