Friendly sparring

[Lycrios]

OoC: This is NOT an open challenge. The person to which this concerns has assured me that he will reply shortly. Sit back and enjoy.

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Quite peaceful indeed was this part of the forest. Hardly disturbed by anything, except the occasional chirping of the birds living within its dense woodland. The creature moved within it with relative silence, undisturbed by other creatures. None could know how it felt at that instant, just wandering around it’s habitat, maybe searching for somewhere to drink, or just looking for something to eat, but it was certain that it didn’t feel the danger approaching it. Nor did it have any warning for what came next.

It’s life blood gushed from it’s severed head in unison with the explosion of every single of it’s vital organs, making the blood gush out of the wound with even more force. The leaves rustled for an instance. It’s eyes caught for the last second of its life a glimpse of its assailants standing, looking as if arguing. The vision faded as it struggled to find breath. Never again would it find it, as the body and head fell limply to the ground with a thump.

“What in the Nine Hell are you talking about? I killed the deer.”

“The flame you did. My blow was the fatal one.”

“You’ve got to be joking. I know you’re insane Monk, but even you must know that my blow was the fatal one.”

“Better to be insane than to be pestered by fleas, no?” answered the shorter, shirtless man, an apparent smirk on his face.

The taller man, sporting long black hair answered with a similar smirk. “You know you’re not that fast.”

The smirk was almost slapped away from the monk’s face. “You dare question my speed? You know you can’t match my speed even if you tried.”

“Really?” his grin only widened, as did the smirk that had returned on the monk’s face. Both knew what the coming words were to incite. “Care to prove it?”

[Repster]

The monk did not even bother to answer. His golden eye met the other’s two. He had known the answer all to well before even speaking those words. Aidan leapt forward flowing into the breeze that picked up. Fist reeled back ready to strike. At this distance few could even notice that his feet had left the ground before they saw it threw the glaze of death. The one with a dagger in his hand was one of them.

The small blade went up as the fiery haired one’s fist smashed into it. As always the vibrations from the impact was one to numb a man’s arm. Neither where men in the strict sense of the term.

The ring of alloy on alloy still fresh, a strange to come from flesh to steel, already was the bare foot following suit from the opposite side. The steel barer had already begun putting his entire god like strength on the blade. It was not much, but it pushed the monk back ever so slightly. Just enough to give him room to slide away from the spin kick, and have the straight hit him in the chest, and black haired man’s dagger bit it. The monk’s nimbleness always had been a powerful asset.

Both set there feet again, Dreiks with a slight cut on his leg healed in the time it took to mention it, and the taller one with a slight pain in his chest.

[Lycrios]

The slight pain of the blow to his chest was already gone. The adrenaline of the battle slowly was beginning to show itself within his veins. His muscles seemed to react, as if licking of the slightest drop of it. He smiled knowing the monk would not relent in attack, for as long as he stayed close, he had the advantage. He wouldn’t give the monk the obvious opportunity to strike by trying to draw his mighty sword. The dagger would have to do for now, unless he managed to get a decent hold on the nimble monk. He knew he overpowered the monk in brute force, but in and to hand combat, the monk clearly had the advantage, has he proved with his last move.

Barely dodging the foot that passed right next to his head, Lycrios rolled out of a series of punches, stabbing mid-roll at the monk’s rapidly moving feet. Not enough to strike the monk, but enough for the monk to concentrate enough on his feet so that his punches barely missed. Then the monk had other things to worry as vines tried to tangle around his legs, making his focus drop enough for the Lycrios to roll out far enough from the monk. Realizing this, the monk darted towards the man, who gave a quick snarl as he tossed the dagger Aidan’s way. He gave a puzzled look as he batted the blade away like a simple fly, his hand easily hitting the flat side of the dagger, sending it right into a tree. But in that slight instance, Lycrios had gathered the distance and time necessary to draw his mighty blade without hindrance.

He smirked, “Now it gets interesting old friend.”

“Pff, like I wouldn’t have given the chance to draw your baby. Wouldn’t have been a challenge otherwise,” was his response.

The smirk was slapped off his face almost with as much force as one of the monk’s deadly punches. He readied his blade, which shun like no equal. “A very nice piece of work indeed, too bad what you created will be your undoing monk.” He was now the one leading the charge, the monk parrying the blade with his bracers, not taking the change to slap the blade away with his hands. He knew far too well the powers of the blade, having taken an entire decade of his life to forge it. This was as unique a weapon as you could get. Being imbued with magical powers unfathomable to most great wizards. The fight had gotten slightly more interesting as a pair of eyes surveyed them with great interest.

[Repster]

Aidan did not bother to try and mount an attack, yet. He knew better. With that sword out, he would most likely loose a limb, and he did not particularly feel like doing that right now. He had many other options to set up and equivalent playing field, but again, his mood did not concur. Well then, that left him with one option, an option available to no other.

He swung his open palm into the flat of the sword with all his might. Lycrios did not bother thinking about it. That hand could shatter magic wrought weapons easily but not that blade. He swung said weapon with skill unmatched, only to have it slapped aside byt the monk bracer as his arm was shaken with a fit of trembling. A trembling fit that spread across his entire body as he switched his sword from being supported by one hand to the other. Instinctively he brought his blade up vertically in defence. The same quake raked him again as the monk fist smashed against the sword.

Mortal men died against that tremor. Beasts fell to it. Heroes were crippled, and dragons brought down. Yet for this warrior amongst warriors, it only slowed him down. Witch, against this monk of questionable sanity, was quite close enough to standing still and asking for a kick to the crotch.

His knees closed up and he felt Aidan’s foot strike into them like steel. For some reason his kneecaps were fully intact. The fist to his Adams apple, one to his heart, another to his gut and a foot to the chin all combined with the first in a split second answered why that was. Quick precise strikes instead of one powerful kick. The monk had always favoured one or the other.

Already the unarmed man was back on the defensive, his head being saved from the guillotine wielded by Lycrios’ arm sometimes by mere millimetres. Millimetres Lycrios knew the monk was comfortable with as another man was feet.
“Well now, this’ll save me the hassle of getting a hair cut.” Aidan chuckled out as his bracers began they’re steady work again. Things would have gone differently if he had not worn them this day.

[Lycrios]

He pushed the pain out of his mind and charged inwards. As unpredictable and chaotic as the monk was, Lycrios was one of the few who could predict the monk's movement within a battle. Having fought alongside and against the monk in many battles over the centuries, he had been able to watch the monk battle and pick-up slight patterns that even the monk’s deranged mind didn’t realize doing. Fighting a being that let his body fight through instincts and reactions, not clouded but his controller’s own mind proved to be overwhelming to even the most skilled warrior in combat.

Lycrios cringed as another wave coursed through his body. He was getting nowhere just attacking the monk. The monk was faster, he knew that for a fact. But what Lycrios lacked in the monk’s speed, he made up for in strength. As the monk batted away the next attack, Lycrios pushed back with all his might on the blade, stopping it and redirecting it back to the monk. Instinctively leaned back to avoid the blade, as his other hand had been ready to bat away another strike from the massive sword. Lycrios charged ahead and kicked at the monk’s leg. The monk pushed away and back-flipped from the man, as Lycrios was hopping he would do. In an instant, Lycrios saw the monk’s leg muscle twitched as he realized he was open. His legs tried to tuck in and make his back flip more ball-shaped, but Lycrios’ hand was already wrapped around his ankle.

Lycrios swung the monk with as much force has he swung his sword, right through one the massive trees about them. The tree exploded into splinters as the monk was released, only to be launched into another massive tree. Lycrios stepped back out into the clearing, staring at the destroyed path Aidan at left. He snarled and planted his feet. He readied his blade once more, the glow of his eyes intensifying as did his bloodlust.

[Repster]

Lycrios waited as Aidan's chuckle rang across the forest. It was futile to even look for the monk. It wasn't his eyes that would find him first anyway. A branch snapped behind him. Either some small creature no longer paralyzed by fear decided to run while it could, or Aidan was trying to distract the larger warrior. He paid no attention to it in either case. Aidan rarely came from the direction you expected him.

The monk had few habits. Only three distinctive patterns were nearly always present in his ways. The smirk, chuckling, and his drink. The rather highly distilled whiskey's scent sprang up from one side, and Lycrios charged. What he saw was quite unexpected. Where Aidan should have been standing taking a relaxing gulp, there was only Aidan's flask, open, and about five feet above ground and falling.

The ground shook for a bear moment as Lycrios looked down upon the face of pain. Or rather, pain's fist. The squishy sound of flesh tearing and bone breaking rang loudly into his ears as that fist connected to his jaw. Aidan, now fully revealed from within the very earth beneath Lycrios's feet, just smirked all the wider for his own pain. It was much like hitting a brick wall, only tougher. Brick walls did not break his hand as he broke them.

Pain, and the sound of breaking bone still just coming to life, they were join by more pain as Aidan spun his elbow striking the taller warrior square in the chest. Not one to waste momentum the acrobatic smith spun head over heel. A heel that took Lycrios in the temple staggering him ever so slightly just as he was recovering. Still in midair since having erupted from the earth, Aidan completed his full spin and flip leaving almost at eye level with Lycrios.
"Boom."
The monk slammed his good hand open palmed against the other chest, the resulting explosion from the interrupted forming of a fireball propelled both warriors away form each other.

As Aidan flew back he snatched his flask the very moment before it hit the ground, an slight acrobatic display later he was firmly on his feet once again. He took a swing of it and clipped it back where it belonged on his belt. Wiggling his almost reformed hand's fingers he looked down to where he had sprung from. A useful trick, but still some flaws to work out. The ground did look exactly as if something had jumped out. He would need to work on that. At least the exit had been rather successful in keeping what little clothing he had dirt free.

[Lycrios]

Lycrios didn’t share Aidan’s acrobatic tendencies, and he flew back and tumbled form the force of the explosion. His body scrapped along the ground, kicking up dust and dead leaves. In a far less graceful move, he pushed himself as he rolled along the ground, and his bulky body flipped back to his feet. He let out a guttural snarl as he planted his feet into the ground. He gripped his sword firmly, which seemed to be somehow longer than it had originally been when it was unsheathed. Actually, the man himself seemed to have grown in size, his towering stance even more imposing as the glow within his yellow eyes intensified.

A blur, a hint of sound, a slight cracking of a fallen branch, and in an instant, the combat at resumed, with the man moving impossibly faster than his mass should have permitted. The sword swung, and the monk dodged, keeping near an inch between he and the blade, and he frowned. Lycrios would not miss from that much. Then his thoughts were erased by a nauseating feeling as he felt a shifting in the very essence of the world around him. The blade had struck into the ground next to him, and he could see the magical aura exuding from it, into the ground, in a perfect circle on the ground. This field was a powerful one indeed, he knew. His vision blurred, and his fist missed.

Lycrios knew the anti-magic field had worked when the monk’s fist went wide. Even in a slightly dazed state, Aidan could still perfectly defend himself, but it was the slight advantage he had been hoping for. Seeming to strike from everywhere at once, Lycrios let go of the swords, and struck the monk in the ribs. The cracking sound was quite audible as the monk cringed. Physical training had made Aidan quite accustomed to pain, but this blow was like being hit by a speeding freight train in a single focused point. A hint of a smile crossed his face as he recalled showing the huge black haired man the technique. Then a huge hand wrapped itself around the monk’s throat, as Lycrios pulled him up. The ground rushed to Aidan’s vision as the titanic strength of the Lycrios pulled him down with unimaginable force.

The impact could have been enough to drive the monk’s skull into itself, but fortunately for him, the monk had one of the hardest headed creatures Lycrios knew. He spun to get grab the hilt of his sword again, and brought it up instinctively, for he knew the monk wouldn’t be long to get up. He couldn’t keep the snarl from escaping his lips, as he felt the call to him grow stronger. His fangs had sharpened, and his senses grown more acute. He even felt his body mass shift and change. It would not be long now. It only took the transformation a few seconds, but at the speed these two combatants were going, even time itself seemed to slow down to watch their next action. He peered on at the settling dust with his now brightly lit yellow eyes, his features shifting and taking on more feral look to them.