Round 2 - Dakkagor vs Steampunk Samurai - Judge: Guinevere

[G]

With the sound of rushing wind, and a dropping in your stomach, you find yourself transported to a new location. At first, all you can see is glaring, blinding white - no sign of your opponent; though on the plus side, you've come through completely healed and with renewed energy.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/2010_Blizzard_White_out_NYC.jpg

As your eyes adjust, you realize the white is not an everlasting nothingness you've been thrown into - it's snow. Your feet sink through the soft top coat a few inches, before they crunch against solid ice; below your feet, concealed by the fluffy flakes is a frozen lake. At the moment, the ice feels strong and capable of supporting you, but the more it is pounded and smashed against, the weaker it will become. Too much force and the ice will break, a gateway to the icy water below.

A few feet behind you stands a solitary black lamp-post; you can see a second identical post a few feet behind your opponent, who you can now see is standing across the lake, perhaps 50 feet away. Outside the circle created by lake and posts skeletal trees are scattered, disappearing into the swirling snow. To move beyond the posts, and the eerily still wind between them, would throw you into the blizzard, freezing and blind. It would seem wiser not to stray.

You have 5 posts per person, and 72 hours to respond between each post.

By the flip of five Australian cents Steampunk Samurai will go first.
Fight hard and may the best contestant win!

[Steampunk Samurai]

As Kazuo's eyes adjusted to the brightness he surveyed his surroundings, slowly becoming aware of the boundaries of the area. Then he got a look at his opponent, who stuck out in his big, clunky metal suit. He would be a tough one to take down, but it must've strained the ice to hold him. He had some big turbines that suggested he could fly, but the blizzard would make sure he wouldn't be back. So it was simply a matter of dropping him into the water below.

His game plan set, Kazuo darted straight at the mech, whatever close range defenses it had, they shouldn't be too hard to handle. So right now it was a game of charging up the energy for the kill. Should he succeed, Kazuo would move directly to ironclad's right side, from there he would decide what to do next.

[dakkagor]

"Hmm, Ok, wasn't expecting that."

Cedric Peters, also known as IronClad, had previously been lounging about in the headquarters of the Sentinels. Then he was here, in his armour, in the middle of a white out.
The confusion didn't last long. He quickly cycled through his sensors and put together all the pertinent information: his armour was fully functional, he was standing on a lake covered in a layer of ice (which, worryingly, he could hear slowly grinding and cracking underneath him) and past the bounds of the lake a fearsome blizzard raged.

"So someone has grabbed me. High power teleport beam maybe?" He stepped backwards, towards the lamppost behind him, and the ice below him gave another worrying groan. Seismic sensors where beeping alarms at him. And another alarm rang out: hostile super-powered contact.

Growling, he brought up the feed and spotted the threat. Haring towards him at post-human speeds was a young looking kid, couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen. But the energy coming of him in waves marked him as at least a Gamma+ rated individual.

IronClad decided not to mark him as a 'villain' just yet. Even though he was under attack.

He punched the jump jets, throwing the suit sideways and too the left. Steam blasted from behind him as the ice where he had been melted away. He landed skidding, deploying his tower shield and bringing up his right hand SMG gauntlet. Bullets spat from his armoured wrist, punching into the ice around his opponent as he dashed forwards.

"Cool off kid!" he shouted through the suits speakers as the ice around his opponent cracked and fractured, hopefully dumping him into the frigid water.

[Steampunk Samurai]

The suit had sprung into action quicker than he thought, deploying a large shield between them and chipping at ice below him. He seemed to be confused at what was happening, must have been his first round of whatever these battles were. He'd get it soon enough, but first Kazuo had to stop that gun before it was actually turned on him.

So kazuo snapped his fingers targeting the barrel of the gun with a tier one explode spell. It would hit the machine's right arm with the force of a grenade, but it would take a few seconds and would miss if it moved at all. Meanwhile Kazuo would circle left around the edge of the area, careful not to step into the blizzard while he tried to get away from the spot the mech was shooting before it broke through.

"Sorry man, I'm looking out for number one, that means I can't hold back. Don't like it, fly away!"

[dakkagor]

Ironclads systems warbled a warning: a powerful energy spike from his young opponent.
Reflexively Cedric brought round his left arm, deploying the mag-enhanced shield with its blue, red and gold crest. The summoned explosion slammed into it, the blast shearing away over the shields surface and blowing up clouds of ice and snow from the concussive blast. His suit was nudged backwards slightly, rocking on its heels, before returning to a point of stability.

His suit reported no damage. Smiling, Cedric quickly formed a strategy. The ice was perilous to his suit, true. But his suit was environmentally sealed with its own oxygen supply. It would clog his jets, but he could be submerged if it came down to it and keep fighting, but at reduced effectiveness.

He doubted his opponent would survive a dunking so well. So by his reckoning, he could take some risks.

He thumped his right fist down into the ice, the motor-powered fingers crunching through the lakes frozen top to give him traction as his feet locked out. From his back, the SABOT cannon swung into position and locked with a pneumatic hiss.

“Groundburst, pattern three.” he muttered inaudibly to his suit system.

The suit locked on and the cannon thumped once, twice, three times, the three shells skipping low across the ice before slamming in a triangle pattern around his opponent. A split second later all three timed shells detonated, blasting shrapnel and razor sharp shards of ice at his opponent and shattering the surface of the lake around his foe. Where once there had been a solid surface, now there was only a foaming surface of freezing water dotted with chunks of ice no bigger than an cocktail ice cube, and his opponent was in the middle of the blast zone.

“Out for an early bath.” He hauled himself upright again with a grind of servo's, the cannon swinging back into its safe position. He'd have to fish the poor kid out in a minute, but for now he could cool his heels. Maybe he'd be up for explaining what was going on once he had been for a swim in the freezing water.

[Steampunk Samurai]

so the mech had some tricks, it seemed to detect his spell before it hit and defend well. It'd be difficult to work around that, but he'd manage. He'd always done it before.

Now the machine brought out some kind of flak gun, he'd have to use an enhance to avoid it. A level 1 would let him easily close the distance, from there he'd be too close to use that cannon on again. He crossed his arms just as the first shot hit just in front of him. It clearly was just meant to break the ice, as it didn't come very close to him despite the precise nature of the weapon. The thing about the crossed arms stance was that it could easily be mistaken as Kazuo just trying to block an attack. And then there was the round itself kicking up snow that kazuo could use as cover.

The next round it just behind him to his left, so with Kazuo decided to head that way with the burst of speed. Next he would quickly charge the suit as it stood up again from there he'd use the momentum to leap on top of it and use his blade. It was mostly a test of the suit's armor, but it would also limit the suit's use of firearms, hopefully giving kazuo an advantage of some sort.

[dakkagor]

"God Damnit!" Cedric cursed as he saw his opponent dash through the haze of ice and steam from his attack. It hadn't affected him at all!

"You're reducing my non-lethal options over here." He snarled through gritted teeth as the kid dived through the clouds and charged straight at him. "You don't want to do that."

As the kid closed, Cedric assessed his options. Ranged combat was turning into a complete wash, and his opponent was set on closing the distance. Fine. Ironclad could punch through concrete rebar and his sword was capable of carving through titanium. He had a mag-field reinforced shield and was wearing a half ton of advanced armour composite. He knew he wasn't invincible, but he was pretty damn close. If that scrawny kid wanted to mix it up in melee combat, it would be his funeral.

As his enemy raced forwards, he stepped backwards, and flicked out his right arm. Sliding from it came a meter of Carbon blade, molecule sharp. In the cold air it began to hiss as the tungsten filaments running through it heated the whole blade to over a thousand degrees Celsius. As the kid jumped, Cedric made a split second call. He hammered on the jump jets and Ironclad rocketed skywards to meet Kazou in mid air, shield pushed infront of him. With a massive burst of mechanical strength, he swung the shield to smash Kazou from the air, then swung his blade in a wide, disemboweling arc, turning in mid air using the flight systems for a split second to control his flight path.

He crashed back down to the ice a second later, and turned on the spot to see if his opponent had fallen and where. Where Ironclad had been standing was now reduced to a steaming water filled crater by using the jet turbines, and the ice under him was already cracking and beginning to collapse. "this ice rink doesn't have long." He muttered as he regained his balance on the sliding surface. But that suited him just fine. He had a plan for when the ice sheet failed completely.

[Steampunk Samurai]

Kazuo waited til he was highest in the air to activate his levitation. From there he moved his torso to avoid the machine's blade. He had just enough time before his shoes lost power and he dropped down next to the machine and hacked at it's legs. His sword was stronger than usual, but the only way for it to do real damage was to target the machine's joints, and it would take full force swings, but hopefully it would at least hinder the machine slightly.

Kazuo's ribs ached from the shield slamming against him, even with the armoring spells on his clothing he probbly had a few cracked ribs. Kazuo was tough, but he couldn't take any more blows to the chest, or his ribs woulde break, not ideal with a ten ton mech after him.

[dakkagor]

Blade went wild but the shield connected. Good, that means I don't end up with his blood on my hands. At least not yet

The way his opponent had avoided the attack was . . interesting. For a few seconds he had hung motionless in mid air. Not true flight, but some kind of gravity defying power, perhaps, with limited use. His opponent was seemingly full of surprises.

As he landed, the Ironclad systems let him know that the kid had landed behind him. Before he could turn, his opponents sword slashed through his exposed knee joint, severing artificial muscle bundles and electrical wires, spraying hydraulic fluid over the ice.

Cursing, and ignoring the sudden pain in his leg, Cedric hunched the suit down and punched his blade into the ice. Ironclads feet clamped onto the ice, as if about to fire the main gun, and he fired the jump jets at full strength. A blast of burning hot compressed air raced from the turbines on the back of the suit with a banshee scream, hopefully catching his opponent as he lined up another swing of his katana.

"Its always a Katana" he muttered as he fired the jets. He kept a ready eye on the ice, watching it boil away behind him as the jet system cooked everything behind him.

[Steampunk Samurai]

Good a reaction, it meant there were ways outside a tank rifle to hurt this thing. But now the machine was latching to the ice again, it clearly wasn't for that artillery cannon so what? Kazuo got his answer when the machine's jets suddenly went of while he stood there, forcing him to leap back a few feet. It had definitely cooked him a bit, some bad burns on his chest and back even if his clothing looked untouched but he wasn't a doctor so not telling how bad, he'd ignore it best he could hoping to trick the mech. Cold could not be good for them either. But there was the other problem, the ice was melting and slowly weakening beneath his weight.

Kazuo had to move back on his hands and feet quick as he could to avoid the area being melted by mech man there. His left leg went through the icy water hitting it immediately kazuo pulled it out quickly. How long til that went numb? Who knows, but now that Kazuo was on solid ice he could stand up. There were quite a few feet of water between them. And the torrential blizzard wasn't far behind him. From here kazuo could launch a tier one explosion just below the ice that held ironclad, it couldn't be very stable to begin with from those jets firing so close to them, so this would have to sink him.With a snap of his fingers and the target in sight the spell was cast.

"No hard feelings man."

[dakkagor]

As soon as Kazuo leaped clear, Cedric disengaged the clamps and snapped of his sword in the ice, the red hot blade quickly sinking to the bottom of the ice lake in a blast of steam. He didn't need to stick around, he'd done as much damage as he could. The Ironclad suit flopped forwards, unbalanced by the awkward position and the force of the still firing jump jets, and began to slid along the rapidly disintegrating ice. The blast from his opponent exploded behind him, turning the ice he had ground over on his belly into slush as he rapidly picked up speed, chips of ice pinging from his armour.

"Time to go tobogganing" he laughed as he shot across the lake. His carbon-blade punched another metre long length of red-hot razor into life on his right gauntlet. He held it in front of him as he sped directly away from his opponent, but towards one of the only pieces of terrain he could hold on to and not sink to the bottom of the lake.

One of the black lamp posts.

His blade carved into the ice cold iron with a keening shriek as he pushed himself off the ice. His left gauntlet locked around the bottom half of the lamp post as his right hand, discarding the blade, caught the toppling length of iron street furniture.

"No hard feelings man." he heard his opponent say as he tore round the lamppost, pulling a tight corner with his jump jets firing full blast.

"None at all!" He snarled as he tossed the lamppost in a high, flat spin, powered by the massively strong artificial muscles of the IronClad suit. It whistled across the ice lake like a discus, aimed right at his opponents chest, with the goal to knock him clean out off the wintry arena. Even as he completed the maneuver, the ice collapsed beneath him and he sunk into the freezing water, creating a blast of steam as his jets choked and died. His left hand grimly hung onto the stump of the lamp post as he sunk up to the suits waist, his final card played.

[G]

The ice groaned and heaved, the water below stirred by the submersion of the heavy Mech suit. Cracks began to spread out from where Cedric had broken through the frosty surface, racing in spiderweb patterns across the arena. A wailing filled the air as the wind outside the circle picked up rapidly, the temperature dropping as it broke into the still area, catching slivers of ice in its path and hurtling them through the air. A shard swept across Kazuo's cheek, leaving a trickle of red in its wake; then he was struck by another, and another, the razor-sharp flecks cutting through skin as they made contact.

And the wind continued to rise.

As it reached the peak of its strength, the boy eyes widened as he was lifted from the unstable ground and thrown backwards, swept into the raging blizzard and out of sight.

The winner of this round is Dakkagor.

-

Dakkagor

Writing Style (of 15): 12
-Ideas 4
-Flow 4
-Conventions 4
Effectiveness of Combat: 12
-Character Consistency 5
-Ingenuity 3
-Interaction 4
Control of the Field: 10
-Environmental Awareness 5
-Strategic Awareness 3
-Control of the Fight 2

Total: 34

Steampunk Samurai

Writing Style: 7
-Ideas 2
-Flow 3
-Conventions 2
Effectiveness of Combat: 9
-Character Consistency 4
-Ingenuity 2
-Interaction 3
Control of the Field: 9
-Environmental Awareness 3
-Strategic Awareness 4
-Control of the Fight 2

Total: 25