Private/Closed Bootleg Brothers 6

[DevVoid]

Dracula
How bothersome this blue pest was turning out to be. His strikes were for naught as the thing rammed straight into his back, his cape thankfully absorbing the force of the hit while his body negated most of the damage that would have normally occurred were it his head that'd been hit instead, leaving Dracula kneeling on the ground as his foe had not the power to bury him deep in the asphalt. And just like that, the hedgehog quit the scene again, bounding over to their teammate who was.. turned into a vehicle. Alright then.

His ally called out to him to corner the pair, which Dracula certainly could comply for. However, just as Nerevarine had summoned her own flame elemental to aid in this fight, Dracula raised himself, standing up completely and reached an open palm into the sky, grabbing the severed pieces of concrete debris flying his way one by one just to stop them in motion, dropping all out of the air but the biggest chunk. With another, he snapped his fingers, erupting a pillar of malicious, twisted light from the biggest piece, summoning two Stone Roses atop of it.

The Vampire had then promptly flung the large support chunk over to his foes, both Man-Eating Plant facing its foes, the first firing off a barrage of bouncy, petrifying (which can be broken out of with movement so it is very temporary and not at all harmful) human skulls from its mouth-like bulb while the other sprayed the noxious fumes of poisonous gases at the pair from its mouth-like limb, both trying to knock the two out of the air. Dracula himself provided fire support, casting his Chaos Claws away and snapping another finger, shooting eight bolts of purple, demonic energy into the air that would hone in on Sonic and Nights, to rain down upon them in quick succession!

' Destruction Ray! '

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS & Sonic



A sudden influx of energy was felt within Sonic, their muscles feeling...a little harder to move his body? Not to the point where it was unbearable, but considerably annoying. Hope she didn't have a lot more of those, otherwise he might need to rethink his title of fastest thing alive.

"Hey, glitters." Sonic side eyed. "We are gonna bet pretty swamped soon. Let's pick up that pace!"

That's when Sonic slammed a button with an engine image plastered on it. Just then, a bronze motor jutted up from NiGHTS's hood along three exhaust pipes from either side of the boat. With a sudden burst of flame from the pipes, a roaring sound of the motor was heard as the boat took off. The speed was fast enough to outpace the Fireballs and human skull attacks. But as one of the rocky debris the man eating plants stood on rushed toward them, the plant snapped out, the maw of the creature nearly biting Sonic in two!

"Woah!"

Tettering over the edge of the speeding boat, he grunted before rolling into a ball. While his stamina was reduced, a homing attack wouldn't be too much to ask for! Bashing into one of the Debris the plant creature was atop, the debris flew back towards another, the pair crumbling and falling into the rippling river of lava below. All the while, Sonic landed back on the boat with a deep breath.

"Hang on tight, this one will be a doozey!"

NiGHTS-boat neared the cave entrance at the foot of the grand statue. As the motor began to glow red hot, it compressed back into the Jester as a wave of thrust shot out from all corners of the purple contraption. The wave crashes into the cave wall, causing a slew of cracks to spider out from it. One of them shot high up, breaking a large pillar that was connected to the volcanic rock face, falling like a thick sledgehammer on the flaming atronach, Irnane too if she didn't dodge in time.

The ride got bumpy as they slid into the newfound golden area, the road sliding up under them. A destruction rain attack hit right next to them as a parting gift, the boat transformation flying up, causing her to loose focus, NiGHTS reverting back to her normal form as Sonic returned on foot. NiGHTS wobbled in place, getting her bearings while Sonic slid to a stop shortly ahead.

"Phew...think they'll have a hard time following us from THAT one." NiGHTS sighed, wiping a bead of imaginary sweat from their forehead."

"Ha, you can say that again." Sonic shrugged. "but I'm wondering what's with the digs of this new zone?"

That was true. A new area also meant new dangers. The golden zone with the odd ancient aesthetic was sure to have some unknown features. Irnane seemed to understand the meaning behind this place, would that mean she would have an advantage if she were to enter after them?

 

[comic]

NEREVARINE​

They swerved and swooped their way toward the great boots of the numidium, the Nerevarine watching closely as she darted alongside them, hidden in the shadows as she floated quickly, though almost dreamlike, the light of the magma failing to touch her. The cause of this was a spell's effects given to her by drinking another potion; a Quality Potion of Shadow. In a sense, she had become shade itself.

Irnane observed the pair respond to the threats coming their way. The Flame Atronach was destroyed in the kerfuffle, not an unexpected outcome. Irnane was surprised it had remained active for as long as it had. Nevertheless, the dark elf slipping across the shadows to join her opponents.

This new area was primarily dwemer-based in origin. While many things from Irnane's world may give her home field advantage, the numidium and the technology surrounding it was almost as alien to the dark elf as it was to NiGHTS and Sonic. But there were a few small things that may give her an edge, if she played her cards correctly.

She blinked, watching the pair interact and acclimate. NiGHTS didn't seem to be here for any specific purpose - she probably found this entertaining, and that was as deep as it went. The nightmaren had an established relationship with the hedgehog, so his involvement had possibly aided in her current participation. They had been choosing opponents before the fights (unknowingly selecting their teammates). These two had a friendly, though competitive relationship, no doubt. They wouldn't pass up an opportunity to spar.

Sonic, on the other hand, was a brash character. While NiGHTS seemed more aloof, Sonic was far more grounded - both literally and figuratively. He didn't give off the impression of much surprise, nor of intimidation. He was experienced, despite seeming rather young. His cocky attitude was probably not just for show, Irnane felt. His bite could back his bark, so to speak. He seemed fairly rebellious, at a glance. An insurgent? No... he was too young and too carefree. A freedom fighter. His involvement here was likely not too different from NiGHTS. He didn't seem to be fighting in this tournament for any particular objective, not like Irnane and Dracula. It wasn't yet clear if that would be a boon or a crutch for them. On one team, you have people with nothing to lose, and nothing to gain. Present for fun. On the other, you have two people with many things to gain and many things to lose. Only time would tell if purpose and drive would be enough to trump the leisure, recreational pair.

Still bathed in shadow, courtesy of the potion, Irnane continued to observe, holding off on attacking just yet. She wanted to see if Dracula could follow them within. She wasn't going to initiate another encounter without him, anyway.​

 

[DevVoid]

The Dark Prince stood tall, his cold, cautious gaze watching the pair drive off. His frame hovered along silently, solely to watch their movements and keep track of their position, his levitation speeding up and slowing down accordingly. Then, not a moment later, another pillar of demonic light erupted beneath him, seemingly vaporizing him and promptly causing him to re-emerge mere inches above molten pits from another large, ascending pillar erupting from the magma beneath, facing the pair. Dracula's brow furrowed as he gave them an unimpressed glance.

" Had you really thought you could escape my sight with such a simple trick? "

His arms opened up, his cape lashing outward, two open palms facing one another. Between his hands, at waist level, a ball of dark energy quickly materialized and gathered up, resembling a darker, more malicious version of the very liquid that bubbled beneath him. In its rapid process of accumulation, the magma beneath was partially absorbed into it, allowing it even more of a build-up. It had now become a very large, very threatening ball of fire-infused darkness, like a large-scale version of his 'Dark Inferno', the magical orbs of infernal, demonic origin. And now it was launched right at the two, ready to squash and char the jester and the hedgehog, both at the same time!

 

[Fraseandchico]

Audrey Redheart
​

"Why you-!!!" At that moment her attempts of staying calm faltered, and the Hero wanted nothing more than to tear those who had shredded her pride once more to pieces. She raised up her sword, contemplating if it was worth killing the pair here as they walked away. She knew she could, as her rage bubbled she figured a clean hit and they would snap in half.
But the world was watching. Well, not literally, and perhaps not even figuratively, but there were people of importance watching, and maybe a few she could've personally cared about. She didn't care enough about those losers who insulted her to get reprimanded.

"Fine, I'll just kill you the second I can." She mumbled, lowering the blade as she huffed, looking around at the pairs talking. There did appear to be at least a couple who were seeming like friends...Why couldn't she have gotten an ally who would be like that instead of those BRATS! (She was, of course, unaware of her own irony). She turned away from the pairing that made up her ally, cursing them for messing up their team's 3 vs 2 situation. Although...now, she wasn't sure what to do.

Axe
​

"Shoot!" Axe cursed under his breath as Magolor just barely dodged, and the momentum caused Axe to dig his pickaxe into the ground once he finally landed with a grunt. The pickaxe was still extended slightly, but the force did cause it to push back together into it's full shape..Not that it mattered wholly as the sand twirled into a vortex, pulling both the kid and his weapon down. Then, he felt a tug on his satchel as he was pulling his weapon back the best he could. Suddenly, the strap around his satchel snapped!! Taken by Magolor, of course.
The snatch garnered a yelp of pain from Axe, like an elastic band snapping against his arms and neck, though he was rather fortunate his red stone was kept in hand for attacks rather than in the satchel.

Still, he had a more important issue to handle. He growled, the red stone clutched tight enough to dig into his skin slightly before he pulled the shield up, turned enough to act as a shovel!
The shoveled sand from this, pulled up by force alone, sky-rocketed, covering a wide area around Magolor and threatening to coat him with the sand. As he brought back to the ground, pulling away from the vortex, he huffed for a moment, before turning towards Grazie. He was about to call out to her, a suggestion to use the sand over Magolor to beat him, but saw...well, he figured she was busy. Instead, he had to focus down Magolor again, and had an idea. He dug his shovel into the sand, the dug up hard, sending the sand flying! And he did this over and over, as if trying to cover Magolor, and weigh him down!

Masaru Takahara
​

Despite Taskmaster's closeness, Masaru did not waver - For any physical failings he was experiencing, a mental one he had not. Still, he got the message, and sighed.
"On second thoughts, I'll just forfeit then." He decided, raising a hand in surrender. "Good job catching me off guard with that one, little guy!" He added as a little bit of praise to Shaymin.

WINNERS: Aegislash and Shaymin!

The Warlock
​

"Finally." Snarled the Warlock as he watched the match between Dart and Mudkip end. Turns out, his 'meditation' was easily broken as he stood up, and walked towards his chipper ally.
"That took you long enough," He said to Dart, appearing on a line between courteous and crude, and ignoring the amphibian on the floor as it walked away. "With that kind of ability you wield, I am afraid I would have to carry this 'team' if that is how the tournament were to carry on." He sharpely reprimanded his ally before turning to walk away slowly, his believed superiority clear. Despite his own defeat, as it were.

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


Oh?

A flaming ball was shot their way, presumably from Dracula, who gave an ominous message to the pair. NiGHTS however seemed unimpressed.

"Huh. Thought with all that Bravado there would be something a bit more threatening."

After that, NiGHTS bounded ahead, putting her palm out. When the ball hit, a pulse was seen coming from the Jester's hand, flashing across the ball for a split second. That's when NiGHTS began to revolve vertically around the ball, having their hand firmly placed on it like a solid surface. It's like it had become a solid, weightless object. After it revolved 180° degrees, NiGHTS shot it forward, the ball resuming its original properties and flying towards Dracula. If it missed, it would simply hit and and explode on the pillar, causing a bit plume of lava to erupt from the impact site.



Rinku


Snapping his fingers at what he presumed to be the waitress, he closed his eyes and gestures with his hand.

"I'd like cinnamon toast sticks, extra cinnamon and sugar, and add Syrup."

After he placed his order, another match ended. The eye sword and the shrub hedgehog just won. Must mean the couple of humans they just fought probably weren't worth considering as obstacles. But at least after the first couple rounds of this, the chaff should be removed, and only the fun ones would remain.

 

[comic]

AEGISLASH​

T’was a simple conclusion, the Master of Tasks convincing the now feeble Masaru to give in to their bitter defeat.

You hold honour, Masaru, the Royal Sword informed his late opponent. Unlike your ally. May your next bout be in your favor.

The world had already begun to fade into a white void, dissipating like dust in the wind, before it overwhelmed the two pairs…

And they were returned to the leisure hall. Aegislash now turned his eye down toward Shaymin. Valiant duel, Shaymin! I am impressed.
​

DART​

“Aw, don’t worry about it!” Dart chuckled, falling into step beside the Warlock before he could retreat fully, the mercenary not quite catching on the social cue. “I was tryna go easy on him. Didn’t feel right to go all out on such a cute little guy. But don’t worry, this next fight? I’ll put in some effort, ha ha!”

He rubbed the back of his neck, before his gaze landed on the restaurant. “Did you try one of their irregular burgers? Good stuff!” The dragoon patted his armored stomach.​

 

[Captain Cardboard]

Weevil Underwood

"Yes, sir!" Weevil said, giving MODOK a smart salute. The insect duelist turned and dashed away from MODOK. A very, very easy way to disengage from the talking head. What he had found out about MODOK just from their short conversation would be good enough for now. MODOK was barely paying any attention to him while Weevil was talking directly at him, he wouldn't have any success in trying to bait the mastermind into attacking. MODOK clearly didn't see Weevil as even a remote threat. Something that Weevil at the moment was okay with. Let's see who else there was to mess with.

As Weevil walked through the plaza, he overheard another interesting conversation. A pair of psychotic looking individuals, arguing with a black haired girl wearing a red scarf over their lost match. Weevil stuck his hands in his pockets, looking from Troy and Allison to Audrey.
"Wow. They're talking to you like that, and that's all you're going to respond with?" Weevil asked Audrey with a grin.

 

[DevVoid]

Dracula
His foe bounded his gigantic Dark Inferno ball back at him, which was found to have Dracule be equally as unimpressed. Who was this creature to talk about threatening with such a simple counter? Really now, this was just quite pathetic. Dracula raised one hand, aimed flat at his returned fire. The other was held to the side, his wrist twisting so his index finger moved in a rounded motion, drawing up a magical circle.

As his held out hand pushed the first Inferno back with one hand, Dracula now opened his arms and put focus into his magical circle. A second one opened up diagonally up and behind the pair, through which Dracula would use his mastery of fire magic to motion the bubbling lava beneath him into the first circle, resulting in the second raining the molten magma down like a shower of unending heat down at the two, slowly inching the circle closer to create a wall of lava that would end up trapping the two between both attacks!

Mr. Miracle
His foe was nowhere to be seen, his attack having whipped up a large cloud of sand! With his fins, he opened up a small space to witness the sand he had just forced away to rapidly approach and merge onto his location! Unfortunately for his foe, this also meant that he'd be given yet another advantage - there was nobody to witness what would happen within this imprisoning sand shell. Hagen transmorphed himself into a cockroach quickly to minimize his size, using it to his advantage and make it out of there before he'd get crushed.

The miraculous magician found himself up in the clouds, his human shape quickly morphing back into its usual form. Now, he had to use the element of surprise while he still had it. And surprise his foe he would. Terry decided that, since his showman finish didn't pull through, he'd have to take to the comedic route. Putting a hand behind his back and cape, Mr. Miracle's arm twitched and sagged for a moment as he pulled a heavy object. A large, heavy object-.. no. A comically large, heavy object, made purely out of different metals so that it could be weaponized and used like a sledgehammer! As Mr. Miracle descended from the sky, ready to bash his foe over the head with his weapon, he uttered only final phrase to bring the most pure, utmost levels of confusion, shock and awe to his opponent.

" HEY GRAZIE CAN I GET SOME ICE CREAM?! "

Shaymin
The battle was over, their foes had given up! The little Gratitude Pokémon bounced around mid-air, celebrating to itself. However, a chord of sadness struck it when it felt bad for having had to pull out such a dirty trick on his foe. Hopefully, a move like that won't stop them from becoming friends! The Grass-Type signalled a line of thought over to Masaru as a frown was briefly cast on its face, a saddened look glancing over to the fighter.

" I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to play dirty, I.. thought you'd be able to resist it. "

Shaymin now glanced over to his ally, the talkin sword, as his worries were briefly washed away and a smile was flashed at the steel-type for being complimented, which was then swapped out for a confident look as the Pokémon now spoke up in its native tongue instead, seeing how they were both the same species.

" Shay! Min min, Shaymin! "

' Thanks! You did good yourself! '

 

[Gamingfan]

Ryuji
"You bet! But they all have different personas. That's, uh, what we call them." Ryuji explained.
"They're all kickass, but our leader's the coolest because he can use tons of them!"
Ryuji was ready to gush about his best friend, before Dagr suddenly burst in the store with a loud announcement. It was disrupting, but he had to admit she had style.
Nott suddenly straightened, and the sisters made eye contact. They exchanged expressions, as if having a silent conversation. Ryuji looked back and forth between them, unsure of what kind it was. Given Dagr's scowl and Nott's frown, it didn't look nice.
Weird. Didn't Nott get all Makoto over her sister before?
Once Dagr walked away and Nott looked back at the bewildered phantom thief, he spoke up.
"Uh, what was that?" he asked jabbing a thumb towards Dagr. "I thought you two would be happy to see each other, y'know?"


Magolor
Snap!
All according to plan, the satchel straps snapped. If Grazie wanted to give Axe space, Magolor certainly gave him it, surging away as the sand tendrils attempted to pierce him. Once he was a presumably safe distance, Magolor opened the satchel, and what he saw disappointed him. Just some shiny rocks, a firecracker and a bottle.
Something rained over the mage. Magolor glanced up, only be pushed down by a bunch of sand.
"What the-" Magolor glanced again, this time catching sight of Axe shoveling sand over him like some shovel wielding warrior!
Hey wait. That's not supposed to happen yet.
"Trying to ground me again?" asked Magolor. Rhetorically, of course. "You need to learn you lesson!"
He pulled his hand out of the satchel and created a rune with it. Magolor enlarged it, then threw it like a boomerang. It magically picked up the sand on his body, then did the same to the sand Axe shoveled, swirling it around until it formed into a ball of sand that grew steadily bigger as it fell over Axe, aiming to burying him with his own sand!
That wasn't all, however. Magolor sneakily snuck his firecracker into the middle of the rune, where it remained hidden by the sand ball until it landed. It detonated and sent sand every which way, either catching Axe if he avoided the sand ball, or adding extra damage if he was caught by it!

" HEY GRAZIE CAN I GET SOME ICE CREAM?! "

Magolor looked towards Miracle and was greeted with the odd sight of a comically large spoon being slammed over Grazie.
"Wh-" Magolor paused, before shrugging.
"Okay then."
Lucario
Dart came out, holding the mudkip. Despite the fight, his aura read much differently than most. The man was simply here for fun and seemed to hold no real contempt for them. The complete opposite of the Gardevoir really.
The Mudkip hopped off Dart's arms and walked towards Lucario, holding its head in shame. The Lucario's normally stoic eyes softened slightly as he got on one knee to face the water starter face to face. He shook his head at the apology.
"No, I should apologize." He spoke. "I lost control and cost us the match. You fought valiantly."
Suddenly, Gardevior turned away, irritated once again. Even as she walked away, Lucario figured he'd still respond to her question.
"Your aura was difficult to ignore." He answered telepathically, using as few words as possible. "And well, I wanted to talk to a another pokemon."
Speaking of which. Lucario them faced the mudkip.
"Dart speaks the truth. You carry a lot of potential."


Alter Knight
Alter Knight ignored Jevil's taunts. He was annoying, but she's dealt with worse. That said, she agreed with Kassandra.
"Yeah." she nodded. "I can weaken his resistance to my element with my arrows, but it won't last long."
They barely finished the exchange before Jevil went on the offensive, sending tornadoes of projectiles over the duo. Kassandra opted to agility, but Alter Knight went for a more aggressive approach. She put her shield on her back and held Libera in both hands, The sword suddenly charged with lightning, and doubled in size, becoming a massive two-hander that Alter knight slammed into the floor, releasing a shockwave powerful enough to interrupt Jevil's tornados and send the projectiles flying away!
Alter Knight swung the weapon a few more times, sending wide, sweeping energy slashes towards the jester!

 

[Captain Cardboard]

Nótt

The princess chuckled, but there was no happiness behind it.
"Ah, yes. That." Nótt said. "Unfortunately, my sister and I... We do not have the best relationship. It is a complicated affair."
As much as she wanted to, Nótt did not look back to her sister. Instead, she glanced out the nearby window at the other competitors in the arena. She could see Troy and Allison arguing with Audrey from here. It was getting rather heated.
"It is best this way, that she keeps her distance from me." Nótt said to Ryuji. "In addition, I doubt she would believe me if I tried to bridge the gap myself."

Nótt offered Ryuji a small smile.
"My apologies. We have only just met, and I am burdening you with family matters." Nótt said.

 

[Captain Pokémon]

Sonic the Hedgehog​

The hedgehog raised an eyebrow slightly as a large blob of lava was volleyed his way, though NiGHTS had him covered, whacking the lava back like a tennis ball. The air rippled around the magma ball as it soared through the air back towards the vampire. Responding in kind, Dracula knocked the ball back once more while also conjuring a magical circle with his free hand, magma flowing into it as another magic circle appeared in the air behind the Dream Team.

“Hup!” NiGHTS whacked the ball of magma back again, directing it towards the ceiling of the cave entrance that Dracula had come through. Sonic’s eyes went back and forth between Dracula and his teammate as they played lava tennis, though he eventually regained his focus as magma rain started to come through the circle that had appeared above them. Sonic crossed his arms and rolled his eyes before abruptly moving from his standing position, creating a shockwave from his takeoff that disrupted the course of some of the magma rain to hopefully take some heat off of his teammate. A blue blur dashed across the walls of the golden cavern, an uncountable amount of footsteps creating a steady stream of thumps before the hedgehog jumped up and landed in an eye-shaped gap in the wall.

Faking a yawn, Sonic leaned back and stretched his arms behind his head, closing his eyes with a bored expression on his face. “You sure you know how a fight works?” He called down to Dracula from the high ground, obviously unphased by all the bravado.

Inkling “Blue”​

“Heh, sweet!” Blue slid into the seat across from Pit with a slight jump in his step as the angel welcomed him into the booth with surprisingly open arms, strangely excited to see him and even recognizing his species. Settling into the booth, the squid kid put his hands on his knees and fidgeted under the table a bit before making conversation.

”So, you know what inklings are? Sounded like you recognized me when I walked over here.” Blue asked the angel boy as he tilted his head to the side, his tied-up tentacles leaning to the side with him. Everybody else here seemed pretty alien to the Inkling, and they felt the same way about him, but this guy seemed to know what Blue was.

Slash​

”Sla aegi, slash!”

“Ha ha, thank you, Shaymin! Our opponents were no match for our combined strength!” Slash spoke aloud in the native pokémon language to his friend, his eye brightening up a bit with joy as he spoke to the gratitude pokemon. Hovering as low as possible to be more level with Shaymin, the Aegislash spoke up once more. “I must say, your power is great for one so small. You remind me of another small warrior I once knew! He wasn’t as talkative, however.“ The Royal sword commented, thinking back to Shroom, one of his most trusted allies from events of the past, along with Fjorrd.

Oh, how Slash missed those two…

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


"Leaving your friend behind to play with us, eh?" The jester spoke, putting their hands on their hips. "Okay then Drac, give me all you got!"

NiGHTS dashed forwards, whirling towards Dracula directly. Their body spun into a drill drive, a familiar move from earlier as they dashed to give a direct blow to the face. If they somehow missed, they would ping and bang from the collapsed cave walls, ricocheting back at Drac again and again!

 

[comic]

NEREVARINE​

As it turned out, Vlad was not easy to leave behind. A pillar of flames re-introduced him in an intense ferocity. Irnane found herself subtly captivated by his display. He truly was something interesting. That wasn't to discount their opponents, however, NiGHTS reacting quickly to the attack, reflecting it. Then it was bounced back, like this was a recreational game. And yet again, another wack. Dracula attempted to supercede this by transmitting a portal to befall magma upon the opponents, but Sonic used his speed to push the air in their favor, knocking it back. It didn't end the assault of magma, but Sonic and NiGHTS had both already moved out of the way. Now, NiGHTS went for the vampire.

Seeing this as the opportune moment, Irnane moved into action. She was still mostly made of shadow thanks to the potion, and its effects would persist even if she engaged in combat. Alongside that, her feather magic had yet to dissipate as well. If her earlier magicka had done its work, Sonic would have lessened stamina now, and with his maximum health pool diminished, she just needed to knock him below that threshold, preventing him from attaining his full potential for the remainder of the fight.

This next bit barely took any magicka to perform, as Irnane simply cast out a spatial spell to tap the ground behind Sonic, enough to send a microvibration that he could feel. This would hopefully make him turn. Irnane relied on Sonic expecting her to strike from behind, so rather than using the distraction to do as much (an obvious maneuver in her opinion), she would instead seemingly swipe upward from Sonic's own shadow, appearing to emerge from the earth as mere discrepancies in the air, aiming to cleave into the hedgehog with the Fang of Haynekhtnamet, a shortblade. It was enchanted to bypass armor, which wasn't a useful enchantment against the unarmored Sonic, but Irnane was using it more for speed than she was for any other reason. While she would never be able to run as fast as Sonic, she'd seen him fight. She could keep up with his combat speed and then some when using her shortblade, her most rapid form of combat.

Even if he tried to run to create distance, he would not be allowed to go much further. After all, how can you outrun your shadow? Her feather spell helped her out with this scenario, as she could remain hitched to his shadow, and keep the distance between them exceedingly short, forcing Sonic to confront her or fail. With the opponents swapped now, Irnane decided it was about time to start treating this like an actual battle instead of an educational lesson, hurling three ebony throwing stars from her free hand toward the hedgehog. The metals at Irnane's ranged disposal all had their purposes. The iron arrows she'd been using were typical, simple constructs made for typical, simple uses. Steel arrows were powerful, but heavier. They were better for mid-range, and could pierce many armors that iron arrows couldn't. Silver arrows were even heavier, and even stronger. The toughest arrows she had, they could puncture some of the toughest armors from Tamriel with little struggle, but their weight made them better for close quarters assassinations from the shadows. While the bow's enchantment helped carry her arrows a greater distance, the weight of silver arrows was simply too profound and could not be held up forever. Then there were shard arrows, akin to iron arrows but with an enchantment. Each arrow fired would have a random outcome of either magically setting what they struck ablaze, embedding the target in a tomb of ice, or exploding on contact with force. Spark arrows that electrocuted those they came in contact with. And finally viper arrows, that magically poisoned those they struck.

But all of those paled to the material of ebony. It was lighter than iron arrows, more precise than steel arrows, stronger than silver arrows. The ebony throwing stars could cut through dwemer steel like butter. That is what Sonic now faced as the throwing stars came for him, following the upwards slash from Irnane, all while she cast a spell, a shimmer of red slipping over her form for a moment. Exhausting Touch. If she touched Sonic, or he touched her, his stamina would be transferred to her every time contact was made, even if it was through her blade. She was prodding into his reserves of stamina, seeking a limit, even if only to weaken his speed a hair. Sometimes, a hair was all you needed to overcome a tricky foe.​

 

[DevVoid]

The giant ball of magma and dark energy exploded on impact with the ceiling of the cave, collapsing the entrance and causing Vlad to raise his cape protectively in front of himself to shield him against it. That is when the purple jester lashed out against him, diving towards him. Really, such a simple attack? Now it was him who was unimpressed.

" Is that all you are able to muster? Playing such simple games will only spell your doom. "

Dracula stood, a grip on his cape, his magic portals having since been evaporized. When NiGHTS came close enough, he lashed his cape at them as it would automatically form into a sharp, bat-like wing to slice at the diving creature every time it tried to come close for an attack!

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


Ting! Pang! Shing!

The purple nightmaren clashed with the sharp cape, the two surfaces acting as harsh, nearly metallic substances that kept repelling on another. Several times this happened, neither making any headway in actually defeating their foe.

Ah screw, that wing cape won't let me get through. Hm, well that just won't do. If he won't let me get in for a straight shot, I'll just take a detour!

After the next rebound, NiGHTS was bounded off of the bat wing's slash, using that momentum to shoot in a half circle around Dracula: completing a paraloop! Since Drac was busy with this duck-duck-goose game, they surely wouldn't expect such a deviation, much less how to avoid it in time!

The Paraloop would gives some intense gravitational force, a gateway appearing underneath Dracula. The portal would slowly send him through, almost like quicksand, painfully dragging on: meaning plenty of time for an exposed weakness! The gateway exit appeared just above a rocky gorge, plastered to the ceiling. It would take him about six seconds total to leave the gateway.

"Aha! An opening!"

NiGHTS swung straight up, pointing their head down to face Dracula. Spinning their body like a drill, they spun in place, picking up more and more of a rotation, more and more speed. Then in a flash of movement, they would shoot down vertically to Dracula, drilling down with piercing pressure, working alongside the intense gravitational forces at play

 

[Psymallard]

Taskmaster
"Good call."

Masaru's tap-out was a welcome surprise. It didn't forgive his shortcomings, but it was a start. His grudge was hardly against the world's strongest man specifically, but against the entire team-up thing in general. Taskmaster worked alone.

They walked out of the gate, and the assassin could sense the crowd's admiration and praise aimed towards the Pokémon, while they could care less about the losers. Good. Being cloaked in obscurity was a good position for the super-soldier to be in, perhaps even more useful than the cushion of a loser's bracket. What wasn't beneficial was the length of time that battle had taken. All but three fights had ended by that time, leaving the mercenary less time to study less future opponents- but he stalked into the shadow of a shop and began to watch what he could.

Mudkip
"Dart speaks the truth. You carry a lot of potential."

The mud fish looked up and his jaw hung open from surprise. A compliment wasn't something he'd expected after that loss, especially from such a strong Pokémon! He tilted his head to study his ally's face for insincerity, but he found none, and the Mudkip beamed. He had to struggle to contain his smile for a more determined expression. The water-type nodded.

"Mud! Mudkip mudkip'kip mud mudkip!" [Right! I'll keep trying to get better!]

Beam
Dagr questioned Beam's reclusion, but he didn't answer her. He averted her gaze, instead sinking deeper in the ground to blow bubbles in the floor.

-

Meanwhile, the waiter jot down Rinku's order before he turned to the princess.

"...And for the lady?"

Jevil
Following the jester's maelstrom of edged projectiles, a trio of blade beams to blast into the darkner's body. This finally knocked the maniac out of the air. He ricocheted off a wall and bounced onto the ground with a squeak. He lay there for a moment, the yellow gleam gone from his eyes.

"Pesky, pesky, you're too good at this game!
I'll turn it up a notch; then we shall see who's lame!"

Jevil zipped into the air, and began to dance even faster than before. Translucent illusory clones sprung from the original before fading into nothingness. A small whirlwind kicked up; dust, small pieces of debris, picked up to outline a circular arena. Inside the outline, three rings of 2d, chibified winged horses and rubber ducks appeared. They immediately began revolving around an invisible center point in alternating directions. The whirlwind went counterclockwise, the outpost carousel ring went clockwise, the middle ring counterclockwise and the inner ring- you guessed it- clockwise. The two-dimensional shapes were expectedly sharp, and with an unstoppable momentum, they would cleave through anything in their bobbing path.

This wasn't the end of it, though. Jevil had learned throughout the game- he wouldn't leave the girls with an attack so simple! Four scythes slid from behind Jevil, soaring to the corners of the map before they came back around comparably to boomerangs. The acolyte of chaos disappeared as the scythes rocketed from the revolving dust cloud, all four weapons threading through the rings in a reckless way. They would rip through any targets they could find with extreme vigor, yet these were still to place even more pressure on the warriors, however deadly they were. Jevil appeared and rode behind a rubber duck, but slipped out to attack Kassandra from behind with a scythe of his very own. He aimed to split the Greek warrior's torso in half with his supernaturally sharp hooked weapon; Jevil saved his mad cackling for after the weapon was swung.

 

[Captain Cardboard]

Dagr

Instead of responding, Beam just ignored her. Dagr frowned. That sucked, he had been so much fun to fight. But now the shark demon was giving her the cold shoulder. And he was... blowing bubbles from the ground?
"Whoa." Dagr said. The Princess leaned further under the table, touching one of the bubbles. It felt like the tile floor, but popped when she touched it like a normal bubble. "Funky."

"... And for the lady?" The waiter asked. Dagr straightened up, hitting her head on the bottom of the table as she did so.
"OW!" Dagr rubbed the back of her head, looking over the menu. "I dunno. Something big and meaty, I guess. And a bunch of mead too. Oh, and..."

Dagr pointed over to where Nótt was sitting.
"Put this all on my sister's tab, you got it?" Dagr asked the waiter, grinning. "Heh heh!"

 

[ArmedBlue]

Grazie
​

"That oughta shut ya up."

The sand cloud converged on Miracle's position, surely putting an end to his magic act. Summoning her shovel staff once more, Grazie rested her body weight on it, taking a moment to catch her breath after that intense bout. With that guy down, she'd be able to work with Axe to take out Magolor-

"HEY GRAZIE CAN I GET SOME ICE CREAM?!"

"W-Wha?!"

Her eyes glanced upward to witness the ridiculous sight of a comically oversized spoon heading right for her. In a panic, Grazie stumbled backwards, tripping on her staff before she quickly swung it up as she fell. In an instant, a large stream of sand shot up from below, acting as an incredibly sharp, pointy pillar that would rise up to stab through both Miracle and his hilariously large weapon, the Adept's frantic maneuver quite possibly finishing her opponent off!​

Pit
​

"I've uh, got some experience with this multiverse tournament stuff," Pit replied, casually leaning back in his seat, arms crossed behind his head. "I'm pretty good friends with another Inking I met kinda recently, so I know a fair bit about you guys. First time I've seen one with blue ink, though. Hers was orange."

The angel glanced back at the menu for a moment, squinting as his brain slowly pieced together the syllables to the item "Unending Monotony Burger". Thank goodness he'd started taking reading lessons.

"Oh yeah, are you also from Inkopolis Square? Or do you come from some other, less popular place?"​

Gunvolt
​

A different Copen...

That was an interesting thought. The Azure Striker had never considered it, but given the existence of a multiverse, alternate timelines and the like could likely be a thing too. Infinite possibilities, worlds like his going through both far worse and far better things...

It was a little overwhelming, but Gunvolt managed to stay level-headed.

"You're probably right. I'm glad he managed to overcome his issues in that world," he replied with a chuckle, relaxing a bit. "Maybe the one I know isn't too far gone then." His gaze shifted back to the screen displaying the fights, another one coming to a close.

Three left.​

 

[DevVoid]

Dracula
Dracula kept swiping away at NiGHTS, getting more and more bored with each swipe. For being so pompous, his foe really didn't put up much of a challenge. Rolling his eyes, he could see the jester start moving differently, now flying around him instead. Gravity begun bearing down on him, trying to push him into a portal. Unfortunately for his opponent, Dracula already figured that they wanted him to go through. As NiGHTS came crashing down onto his person, the Vampire King's whole body appeared to evaporate, becoming a big body of mist, likely tricking his opponent to go flying through their own paraloop. Even assuming it didn't, Dracula moved his own misty body above his enemy before re-appearing, performing a downwards kick with both legs (think Ganondorf's Dair) in order to completely push his foe in and give him some time to assist his ally while the jester would likely be disoriented.

Mr. Miracle
Noticing the staff thrown up at him, Miracle could sense something was about to happen and reflexively dropped the spoon, swapping out for a defensive position by.. covering his face and floating up. The spike that promptly shot up pierced through his chest, but it failed to impale him completely, still creating a decently-large hole in his chest. As it stood right now through, the adrenaline rushing through his body was making him fail to really care about the hole for now as he simply applied his hand to it, his glove slowly staining red as it soaked in the blood.

Hagen looked on in shock as his greatest weaponized prop was cut in two and destroyed. He stood there, in the air, looking on as if time were slowed, watching as his best prop was just tossed away like trash, falling into the writhing sands below. That's it. He tried to end things the fashionable way.. He tried to end things the comedical way.. but if Grazie was gonna be THIS difficult, he had to pull out all stops. A look of anger fashioned itself onto his face (which was mostly acted, as he wasn't THAT mad about it but he still had to make things look cool), his angered gaze landing on Grazie.

" You.. YOU... DESTROYED... MY SPOON!! "

Terry's frame lit up in a prismatic light, tons more magical energy gathering around him like it never had been in this fight before, as if he was gathering up power like a certain alien race. And just like the franchise that certain alien race belonged to, he even copied the movements of a famous technique from the franchise, putting his arms to his side, a ball of magic gathering between both.

" YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE, EVILDOER! "

The ball started growing in size as more magical energy gathered around him. Much like the technique he was copying, Miracle started chanting not the same dialogue, but some comedic words in the same fashion, still putting his on flair even if he decided to seriously end things. Maybe someone in the lobby would recognize what he was doing, assuming one of them even watched the same show.

" PLEASE-DON'T-SUE-ME...! "

Mr. Miracle thrust his arms forward, putting his wrist against one another and jabbing the ball of magical energy, which had now become pretty massive, towards Grazie. This ball dispersed, becoming a massive beam that crackled and fizzled little sparks about as it quickly descended onto the sandcaster, ready to obliterate her and finally end this part of the battle once and for all as it was released with one confusing warcry!

" TOEI! "

 

[comic]

KASSANDRA​

Alter Knight's attack proved useful - and appeared to make Jevil feel something. Was it all prior hits being ineffective upon him? Or did it mean the fight was starting to catch up with him? Judging from her observations of the jester in the past, she elected it to be the ladder. Tightening the shield strap around her forearm, the misthios narrowed her eyes behind the Helmet of Ares as Jevil managed to get himself back up, his jovial nature displaying a notable dent.

His next attack came as a pattern, Kassandra quickly deducing what it was (it was a fairly simple construct). The visage of these new projectiles took the shape of pegasi and ducklings, though far from being life-like, and their dimensions were limited. The open space was giving Jevil too many advantages. Time to make it liminal.

"Into the Akropolis," Kassandra urged Alter Knight. Hopefully her self-appointed ally would catch on to the advantage the Akropolis could bring. As the whirlwind of attacks came about, Kassandra slipped past the marble pillars at the front of Akropolis, already nominally close over the course of most of the fight. As Jevil sent out his scythes, the misthios used the cover of the building to her advantage. 2-dimensional things might have been harder to hit, and sharper than most, but pitting them against multiple 3-dimensional barriers did not result in those projectiles being unstoppable. They cut into the pillars and the walls, slicing deep before being rendered useless. However, it was the sheer amount of these projectiles that proved capable in overcoming their 2-dimensional limitations. With enough hitting the same spots, they began to cleave through the pillars and the walls, leaving deep gashes at first, before making more prominent damage to the foundation.

The Shield of Alexander was tougher than the marble and stone, the projectiles the did reach Kassandra knocked aside as she backed deeper into the Akropolis. The problem came in the scythes, as they were of a more impressive caliber. Carving their way through virtually all of the imposed barriers before them, Kassandra found one closing in on her, and knocked it aside. For a moment, the scythe was lodged in her shield, leaving a wound in the legendary item, before it yanked itself away to continue a more unpredictable path relative to the other projectiles.

Had Jevil not disappeared, Kassandra would have enacted a counter-offensive. This left her to focus on the simple matter of self-preservation, using the shield and her trident to bat away any incoming projectiles. The fact none of them were honing in on her made this much easier than otherwise. The nature of this simple, yet simultaneously complex attack, had Kassandra on her toes, turning this way and that to respond to anything, turning her left shoulder toward certain projectiles for them to land against the Fleece of Jason should they edge past her other defenses. Her third charge had built.

It was this situational awareness that allowed the spartan to catch a glimpse of Jevil as the Akropolis was torn up around them. He swooped in with an attempted flank, swinging his personal scythe for an attack. Kassandra responded by spinning into his attack, simultaneously trying to block the strike while continuing what she'd already been doing. She was forced to let one of the projectiles cut across her bicep, leaving a deep gash that immediately began to ooze crimson. The scythe had stopped, lodged several inches into the side of the Shield of Alexander, a part of the blade cutting into the side of the misthios, almost perfectly in the gap of her armor.

Her teeth grit as she powered through the pain, far from inexperienced in this kind of damage, the spartan used her free shield hand to grab ahold of the devil's knife's handle, keeping the blade lodged into the shield and her side, attempting to prevent Jevil from moving it as the trident of poseidon was stabbed forward simultaneously at the jester's face, aiming to pierce his skull with the three spokes. At the same time, a powerful beam of cutting water fired from the trident's tip, generated from its godly properties. Even if the water and the stab missed, failing to carve Jevil a hole through his head, the introduced element of water would begin to spin around them, washing up more of the projectiles into its embrace to then converge on the darkner, using his own attack against him.
​

MASTER HAND​

(Co-Written w/ Shen)​

​

"Huh..." Master Hand looked on at the finished fights. "What an odd number of leaving contestants. Last thing I want is an awkward odd one out round that'll haunt the rest of the loser's bracket."

Turning to the rest of the characters in the winner's circle, he waggled his index finger in the air before them.

"Excuse me, gotta do my job. Have fun here while I'm gone."

Snapping his fingers, he warped out of the booth and into the plaza, hovering high up to where he could look out at the crowd, a good half of them returned to the plaza from their fight watching.

"Ahem. It seems we now have an opening this early. Would anybody like the chance to participate in this tourney? Bare in mind, you will be starting with a handicap being in the loser's bracket-"

The crowd stands that surrounded the exterior of the lobby, high above, suddenly broke before Master Hand had fully concluded his sentence, an armored man with a graying beard leaping over the edge of the stands, and dropping feet first into the lobby.

"I volunteer as tribute!" Fjorrd the Crusher said loudly, the long drop evidently not bothering him as he placed his hands on his hips, and proceeded to bellow out jovial laughter. "Now who is my lucky opponent?"

Without missing a beat, the floating hand curled into a fist, before he turned and stuck a finger out, pointing toward Pit.

Fjorrd turned toward the bracket screen, singling out the kid angel, before he looked back at the boy. "Ho, Pit!" He waved toward him. "Join me in meeting! And perhaps meet my close friend, as well!" Fjorrd gestured toward the Royal Sword Pokémon.​

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


"Huh? Mist?"

NiGHTS was already dedicated though, flying far past where Dracula originally was and into their own portal. Shredding through the gateway rather quick, the jester was shot out the other side a couple seconds later, NiGHTS spun out, slowing down and stopping mid air.

"Okay, so the ol' bloodsucker can turn into a fog." NiGHTS snapped their fingers. "Can't be fog forever!"

Placing a new, different persona mask on themselves, flames spewed out of the corners of it as their body had begun to transform. Their body began to elongate as their limbs condensed into their central frame. They now appeared like a thin serpent fitted with armored plates with frivolous colors. The mask bent over their head as their face narrowed. This was the dragon persona NiGHTS had chose.

"Eeeeeee!"

The dragon made a roar that sounded like a loud whisper as it shot forward, snaking through the air with a veil of flames surrounding its movements. It would dive toward Dracula, elongating the links of it's body to limit their movements as the burning flames would aim to pierce through the mist and light Dracula ablaze with phantom flame.

 

[Captain Pokémon]

Sonic the Hedgehog​

Sonic‘s snarky remark had gone ignored by the edgy grandpa as him and NiGHTS went at it, tearing up the battlefield below. For a moment, the hedgehog seriously considered leaning back and getting some shut-eye, but then he remembered that there was another edgelord to clobber. After rotating his shoulder, the blue blur put a hand above his eyes and squinted in an attempt to find Irnane on the ground below. “Huh, where’d she go?” Just then, Sonic felt something behind him and turned his head, only to find nothing there. “Wha—“

A sharp tingling ran up the hedgehog’s quills before he could finish his confused blurt. Something was—

Below! Was the only thing in Sonic’s mind as he instinctively jumped up in the air—right as Irnane emerged from the ground and sliced upwards! The dagger went right between Sonic’s legs as he did a midair split to fully dodge the attack before landing with a backwards roll. “There you are, I’ve been looking all over for ya!” He said with a smirk, though his opponent didn’t banter in return and instead threw 3 projectiles his way.

Sonic stepped backwards and to the side with swagger as the projectiles went past him, though the hedgehog snatched one out of the air. Sonic looked at it, then back at Irnane with an unimpressed expression. “This a prop or something ?” He said, obviously bored.

Inkling “Blue”​

Blue’s eyes practically sparkled as Pit went on about how familiar he was with this kind of thing. “Woah, multiple tourneys…? Wonder if they’re all run by the same guy—er, hand.” The squid kid muttered to nobody in particular. Blue leaned slightly forward with intrigue when the angel boy mentioned getting to know another inkling back at another tournament, mentioning that she had a different ink color. “Yeah, there’s a buncha colors!” The squid kid said with a grin, putting his arms on the table.

Much to Blue’s surprise, Pit was also aware of Inkopolis Square. “Wow, you’re quite the inkling expert, huh?” He said, leaning back in his chair a bit and crossing his arms. “I’m from Inkopolis, but I’m staying in Splatsville right now.” The inkling said, taking a few seconds to wait for a response, only to realize that Pit might not know what that is. “Oh! Splatsville is this big ol’ town in the middle of the Splatlands, which is a biiiiiig desert! Everyone calls it the ‘City of Chaos’ cause of how off-the-walls the turf wars are.“ The squid kid explained, propping his head in one hand and making a variety of hand gestures with the other.

 

[comic]

NEREVARINE​

My, he remained fast! All while maintaining his charismatic snark. Irnane could feel the effects of the Quality Potion of Feather wearing off, so she subtly touched upon the ground, swiftly raising a hand. The three ebony throwing stars suddenly appeared back in her hand, the one Sonic having caught among them, vanishing from his grip.

"Hm?" The dark elf cocked her head slightly to the side at the query. "Oh, this? No, these are ebony throwing stars. High quality, too, I had them tailor made by my favorite blacksmith, actually. Should you try to grab one again, mind where you touch it," the nerevarine gestured toward Sonic's hand.

A cut had been etched into his glove.

Had his timing not been any more perfect with the catch, it would have cleaved right through his hand. "They're rather sharp," the Nerevar Reborn concluded, intending it to come off as more of a helpful hint than anything. "Now, if you don't mind, we should really get back to it, no?" As she said this, another scroll materialized in her hand. It immediately vanished in a flash of pink flames that consumed it, bestowing their properties upon Irnane, as opposed to on Sonic. Her eyes narrowed slightly, as though momentarily surprised at what the spell had worked upon her, before she focused again fully upon the hedgehog. "How well do you duel in tight quarters?"

Unknown to Sonic, the charm bestowed upon Irnane was an Absorb Attribute Scroll - and she'd chosen speed from Sonic. It might have been named "absorb" but it was more akin to adopting. The spell worked by taking half of the chosen stat from the opponent, then stacking it atop the dark elf's own stat of that nature. The boost to her speed stat had been more than she'd been expecting. The charm's effects would remain for as long as Sonic was alive and active. If he was defeated, the effect would wear off, though it also locked Irnane out from altering her stats in other ways. If she were to attempt to alter her stats again, the Absorb Attribute charm would immediately fade off.

However, she waited for Sonic to make the first move, ready to use his own speed to her advantage.​

 

[DevVoid]

Dracula
His attack went somewhat successful, the levitating creature being sent through their own portal but quickly retorting by shifting into draconic form and making a descending flight towards him. Dracula responded by moving an open palm forward, a runic sword glowing with a certain kind of magic - the Void Sword.

Instead of retaliating, Dracula stood by, waiting for NiGHTS to draw near. Coming ever closer and closer, the Phantom Fire appeared just out of reach for him.. when the Dark Prince suddenly crouched and threw his body back before lunging forward, becoming a spear-like projection of frozen void magic, howling like a roaring gale as he quickly shot towards the newly-formed Dragon! However, this was not his only plan, for it was to get under this beast before shifting out and casting out a Blizzard with an upwards thrust of the Void Sword to cast a spiralling pillar of Void Magic right to the dragon's underside!

Shaymin
Shaymin smiled gleefully at the compliment of his power. It appears his ally was remniscing of its own former allies, which Shaymin could relate to as he himself had met with his fair share of guild members and travelling Pokémon who were quite the unique visitors and teammates for dungeon exploring. He retorted in their shared language, nudging his nose to the exit gateway.

" Shay shay, Shaymin Min! Shay min min! "

" Why, thank you! I'm sorry that you seem to miss your friends, but cheer up! Who knows, maybe they're here to watch you perform? We might even see one or both of them if we step through the gate here? Shall we? "

And without even so much as awaiting an answer, the Gratitude Pokémon waltzed on through the gateway, back to his Land Forme upon teleporting back to the plaza. He sighed. This battle was enjoyable, but stressful. Way different from what he normally knew when it came to fighting others! Then again, he's been fighting other Pokémon so much, a little change wouldn't hurt much, would it?

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS

In a flash, Dracula appeared underneath the dream serpent, blasting a piercing attack of ice directly up at them. However, something was wrong. As the attack had dampened through the flames already and impacted the dragon...it seemed to splash against the armor with only a token amount of damage. In response, a pulse of flames emotes from the dragon, eroding the rest of the ice away and washing over Dracula's position, which was already in point blank range. The phantom flames would burn, even through the mist he would turn into.

The extended length of NiGHTS's body last move allowed it to cover more surface area with the flames, meaning Dracula have to burn longer in order to escape! Dragon NiGHTS began to revolve their body around like a screw, seeming building up to something...another set up of a move.

 

[DevVoid]

Dracula quietly hissed as his body was set ablaze by these spectral flames, even through his attacks, while his foe seemed unphazed. It appeared as if fighting with his trusted sword was useless for the time being. Vlad's eyes quickly scanned where his vision had still reached past his foe before his arm thrust upward, a pillar of light had erupted from the ground beneath his figure, enveloping him and casting him away to another surface - the top of a cliff-like edge of raised terrain, leading to deep, dark abyss, a fair few ways away from his previous position. Though it was a dreadful to have taken so long to find such a spot as he would have preferred to keep damage to a minimum, this distance meant a little more breathing room for him, even with how potentially miniscule it would be.

His Void Sword had been cast away in the meantime as the Vampire Lord put both hands into the air, snapping both his hands and sending out a spread of two different pattern attacks that arced through the air and quickly flew towards the Dragon-formed NigHTS. One was a straight beam of green, unholy energy that split into six bolts that befell onto the serpentine jester. The other was a direct spread of six demonic shots that fell onto his foe's very position one after another.

These two were Fatal Ray and Destruction Ray respectively, used mainly to distract his opponent, as the main course was another pillar of light erupting behind him, summoning forth two Werewolves who loudly announced their appearance with their signature warcry - the dreadful howl of their kind. The two stood by, awaiting the arrival of their master's foe to lash out at.

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


The revolution of NiGHTS's body continued. Getting rapid. More and more rapid. The aura of flames started to retract, condensing in an area around the front of the dragon. The dragon's body continued to revolve, faster and faster. A thick, orange spiral shot across the flames billowing in front of it, simikiar to the rivet in a drill. It seemed similar to the drill drive move from before, but requiring more of a windup beforehand. So when Dracula shot out his attacks towards them, NiGHTS-Dragon raced forward, winding their body like a Chinese dragon as they spiraled toward a Dracula, the flaming shield pumping radiantly in front of them.

A stalactite shattered and burnt to a crisp as NiGHTS-Dragon shot through it. Several blasts of the destruction ray and fatal ray burnt up upon impact with the shield and fizzled away. However, a couple hit on the center body of the dragon, hitting from the sides where the shield wasn't present, blasting some bit off of the armor.

As NiGHTS approached Drac and his lackeys, the dragon's body consdensed slightly, two links folding into the dragon as the head enlarged. With it, the flame field begun to change into a new shape- the maw of a flaming dragon! The jaws opened wide, heat radiating from the joules before it would clamp down on all of them, hopefully incarnating them in a radiating light as they dove right through!

 

[Gamingfan]

Ryuji
"Oh...that's rough." Ryuji said, nodding. "I kinda get it though. I was a in a track team once, but we were disbanded for something stupid that I did. We used to be tight, but things just got really cold between us after that."
Was it a good comparison? Ryuji didn't know. Joker was better at words than him, but he figured it was close enough.
He shook off Nott's apology, still smiling.
"Naw, it's cool. That's what friends do. Talk about stuff, y'know?" he replied. "And hey, it wouldn't hurt to try with Dagr, right? I made up with my track pals. I bet you can with your sister."


Alter Knight
The jester summoned a whirlwind of oddly shaped projectiles. It looked like it was starting to take them seriously.
"Into the Akropolis," Kassandra urged Alter Knight. The knight looked towards the structure and silently nodded, showing her understanding. Alter Knight ran after Kassandra, changing Libera into its lighter one-handed sword form. The Akropolis was fair distance and though Alter Knight moved fast, Jevil's the projectiles caught up, forcing Alter to go on the defensive. Rolling away and striking some close calls worked for a time, but she was not as quick as Kassandra. A scythe flew in from behind her, catching the knight by surprise and slicing through her armor. The pain from the gash in her back caused Alter Knight to gasp, leaving her open for what looked like a duck fly into her. The knight just barely blocked it with her shield, but the blow took her off her feet. It luckily sent her rolling into the Akropolis, although wounded.
Alter Knight grit her teeth, unwilling to let the jester win. If it wanted to take it up a notch, so be it. Alter pointed Libera into the sky, pumping her mana into the weapon.
The sun vanished, blotted by out dark thunderclouds above the Arkopolis. Massive lightning bolts began discharging around the building, striking down large swaths of Jevil's projectiles, and even the irritating jester himself if he avoided Kassandra's initial strike.

 

[Captain Pokémon]

Sonic the Hedgehog​

Snip!
A small cut had been etched in Sonic’s glove after Irnane called the three projectiles back to her person. “Woah, weird.” The hedgehog turned his hand around and examined it to make sure it was unharmed, turning his head to face the Neravanine. “You really should put a warning label on those toys of yours. Ya might hurt someone.” He said with a sneer.

Tilting his head to the side in response to Irnane’s question, Sonic‘s eyes narrowed in excitement. “Close quarters? Right on!“ The hedgehog looked down at Dracula as he summoned all sorts of nonsense against NiGHTS. “You’re way cooler than your pal down there.” Sonic leaned back and stretched his arms, tapping the tip of his foot against the ground. “Alllright, let’s go.”

The blue hedgehog disappeared in an instant, greatly displacing the air around him and causing a blast of wind at his previous location, which could possibly knock Irnane off-balance or even off the ground if her footing wasn’t sound. Sonic began to run circles around Irnane, in a literal sense, kicking up a cyclone composed of sharp blue wind that would both damage Irnane and knock her upwards if she remained inside!

 

[comic]

NEREVARINE​

His speed remained impressive, even at her current level. With speed like that... had she even made a dent in his stamina reserves, as she'd been hoping to do by weakening his endurance stat? Hm... she needed to make note of that. Her own speed (and in turn, her equalized perception) was now decent enough that she could not only see him move, whereas he would have seemingly disappeared - she could follow his movement. That was a boon, as he'd kicked up his speed by several notches. Like her, he'd been holding back. This could get very, very interesting.

The displacement of air nearly knocked the Nerevar Reborn over, but she instead let the blast carry her, heels dragging along the ground in a spin as Sonic began to race around her, kicking up a unique cyclone of wind and some other form of energy. She could feel the ground already beginning to leave her feet, the dark elf already a fairly light individual, and an idea wound its way into her mind as she winced, feeling some damage beginning to land. If she allowed herself to sit within this cyclone for too long, it could prove disastrous.

"He isn't so bad," Irnane replied to Sonic, her voice wavering as the sound waves struggled to bounce about the whirlwind. She raised both hands, one holding a scroll, the other surging with crimson light. "Hurting souls, hiding behind the veil of aggression and apathy, can always be a source of wisdom, and of inspiration."

The scroll was consumed in magical flames, though the flames and ash were quickly snuffed by the whirlwind. It didn't stop the scroll from being used, however. A Reflect Scroll. Its purpose was of two. On one hand, it would bombard Sonic's own unique energy of the attack back at him, while simultaneously repelling the other half of Irnane's move to focus more directly upon Sonic, thus moving any residual damage away from the dark elf, leaving her unaffected by her counter.

The spell she cast in the other hand was Cruel Firebloom. Unlike the scroll's flames, it couldn't be snuffed so easily. In fact, the whirling winds, dragging the element of oxygen heavily into the equation, would turn the whirlwind from a storm into a ticking time bomb, ready to erupt in a condensed oxygen explosion, more powerful than conventional explosions of similar size. It would set the air Sonic was breathing alight. Irnane had discovered this strategy in her time facing Air Atronach's, their swirling storms susceptible to fire attacks such as these. The same logic applied.

The bountiful eruption practically swallowed the length of the hallway, spreading much further than the whirlwind, before the lack of condensed oxygen eventually caused it to disperse just before it could consume Dracula and NiGHTS, though they'd undoubtedly feel the wave of heat that washed through the room, and considering every surface was made of dwemer metal, it absorbed the heat, retaining it within the room, keeping the temperature from going down any time soon.

Having used the Reflect Scroll to permeate any incoming damage from herself, and into Sonic's direction, wherever he ran, Irnane was spared any ill effects as she procured her Sword of White Woe, closing the distance to the possibly disoriented Sonic before he could breathe, launching a volley of rapid, unorganized slashes, intentionally without pattern or martial skill, making it unpredictable and frenzied, risking the hedgehog's life and limb whichever way he turned, the pressure being applied in full force now. Even if the flat end struck him, the blade's Weaken Integrity enchantment would weaken the body part it touched, making it more susceptible to damage. For example, if she cut his leg, it would weaken, risking Sonic actually hurting himself just by running at a certain speed on it. Enough applied magic, and it would splinter and shatter with a little force.

Irnane had her breath held in her lungs as she moved. While it wouldn't take long for a fresh wave of oxygen to refill the tunnel, the few moments where it no longer existed would possibly disorient Sonic even further, as he may try to gasp for breath, only for nothing to fill his lungs.​

 

[DevVoid]

" Go. "

The blue-blazing Void Sword appeared in Dracula's grasp again as the two werewolves leapt away, using their supernatural speed and agility to jump onto the walls, splitting up and sprinting along the walls, throwing a barrage of magical blasts at the dragon-formed foe. The King of Darkness himself readied his blade, floating up with the pure force of his power and towards the gaping maw.

But, while it seemed he was flying towards the hands of defeat, it was quite the opposite. His Void Sword raised above his head, he had swung it as he suddenly gave his flying speed a boost, activating his Erosive Chains technique as he tucked his limbs together and thrusted the Void Sword forward, a flurry of rapid slashes and slices appearing all around him, casting away the flames with the speed of their swings and likely ending up causing damage to NiGHTS if they managed to land, every hit that dealt damage was to be brought back to the Dark Prince through the manner of healing his wounds directly!

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


Slice! Slash! Stab

The flurry of blade strikes impacted the flaming barrier, the maw taking several attacks without buckling, as it encroached the high class lord. The more hits, the more it began to buckle, shake, and give. As a couple of werewolves's energy attacks impacted the armored shell of the spinning dragon, it started to throw off it's groove even further:

Eventually, the flaming maw started to fizzle out as the momentum was stopped. However, In a flash of light, NiGHTS returned to their original form, grasping Dracula by the chest. In that instant, he was weightless, NiGHTS smiling as they moved past the point defense-esque flurry of blades.

"Got you~!"

NiGHTS would shove Dracula straight to the ground with surprisingly high levels of physical power, the ground of the foothold would crack as a result. Then as a followup, NiGHTS would continue grabbing, and shove their face forward, whirling their body like a drill in point blank range to frappe the gothic cosplayer!

 

[Captain Cardboard]

Nótt

The Jotun Princess gave a lighthearted chuckle at Ryuji's attempt at a comparison.
"Perhaps, perhaps. But we've beaten each other into inches of our lives, multiple times." Nótt said. "Of course, it was nearly always me on top. I fear we may have burnt that bridge some time ago. If someone you were sure despised you, and consistently defeated you in battle, and was someone you had felt betrayed you, suddenly appeared to you asking for peace, would you believe them?"

Wanting to change the subject, Nótt leaned forward and went back to what Ryuji had been saying just moments earlier.
"Just now, you mentioned you were on a track team?" Nótt asked. "In Jotunheimr, we have a sport named Track and Field. It's a series of events meant to show off one's athletic capabilities. My sister and I competed in it. What is a 'track team' from your world?"

 

[DevVoid]

Dracula's flurry of cuts and slashes was interrupted when his foe shifted back and shoved him to the ground. He could feel his body becoming lighter, the resulting push causing the vampire to move his cloak behind and around his head to help disperse the oncoming damage. Whatever it was that his opponent planned, Dracula would not let them continue this act of foolery.

Thrusting an open palm, Dracula silently fired another Fatal Rain, a spread of six, green energy shots of demonic origin flying from his palm and towards NiGHTS at nigh- if not direct point-blank range! However, this merely served a distraction to get them off of him so that Vlad could dash away while six large, vicious pillars of flame would have manifested around NiGHTS, positioned so that, if the purple jester had tried to avoid the initial Fatal Rain, they'd be moving straight into one of them and hopefully be reduced to ashes!

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


Firm grip on the dark lord finally after all this dancing around and catching, she wasn't going to let go because he had some new flashy toys! Against other nightmaren, this would be the time where it would be damage phase to the defeat. And there was no way NiGHTS was gonna squander such a golden opportunity!

Seeing hand raise in defiance from the stunted Dracula, NiGHTS, like a circus performer, maneuvered their agile body under it as most of the blast shot over them. The agile dodge brought NiGHTS's face to tap Dracula's forehead, purple horns on white locks. Having pulled themself to be pressed against the vampire lord's body, NiGHTS gave him a little wink.

"DPS phase~"

Head touching Dracula, their head and body spun like like a drill, instantly shredding into him by default. How much damage this would do would be subject to how long Dracula would take to try and find a way out. As the speed of the drill intensified while Dracula was backed up into a crater, a firm floating hand gripped to his chest.

 

[DevVoid]

Dracula's foe ducked under his hand, now having brought themselves closer to him. Perfect. Really, this jester thought they had the advantage on their side? How foolish. Dracula's grasp moved forward faster than before, not to fire out projectiles, but to grasp straight onto NiGHTS and interrupt their spinning. Given how his body would have much reduced damage inflicted to it, he couldn't care less if this were to damage his arms, so he planned on enforcing his grip as hard as he could, regardless of how much it would likely hurt, his Void Sword disappearing on its own as it was already knocked away some time ago from his grasp.

This would also serve to immobilize as his cloak moved on its own, moving over the purple clown to cover them completely to trap the Nightmaren within - as it would then promptly light up from all sides and aim to incinerate his foe on the spot, the insides of his cape already completely lit up. In the meantime, his own figure begun glowing red, Dark Metamorphosis activating and ensuring that if this succeeded, he'd be drawing in the damage and heal his own wounds from it, assuring that if damage were dealt to him, at least a portion of it would be regenerated right on back!

 

[Shen: King of Digimon]

NiGHTS


BRRRRRRRRR!!!

The sound of grinding and shredding of flesh was heard as NiGHTS drilled directly into Dracula's head. The sound of resonance of drill on what was possibly bone marrow and the the ripping apart the boundaries between them was audible, like some kind of horrible dentist visit.

As Dracula gripped NiGHTS to stop them, the drill continued, though more focused on the hands now as She was attempted to be pulled away, but never fully leaving the skull of Dracula. With two hands being mangled and face becoming putty, Dracula was going to be under intense pain. That's however when something...covered them? NiGHTS was nearly entirely covered by some kind of cloak. This broke off their drilling as they were separated, the Jester looking around at their new environment. However, they didn't have long to think.

FWOOOSH!

Heat shot from all sides as energy radiated from the cape. NiGHTS cringed as they bit the bullet. This wouldn't do. They needed to escape. Thinking fast, NiGHTS struggled, gripping fabric of the cape before performing a cartwheel in place. This cartwheel connected the sparkles coming from their feet, conjuring a paraloop. The paraloop warped NiGHTS out along with residual whiffs of dark energy that came from the cape. Spinning out, NiGHTS found themselves running into a golden wall, taking a few deep breaths as they grasped their bearings.

As their foe would either reel in pain or try to get up, NiGHTS winced but managed a smirk. It's then that they lifted a sleeve of there's up. A sleeve. No hand. It was then revealed the hand she had gripping Dracula before was still on him, attached to his chest!

Holding their sleeve out, the hand would fly back to NiGHTS to reconnect...along with the vampire it was gripping onto. By the time he'd reach the Jester, they would have recovered from the surprise attack long enough to smash him with a punch right in the mangled face with the momentum of the pull!

 

[Captain Pokémon]

Sonic the Hedgehog​

Whoosh!
Flames began to swirl in the cyclone that the hedgehog’s speed had created, embers quickly filling the air. Sonic had more experience being blasted by flames than he’d care to admit, and he could guess what was about to happen. “Wuh oh!” He blurted out before leaping onto a wall, then bouncing off of it to go even further. It wasn’t quite enough, however. Sonic was still blasted far away, but that was more from the heat wave than anything, and he had managed to avoid most of the direct damage.

”Woooooah!” Sonic curled into a ball and rolled to a stop on the cavern floor, uncurling and springing up with his hands right afterwards. Finally landing on his feet, the hedgehog was quickly greeted by Irnane, more specifically her sword. Sonic did a quick, makeshift limbo to narrowly dodge the first slash, which he was not expecting. But he was ready for the next ones. As unpredictable as they were, the hedgehog’s raw reaction time was enough to keep him safe. “Too slow!” He said as he dodged one.

”Missed me!”

”Almost!”

”Over here!”

This went on for a few seconds before Sonic dashed backwards a significant amount and kicked the air in front of him very hard and fast, enough so to rupture the air and send a shockwave towards Irnane. He repeated this process, sending several shockwaves flying towards his opponent!

Meanwhile in the stands…

“Go, Irnane! Thrash him! Go for the jugular!”

A tall, burly, and rather egg-shaped man with a bald head and a glorious mustache yelled from the stands, a grin on his face as he watched the battle. He had tinted glasses covering his eyes and green-lensed goggles as headwear; and an elegant, red coat sporting two square metal buttons on both sides of the chest in gold. (I’m done describing him, you know who he is.)

To his left was a blue robot with a strikingly similar appearance to Sonic.The robot’s sharp, red eyes remained still as he stared at the fight. He was holding a small flag with the words “Go, Shaduo!” on it, merch that the third member of the trio had encouraged him to hold.

The third member of the trio was to the man’s left. She resembled a young human girl with a slim body and a round head. Notably, she possessed glowing red eyes and a red energy structure on the left side of her face. She had short white hair with a swirl in it on her forehead and a single red energy highlight inside said swirl. The rest of her body however, especially her arms and legs, were completely black and seemed to have outlines of red computer code around them. For attire, she wore a black cloak and shoes that were covered with red computer code outlining the insides and the majority of its right side. This was Sage.

”Father, this woman is displaying remarkable feats of physicality, to an extent that shouldn’t be possible.” The girl spoke, looking up at the mustached man beside her, who “pffted” in response. “Magic.“ Eggman crossed his arms and frowned. “I go through all this effort building machines over the years to fight that blue menace, and she can just keep up with him through a bunch of abra-kadabra nonsense!”

Suddenly, the blue robot next to him piped up, beeping several times. Once he finished beeping, Sage translated. “Metal has noticed that Sonic doesn’t seem to be trying very much. Perhaps that is the reason Irnane is able to keep up so easily.” She said, pursing her lips a bit. “His cockiness may end up being his downfall. How foolish.”

Eggman grinned and twirled his mustache. “Good observation, Sage.” Metal glared up at him for a moment. “You too, Metal.” He added hastily. “It’s about time that blue buffoon got knocked down a peg.” He said with a light chuckle. “Let’s hope tweedle emo and tweedle more emo don’t disappoint.”

 

[comic]

NEREVARINE​

He remained quick, barely managing to dodge, but she could see it in his eyes. She had almost completely eliminated the speed gap between them. Each time he dodged, he came within centimeters of a cut. She could have sworn a few blue hairs had gone flying as he dodged all about, before he counter-attacked. It was the same odd blue energy. It was associated with wind, she'd gathered that much, and quickly, the dark elf procured another scroll, which dispersed in a flash of blue flames.

A Resist Element scroll, and she'd chosen the element of air, cutting any damage from the attack in half for the fight's duration - though that had been the only scroll of that caliber. Out of her peripheral vision, she caught Dracula starting to get seriously messed up, and the dunmer's eyes widened. A gruesome move on NiGHTS part.

Her eyebrows slowly knit together as she gave Sonic a taste of his own medicine, skillfully sidestepping a few of the air blasts, taking to the air for others, and she found she could actually slash them in half with her blade. The knockback was also pitiful, considering she now resisted the element of air. As Sonic hovered, kicking the air, Irnane rapidly closed the distance, weaving through and cutting through his attack. "Tell me, freedom fighter. Why do you duel in this arena? What is your purpose here?" As she asked this, her fist flashed blue. Another passive spell.

Fortify Attribute. Her chosen attribute, of course, was speed, for a time.

And she'd just made them equals, stacking it atop the Absorb Attribute from before. If she were to curse Sonic's speed again, he would find himself suddenly outclassed and woefully open. She risked tapping into more magicka by placing another small light behind her as she was atop Sonic again, going in for some damage in the form of a flurry of slashes without intent to kill, still not yet fully giving it her all, but seeing Dracula's suffering at the hands of NiGHTS had clearly upset the Nerevarine.​