tourniquet/ i edited this

<font color=red> Okay, I'm going to do you the BIGGEST favour and pretend that you didn't put that last post, okay? For starters, you posted twice in a row, secondly... there isn't a person in the world who can RP so much better than me that they could say my character fell into a flashblack and get away with it. Sometimes it's gonna take you more than 6hours to get a reply, so just be patient. And no, you couldn't have been whispering. Unless those exclaimation marks are all typos?</font>



A dark, almost demonic, smile slowly crept across Christian's fair features. He swung his swords around in his fingers with pace, causing a gush you could feel fro ma short distance before stopping them dead as if they had never moved at all.

Christian crouched low, one leg stretched out beind him, the other bent, facing Nightsage. One of the blades, Love, was held at a downwards angle across his body so that it could easily be whipped in any direction to deflect an attack, whereas Hope was held above his head, ready to stirke, like a scorpion's tail.

He rolled his neck.

<font color=blue>"Come on then."</font> He taunted gleefully.

Serenity looked down at the sliver-thin slice across the wood of the bleachers and smiled. As Elysian examined her handiwork, Serenity took a few steps back onto the stone of the largest Battle Ring.

<font color=purple>It sliced through wood, but can it match steel?</font>

Elysian turned the blade in her hand.

<font color=dark red>Yes, I never expected it to... wait, <i>what</i>?!</font>

Serenity slowly drew her own blade, the tarnished silver hilt reflecting in the light. There was nothing spectacular about it. A stone set near the pommel, a few engravings on the hilt and blade, but nothing else out of the ordinary. In fact, when compared to the other dagger, it looked ancient and dull.

Elysian didn’t seem to care what it looked like, however, because she took a few steps back.

<font color=dark red>Oh, no. Absolutely <i>not</i>. There is no way! I don’t do close-range fighting, remember? I really don’t think…</font>

Not waiting for an agreement, Serenity lunged forward, Requiem’s blade shining as it sliced through the air in a pristine arc.

Draches left the small tavern and began his slow trudge down the hall towards the battle arena. It had been forever since he's battled anyone. or anything for that matter, except for his constant hunger. In spite of that, he still wasn't in any hurry to get there, and as if to solidify his point, as he reached the entrance he merely leaned against the wall and gazed out of the tunnel into the hot sun.
Gosh it was so hot! The sun was blazing down unmercifully! Just another reason for him to sit in the shadows. He was also just watching the others battle, Elysian, Serenity, Christian, and of course, Asaphier. It was not quite as interesting as he would liked it to have been. With Elysian and Serenity playing with a dagger, and Asaphier getting beat by Christian.
His attention was of course distracted away by Del's maniacal yelling.
Draches! Show your pansy self!!
Draches merely rolled his eyes as he thought to himself, I'll show you a pansy!
Del was right though, it was time to start whether he wanted to or not.
Draches walked out a ways and spread his wings to their full extent. the silver reflecting some of the suns light as his poweful wings lifted him up into the air. The reflections seemed to make him glimmer as he rose higher and higher.
Sighting Del standing on the ground, he decided to see what his reaction would be to a dive-bomb.
Here i come you pansy wanna-be!! he said, and with that Draches began a breakneck speed plummit straight at his old friend.

"Well then," Nightshade said. "Let's get started."


Drawing his sword and staff, Nighshade called upon the elements of fire, wind, thunder, and water.


OCC: I edited it!

_________________
Two roads diverged in a yellow road,
And I, I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference... -Robert Frost

Starting off just like this eh? I hope u know how to dodge u old fool!
* Del quickly pointed one hand towards the diving Draches. He realized that his opponent was a small dragon and he knew that he was also very agile, but it was time for some fun. He erupted a large wave of frigid biting wind, ice chucks and snow. The force blew Del's long black hair back into the wind. Everything seemed to happen in split seconds, this attack's effect will depend on if Draches is still in fighting shape.*

Draches plummet was stopped, but not by Dels attack, it was by himself.
Draches had fallen out of the sky and landed heavily on his back causing a cloud of sand to spray into the air. Only the loud laughter of Draches could be heard.
You expect me to be thwarted by an ice attack?? He said as he lifted himself from the dirt. Ice is my element! your going to have to do better than that!
Here, let me demonstrate
Draches said turning his back on Del and walking a couple of paces.
Within seconds you begin to see light coming from Draches' hands and as he turns around you see what he was doing.
A Scimitar made of pure ice now was being held in the hand of Draches.
This, he said pointing at the scimitar with his free hand. This, is cool. No pun intended
Well, he said taking a fighting stance. Left arm outstretched, right arm raised above his head holding the scimitar pointing at Del, knees slightly bent, ready to spring, tail swishing in the dirt, wings pressed to his back. let's see what you've got in up-close-combat little mage!
BRING IT!

Close quarters combat? You must be joking, I'm not that good at that. But i will make up for that!
*Del reached out into thin air, and began to draw a weapon from shadows of people around the arena.*
Come to me! My Darkest Will!
*His solid black steel staff appeared in his hand right as he gripped the air. *
So your element is ice eh Draches? How could i forget.
*Del pointed his staff towards Draches as black flames began to circle around the staff's handle and move towards the glisening black crystal headpeice.*
I hope you can dodge. Now think fast!
*Del gave a small indication of his oncoming attack with a wink to his opponent. Blackfire immediatly blasted out from his staff with blinding ferocity. The heat of the stream of flames made the air waver in its wake.*

Draches had merely a moment to react as the torrent of black flames came at him. With his agility, Draches shot in the air barely avoiding the flames. Unfortunately his blade did not make it. It melted out of his hands as quickly as he had made it.
Still in the air Draches decided to take this match to the next level. He darted straight for Del fist raised, intending to land a punch. Fortunately for Del he was also quick, Draches missed and flew past, but this didn't stop Draches' attack, on his way past he wrapped his tail around Del's neck and drug him along for the ride. With his passenger in tow, Draches changed his direction and flew straight up a short distance and flung Del into the ground, causing a cloud of dust to rise up. How he hated sand arenas.
Ha!ha! now this is more like it!

Damn!
*shouted Del as he was carried off of the ground and flung back into the ground. He wiped blood away from him lip as he got up from the ground. Then very calmly he dusted off his robes. His eyes began to grow angry, then they went completely black as opals.*
Then i shall also take this to the next level.
*He slamed his staff straight into the ground and held his hands open on each side of his body. His feet left the ground and he began to hover slighly above the dirt. The shadow energy began to drip from his fingertips. He created a writhing ball of shadowfire in his fist. Then he flew straight at Draches with relatively quick speed with intent on striking him the direct power of the shadowball in a punch*

Always trying to outmatch my speed are you??
Draches merely sat in the air, flapping his wings every now and again to keep elevation. He waited until Del was close enough and moved to the left just enough to avoid him. Del wasn't about to be outdone in speed like that. He turned on a dime mid-air and landed his punch right in the back of Draches.
bastard he said falling from the sky slowly like goku getting beat in a battle to save the world.

*Del quickly shouted out an activation word*
Shadow!!!!
*His staff on the ground erupted black shadows immediatly everywhere in the arena. In a split second the entire arena was encompased in shadows. Draches fell straight into the shadows and dissapeared from sight. Del also floated down into the shadows, this was his territory now.*
Now your in my element. Prepare yourself old friend, this won't be easy with my shadowstriding.

Draches landed in the dirt just as the darkness encompased their small arena. Blackness covered all, blocking out the sun and a small portion of his sight.
Luckily for me I am a dragon, and night doesn't affect me that much. and luckily for me, you've blocked out the sun. Can you feel it? that's the temperature dropping. Not much now, but i'll fix that. So you may have the advantage, but i'm not out of this yet!
A dimmed light was visible for a second, but then disappeared back into the darkness.Now nothing could be seen to the normal human eye, and all that could be heard was the slight crunching of the dirt under feet and an odd swooshing noise, barely audible, that wasn't easily distinguishable.
Ahh. The cool is so nice. is it not? what's say we take it down even further?? his voice rang throughout the darkness.
and with that, the temperature began to drop lower, and lower with no resistance from the sun.

*Del understood the immediate drop in temperature. Though he had not expected Draches to continue dropping it. Del knew he was now working on a tight schedule. He had to try to wrap things up before it got to cold. His shadowstriding allowed him to be in just about any part of the ring at any time. And as a shadowmancer it was relatively easy to see into his own darkness.*
This technique is probably not something i should try on a friend, but i must know its posibilities. Torment!
*Del shoulted out the comand word for his new spell. Darkness beyond sight completely encompassed Draches.*
(just incase you dont know what this is Draches, just look at my spells in OOC, you decide what it does to you.)

Torment!

Draches heard it and immediately turned the source of the sound, but what he saw was not Del. It was his own twin brother. The source of all his hatred and fear.

No! how can this be? but... but i killed you!

Nothing.

This can't be happening! Where did you come from!

Still nothing.

No! I won't let you control me again! Die!

Draches closed his eyes to focus.

Blizzard!

Feirce winds began to blow, getting stronger and stronger. In the darkness you could see flashes of light, but it wasn't light. It was the relfections of the ice flying around with the wind. Which had also picked up the sand from the dirt floor, making it a blinding, ice infested hurricane forced wind.

Now you will know how much stronger i have become brother!
(okay, so i'm scared of my brother, then the thought of him pissed me off. react how you will. i.e. all of this could be in my head, nothing really happened... your choice.)

(Na Draches I'm afraid you got me there. The vision is real and cant hurt you since it is a shadow conjuration but the actions you take are also very real.)
*Del quickly used elven grace and his shadowstride to dodge most of the attack but he still was chilled greatly by the effects. He knew he needed to act fast while Draches was distracted. This hit could not miss or his fight might as well be over. Del summed once again the shadows from the depths of his power. In this environment of darkness this should be specialy potent. He held out his hands with his fingers spred and launched forth a mighty stream of shadowfire straight into Draches's direction with searing spead and accuracy.*

Elysian watched in wide-eyed wonder as her friend made to attack her. She could not believe this was happening in this way! Lessons were not supposed to involve ACTUAL danger.

The blade came down swiftly, it’s sharp cool edge now against Elysian’s throat.

ELYSIAN! Serenity yelled, quickly dropping the blade as she glared at her friend.

WHAT?!

You were supposed to defend yourself! That’s why we’re here. So you can learn to...fight. Remember?

Elysian was not liking this sudden burst of sarcasm from Serenity. That was her job.

Well sorry...I wasn’t ready. Honestly, I’ll try harder this time.

Setting a look of grim determination on her face, with her dagger in one hand and her staff in the other, she faced Serenity.

Again Serenity raised the blade into a graceful arc, but this time it was halted by Elysian’s dagger.

Serenity smiled, Elysian scowled.

What now?

Serenity spun and thrust her dagger lower, towards Elysian’s torso rather than her throat. The pull of her muscles as she extended her arm was familiar. The angle of her body was trained and came like a breath of air. Her knees bent and her boots gripped the worn down stone with ease as her arm swung forward, her dagger slicing the air in a practiced curve.

She watched as Elysian tried to meet the stroke, her dagger swinging through a needless amount of space before coming to an awkward defense. If Serenity were to complete the blow with Elysian facing her like she was, the Druid would be toppled. Serenity lowered her dagger.

<font color=purple>Stand like this... </font>She took up a defensive stance, her body turned to the side so her knife-hand was facing Elysian. Her feet were shoulder width apart and her knees and elbow were bent. She raised her eyebrow as Elysian gracelessly followed suit. <i>Something wasn’t right here...</i>

Serenity took a step back and watched as Elysian struggled to balance herself. A look of revelation crossed her features.

<font color=purple>Switch hands.</font>

Elysian looked at her as if the request was bizarre. Willing to learn, however, she did what she was told.

<font color=purple>Now turn and face me with your other side...</font> Indeed, her grip and stance were much firmer, as Serenity had expected. Elysian gave her a confused look; Serenity gazed back questioningly.

<font color=purple>Which hand do you hold your ink pen in when you put pen to paper?</font>

Elysian raised her right hand.

<font color=dark red>This one, just like everyone else.</font>

Serenity waved her dagger in the air as if to entice the thoughts to come.

<font color=purple>No, no, no, <i>before</i> you were taught by the Druids. Which hand was it?</font>

A look of revelation crossed Elysian’s face.

<font color=purple>Just as I thought. Now lets start again, with you holding the knife in that one.</font> Serenity pointed to Elysian’s left hand with her dagger and then took up a defensive position.

<font color=purple>Now, try and attack me...</font>

Draches, still dazed and confused by the torment attack, was having immense trouble seeing in the darkness. His senses were working however and he turned prepared to strike at whatever was there.
The last thing he saw was the face of his brother coming at him, teeth bared, red eyes glaring.

Darkness.

The arena was now as bright as the sky where Del and Draches had once fought. Now only a few small dust tornados billowed over the sand arena. The sound of yells and sparring persons could be heard in the distance, yet all was silent in this arena.

Draches slowly opened his eyes, raising his hand the block the sun until his eyes adjusted. When his vision cleared he raised his head to the sight of his friend standing over him, a slight smirk on his face.

I suppose this means you won?

yeah, being knocked unconcious kind of means you lose.

Oh wellhe said getting up, time to go back to the tavern for some drinks wouldn't you say?

Yeah mate, let's go

Oh serenity!! he yelled in a sweet, almost mocking voice, we're done! this arena is all yours!

And with that the duo trudged off towards the tavern. Talking and laughing about the events preceeding.
(haha, sorry i kinda wrapped it up del. but that's all she wrote folks! feel free to challenge me anyone. if you think you can handle it. mwahahahaha.)

Elysian stood as Serenity instructed, with her feet slightly apart and her dagger in her left hand. The only trouble she faced now was, what to do with it?

All she could think about was how much she missed her staff. There at least she would have had the faintest idea as to what would be most effective in this situation. She had always carried her dagger, but that had mostly been for the sense of security it offered.

Serenity, I don’t know what to do. Elysian said, trying to keep the desperation from her voice. It is already mid-morning and all I have learned is to keep my guard up and carry my dagger with my left hand. How should I attack you?

A soft wind was gently blowing some dark clouds over the previously very sunny arena. A light drizzel would soon start and Christian would have to hope that would not errupt into a full-blown rain storm as this would give Yahto something of an advantage by what Christian understood about the dragon.

He stepped further into the arena, back in his black full-body suit. He trudged through the dirt, inspecting the various rocks, old castle walls and even trees that had been dotted about the arena. Mainly around the edges he noted, become more sparse around the central areas and leaving a large circle in the centre of the arena with no obstacles whatsoever.

Christian took in a deep breath and stood just off centre of the arena waiting... from what he had seen, he would either have very little to do or insane amounts to put up with.

Yahto walked into the arena in his blue outfit with his hands on his daggers hilts, trying to appear casual and relaxed but in truth he was tense and excited. For this match he had chosen to use his human form. He quickly scanned his surroundings and noticed the dark clouds that were slowly but surely coming this way, he also spotted the warrior in the black body suit standing near the center of the arena. Yahto took another few seconds to study the arena more closely and try to memorize where all the larger pieces of rubble were and which would provide good cover, although he knew that from just standing in one place he hadn’t seen the entire arena, but he hoped that what he had seen would be enough. Then he walked across the dry dirt and around the rocks and trees in his way to the warrior and held out his hand in greeting with a grin on his face.

"Ah, you must be the renowned Christian Tourniquet. It’s nice to finally meet you. I am Yahto Nen as you probably already knew." With a glance to the sky and a wink he added, "Seems like a great day for a match, don’t you think?"

Yahto was very unsure of what the outcome of this match would be, he knew that he was older than Christian, so he should have more experience, but he knew that it truthfully didn’t matter if he was older because the only thing that would really matter was who had the faster reaction time and who was the best fighter. Yahto also knew that he could out perform any normal human, but this was no normal human…this was Christian Tourniquet. The Christian Tourniquet. This man was a legend. Yahto felt just like a wyrmling first realizing how to fly, he was so excited. This would be a real challenge, the first in over a hundred years.

<font color=orange>Okay, this time, trainer tips are going to appear in orange rather than red... the red/blue combination has a funny 3D effect that makes it hard to read. lol. Anyhoo, that's an awesome first post. You took heed of pretty much everything in the previous post, it's well paragraphed, literate and coherent... so for that reason, we're going to skip all the farting around I did in an attempt to improve Aspheir's general RPing and move onto your actual fighting skills.

Basically, read what your opponent puts carefully and make sure you don't do anything that their actions would explicitly stop you from doing. For example, Christian usually takes up a 'scorpion' style position when fighting with one sword across his body to deflect attacks from the side and front and with the other sword above his head to strike at the opponent in jabbing or sweeping movements. Now, if Christian is standing like that and you put that Yahto runs up and takes a head on swipe at Christian, then I'm going to have every authority to say that Christian easily knocks it aside and stabs you in the chest. While we're not going to be RPing that seriously, it's best to keep that in mind.

A good general tip is to set up your attack, defence and if realistically possible, even a counter-attack. Be weary though, if your opponent spots what you're doing and sees that you're in a good counter position (Say, after slashing with one dagger, you flicked it around in your hand so that it was facing Christian and then brought your other dagger across for defence, then the first dagger is in a good position to come back across after deflecting my attack with the second) and acts accordingly (Say, Christian spots the attacking dagger and knocks it back before attacking Yahto, leaving Yahto's torso open for a clear hit).

Anyway, we'll see how it goes and I'll give you a soft stream of tips as we go so as not to overload you...</font>


Christian moved to face Yahto, examining him quickly before taking his hand and shaking it firmly. He noted that Yahto was taller than he was, even in human form, and gave his hand an extra squeeze as if to point out that that wasn't going to give him any kind of advantage in this particular battle.

He was pleasantly surprised to feel an equal grip in return. This was going to be interesting.

<font color=blue>"Good to meet you too Yahto Nen."</font> Christian said, though his impenetrable demeanour made it difficult to tell if he was being sincere or merely courteous. <font color=blue>"And I'm glad you think so; nothing pushes the limits better than an in-form opponent. Let's see what I can teach you..."</font>

It began to drizzle lightly as Christian took a few steps back and whipped out both of his blades and gave them a playful circle in the moist air before slowly repeating the motion either side of his body, making himself into a miniature combine-harvester.

<font color=blue>"I probably don't need to tell you that attack is far easier than defence..."</font> Christian said, setting his light grey eyes on Yahto's and not breaking the gaze, as a fiendish focus dawned upon his features, <font color=blue>"But in formal matches, people often aren't sure how to go about making the first attack. For this reason, you must either quickly set up a solid defensive base with good countering opportunities,<font color=orange>(i.e.: Christian's 'scorpion' style)</font> or you must make the first move yourself and get the opponent onto the back pedal as quickly as possible."</font> Christian suggested, speeding up the whirling of his blades either side of him, occasionally lapping them in front of his body. His hands, fingers and arms moved with eerie ease as they perfectly manipulated exactly what Christian wanted to do.

<font color=blue>"So unless you have any questions, you should pick one before your opponent decides they want to make the first move while you're not really sure what you want to do."</font> Christian suggested, not breaking his focus for one moment... it was important to watch Yahto's eyes; by looking at your opponents eyes, not only can you predict where they intend to strike, but you can see the arms - which inevitably hold the weapons - and act accordingly.

Yahto took no notice of the rain as his full attention was on Christian’s every word and action.

"But in formal matches, people often aren't sure how to go about making the first attack. For this reason, you must either quickly set up a solid defensive base with good countering opportunities, or you must make the first move yourself and get the opponent onto the back pedal as quickly as possible."

Yahto watched as Christian twirled his blades faster and faster until they were nothing more than a blur. He drew his identical daggers as Christian said. "So unless you have any questions, you should pick one before your opponent decides they want to make the first move while you're not really sure what you want to do."

“Hesjing!â€￾ shouted Yahto as he pointed Nami at Christian. From the tip of his dagger shot a jet of high pressure water, as soon as the spell was complete Yahto started running towards Christian hoping that he would be able to catch him while he was still off balance from the sudden spell.

<font color=orange>Okay, there's not a lot you could've done here, so all things considered, this is still a good post despite the lack of length. My only concern is that about half of that post is actually what I said in the last one. Using another RPers speech as directly as that isn't against the rules, but it is a bit of a pet-peeve of mine. Plus, without that speech your post comes to about 96 words. The copied speech comes to about 80. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, but it looks a lot better if you don't have to do it. Alright? Cool. That aside, this post is good because you overcame the problem of the whirling swords, but didn't get ahead of yourself, simply setting up an attack. That's what you should do at these early stages until the fighters have gotten to know each other a bit. Incidently, reading profiles speeds this process up considerbly and you'll be able to advance more quickly upon an opponent who hasn't read yours.</font>



Christian, half-expecting a spell, was ready with Love and the silver blade whipped majestically across his body to block the shot of water. Christian felt little knock-back because Love's magical abilities allowed for unstoppable defensive might. But Christian was caught off-guard when the high pressured water dissapated against the sword and created a watery curtain...

Just as Christian regained his focus, Yahto came bursting through the curtain, but luckily for Christian Love was still held across his body and one upwards sweep coupled with a long, sloping lean knocked Yahto's daggers out of the way and moved Christian far enough out of the way for Yahto to narrowly miss him.

Christian, not being one to waste an oppertunity, saw a chance to use Yahto's momentum against him and quickly pushed a leg out into Yahto's path. He knew that Yahto would easily skip over it, however, and was also ready for this. Slamming both his palms against the ground, Christian used them to balance himself as he flung the same leg upwards, hoping to catch Yahto in the torso or legs, while at the same time allowing Christian to move into an excellent position to back-roll away from the large acrobat and take up a defensive position to survey what damage, if any he had managed to do.