Round 2: Swarm (Many as One) VS. Engineer (Abigail) - Judge Kris

[Kris]

You wake in a deserted lake, that looks rather simple and tranquil.

http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/hawaii/2011/03/30/wailua_river612x459.jpg


However, you cannot seem to cross the edges, and can only advence a set path by rowing a.... giant duck boat

http://www.adventuresbydaddy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ZAN_9951.jpg


Have fun!


Notes:
* The forest around you can be interacted with but not stepped into. You both have your own giant duck boat (2 boats), which can be broken and damaged.
If you have questions please PM me.

* You both have 10 posts (5 posts each), and 72 hours to post in between.

* I will not step into this battle.


By the flip of a coin The Fate Twister goes first

[The Fate Twister]

Awake at last. The newly refreshed group of pixies, slightly larger than it was after the loss of many pixies in the last battle, noticed that they were in their favourite place - in nature. Were they free? Did the last battle's victory allow them to go back home? Wait.

A duck boat.

The giant duck that the group sat on was made of a... strange material. It felt un-natural, and was odd to the touch. Suddenly, the group noticed the nearby boat, in which was another human, a female speciment of the race. This wasn't over. That was the new opponent.

Sighing slightly, the group's newly elected queen made a command. Row the boat near the other one an- wait. Pixies don't need boats... they can fly!

Forming a creature togeter, that looked like a mixture of a bird and a gorilla, the swarm flied up above the water, and lifted the giant duck above, throwing it at the opponent. Hopefully it was an opponent, but it would still be a good idea to kill this one. After the last battle, and with the recovered memory of their past, the pixies could not care less about human life. Destroying all that the innocent pixies hold dear... They deserve no mercy.

[Griff]

"Oh sh-!" A string of curses left Abigail's mouth as she regained sense of her surroundings, and realizing there was a huge (duck?) boat hurtling towards her, attempting to crush her to death. She jumped off the boat and swam into the water, using her jet boots to quickly propel herself away from the flying projectile.

As the duck boat fell behind her, creating a huge splash, she found herself thinking. What could throw a boat of that size? Who would throw a boat at me in the first place? She supposed she was still in the "game", but if it could throw a boat of that size, that must of meant her opponent was huge! What if it was a huge gladiator, like in some of the books she read! If that was the case, her chances of winning was dwindling by the second. By her quick calculations, if the warrior was big enough to throw a huge boat, she had roughly a 35.7% chance of winning. That was not a good number.

Interrupting her thoughts was her need to breathe. As she swam to the surface, gasping for breath, she finally got a good glance at her opponent. What she saw was not what she expected. Are those bugs? She squinted her eyes to get a better look at the-- well, swarm of opponents that apparently threw the huge boat at her.

Crawling onto the nearest boat, clothes dripping wet and slipping on the plastic surface. CH2- CHCl-n, her mind supplied almost automatically. She craned her neck to get a closer look, to hopefully observe the swarm's details. At first, Abigail saw flashing streaks of color, but when she looked closely, she saw creatures alien in form, like the-- what was it... oh, pixies, that Abigail read in fairy tales when she was younger.

Abigail knew they wouldn't be easy opponents. After all, they could throw boats at least twice her size. She grabbed the most expendable tool in her pockets, which happened to be a butter knife, (why the butter knife was in her pocket though-- she had no idea), and threw it at the center of the mass of pixies to get their attention.

As the knife was thrown, her mind raced to think of a potential strategy. At first she thought of taking out a leader of the group, but quickly reconsidered, as a group of that number would be able to get a new leader almost instantly. I wonder if bug spray has any effect?, she thought as she racked her brain for a possible bug spray recipe that she may have used once.

[The Fate Twister]

Little sighs were heard in the swarm, as the opponent the group had tried to kill quickly fled managed to avoid the... duck boat. As the woman swam away to safety, the group noticed the amazing speed with which she moved. Was this a human after all? Maybe it was an aquatic creature? In that case, maybe the two- ahem... Many fighters could make peace, not war?

The thoughts were interrupted by a small metal knife flying through the swarm. The pixies panicked for a moment, many remembering the last battle and it's losses, but dodged the attack quite easily. Apparantly this aquatic creature wanted to fight too, probably because of the rude interruption of it's sleep by the pixies. Looking at the source from which the weapon came, the pixies saw a human on another boat. Ah! No matter what race the fighter was, it would be killed if that meant finally being free.

The same tactic would not work again. The pixies looked for some kind of a way to dispose of this fighter, but found to be surrounded mainly by water, which the group disliked. Their wings would be useless under the natural pixie-repellant, so that was out of the option. The only useful area here would be the forest...

Aha!

The group, with the help of their new queen, remembered an old spell consisting of blinding their opponent. For some reason, they forgot how to use it in the last battle... No matter. Whispers were heard in the swarm, mere ramblings to other ears, but powerful incantations to the group itself. "Fo ni awo imol!" was heard as the mass of pixies let out a light brighter than the sun itself, and sent it at the opponent. The ball of light flied to thhr eyes of the woman and seemingly seeped inside them, like snakes crawling into tight spaces. It would leave a mark. The pixies immediately charged at the opponent, taking her by the shoulders and gently carrying her to the shore near the forest. They would use more force, but for now their energy was momentarily gone.

Now that they were closer with nature, the pixies immediatley started plotting again.

[Griff]

While her mind was busy ditching the bug spray plan-- as she was sure that witch hazel and vodka couldn't be found in such a strange place-- she noticed the pixies were muttering in some strange language. Though she was impressed at their ability to dodge the butter knife, that did mean that these opponents were going to be tough.

As quickly as it had started, the pixies stopped muttering, and a ball of light charged toward Abigail. Quickly she put her hand in front of her face to protect her eyes, which did next to nothing as the light barreled towards her, temporarily blinding her.

She grabbed her eyes in pain, and could do nothing to stop the charge of pixies that grabbed her shoulders and dropped her on the shore. Even though she could only see a sheet of gray, she found herself wondering, Why didn't they kill me? Aren't I an enemy? She quickly dismissed those thoughts, mostly because she was preoccupied trying to think of a strategy.

I'm assuming this blindness is temporary, as I can already see spots coming back in my vision. Still, I have to act fast. What could their weakness be? Wings don't work in water, but I can risk that while I still can't see? I suppose I could get a stick to defend myself with. Would fire work on them? She pondered that for a second, then decided to try it.

Abigail staggered to a standing position, and searched the ground for a stick as her vision slowly came back. She managed to find a stick and a rock and, careful to keep them dry, and swam out to the duck boat, almost blindly. Her vision was slowly returning, she just couldn't see with her peripheral vision.

Sliding onto the duck boat, she tore off a piece of her shirt and wrapped it around the end of the stick. She used the rock to light the end of torch on fire. With her vision returned, Abigail went to the pixies, and threw the torch at them, hoping to catch most of them in the flame. If this doesn't work, I really don't have a strategy.

[The Fate Twister]

Recovering their strenght, the pixies looked around, only to see that their opponent had already escaped the shore. While the blinding was good enough, it seemed as if the pixies should have thought of something more ground-

A single, silent pixie scream was heard from the swarm. The other pixies turned around just in time to see a flaming torch an inch away from their faces. They were frozen in shock for a mere moment, and that was enough. The torch hit a dozen of the pixies, which wasn't that bad, to be honest. They were saved from the bad part. Soon, the fire was spreading like rabbits, burning pixie after pixie alive. Soon, the whole swarm was set ablaze, and the queen saw no other option than to order the flaming mess to dive into the water.

The group gladly complied. Diving into the water was a sweet relief, yet the whole swarm was devastated at a great loss. The wings - some pixies now had burnt ones, the others were wetter than ice. Either way, a fate worse than death was now upon the pixies. The ability to fly was a long tradition, a religion, even. Without that, the group of pixies would now be banished from their place of birth by the pixies that remained. If there were any left. Either way, that enraged the group.

Swimming towards the nearby boat, the pixies clawed at the wet material from which it was made. They clawed at it, furiously battling against gravity to get up on the boat. Many were not used to such manual force, not uskng their wings was extremely hard for the group. Eventually, the group climbed on the boat, on which they found the one who caused it. On closer inspection, it was, indeed, a human. The group were about to fly up and rip her throat out, but...

Getting close together, the swarm did what was necessary and charged towards their opponent, on foot. It looked quite stupid, actually. A bunch of little people, many of them naked, waddling like penguins towards a giant, compared to their size. Getting close, the pixies pulled at the human's leg with their united force, which was pretty strong. After a significant impact was made, even a slight waddle on the human's side, the whole group would climb on her leg, from which they would get onto her stomach, and push her into the water. The boat would be theirs, and without the wings, it was quite needed.

The Battle of the Giant Ducks would have started on this day.

[Griff]

Abigail felt something on her leg, like a bug of some kind. Absentmindedly, she brushed it off, but then it started pulling. She looked down just in time to see the pixies pulling at her leg before she fell into the water. Gasping, Abigal flailed her arms and legs in a desperate attempt to get to the surface, but there was a persistent weight on her forehead, holding her down.

Abigail attempted to struggle against the strong force of the now angered pixies. She calmed herself and tried to quickly think of a solution. Based on the average amount of lung capacity for a woman her age, and the rate of which she was dispelling oxygen, she calculated that she had 48 seconds until she ran out of oxygen and drowned. Abigail saw black spots coming in at the edge of her vision, and decided that drowning was not a good plan. She quickly activated the jet boots, feeling the sudden jolt of force throwing her head against the water, to hopefully shake off the pixies that she could feel standing on her back. She shot across the water to the other duck boat, successfully shaking off the majority of the pixies, and brushed the rest off of her back and into the water.

How could I beat a swarm of pixies? I could always just light the torch again, but that strategy wouldn't work twice if this group is as intelligent as they look. Now that the pixies are angry, they appear to be attacking with a new strength, even though most of them have lost the use of their wings. Abigail brushed the blood off of her leg from where the pixies clawed up her leg, and then, suddenly, got an idea.

Abigail grabbed a saw from her toolbox and started sawing into the duck boat. She kept sawing until she got something that felt like metal. She pulled out a handful of tangled wires from the engine, making sure to keep one end attached. Once this wire goes into the water, I have to act fast. Electrocuting the water on a sinking duck boat is risky. Not my best plan, but it could work.

She put the end of the sparking wire into the water, in hopes that she would shock the pixies that were wet or were still in the water. The electricity spread through the water, creating flows of electricity all around her location. Yup, not my best plan.

[The Fate Twister]

Succesfully finishing their attack, the pixies should have been happy. Unfortunately, about half of them had burnt wings that would not recover. Ever. So morale was still low. Clambering on the duck boat from the water turned out to be much harder than expected. The material was wet and slippery, and as long as the pixies were in the water, they had a severe disadvantage.

The pixies, as were in their nature, decided to boost each other onto the boat - the ones with burnt wings be the first ones to boost the ones that could yet get their ability of flight back. The plan worked fine, and soon most of the pixies were on the boat. A lot of the pixies were still in the water, sure, but at least the half with wings were already on the boat. Suddenly, a strange buzzing sound was heard, and the swarm noticed the water buzzing strangely. The group in the water would be doomed without the queen to command them. Unless...

The queen gave a clear signal with a wave of the hand. The group in the water made a small circle, and shoutes an incantation. A lot of them were already under the effects of shock, but they resisted it as long as they could. "Akuda sadi rak'hida!" About half of the pixies were dying of shock by now, but the spell was finished.

From deep within the water, a long root, resembling more of a greenish slob, long rotten under the water, rose up and formed a big ball around the pixies. Peotecting them, it rose even higher, out from the water, and dropped the pixies safely on the duck boat. After that, it fell down to rest under the wet sand once again, creating a big splash. The pixies that died would be remembered. But that wasn't important right now. Where was that wretched woman?

With water in the eyes of the pixies, they couldn't quite focus on the location of the human. Was she in the water? Soon, the vision of the group was clear once again, only to see the other duck boat sinking, a hole seemingly sawed onto it, and a wire pumping electricity into the water. This was their chance. The pixies saw a big mess of buttons on the duck boat, and somehow managed to make it move. They directed the giant duck away from the other one, in hopes of getting far from the human, who was now surely in the water. If not, water was now being flown inside the fellow duck boat, so it wouldn't last long. All in all, this was a victory. The pixies started drying their wings once again. At least, the ones who still had them did.

[Griff]

"Ah sh-" Abigail said as a string of curses left her mouth, feeling an odd sense of deja vu.

She was currently stuck on a sinking boat. Ahem-- duck boat. See, normally that would be fine-- she could swim, right? Yeah, well, not this time. She had come up with the wonderful idea of shocking the water to kill her pixie opponents. So, now she was slowly sinking. The attack didn't even work. Abigail sighed, frustrated at herself for thinking of such a terrible strategy.

She was balancing the act of chiding herself for such a terrible plan, and trying to think of a way out. There was currently one other duck boat, and had her opponent on it. They were both a sizable distance away from her. Even her jet boots, her amazing, trusty, fantastic jet boots, couldn't jump that far. There was one way that she could jump there, but she didn't want to do that.

She argued with herself on whether or not she should attempt the evil act. They were her babies. They took forever to build, fixing them would take even longer. Abigail ran her hand through her hair, stressfully. She finally decided, screw it, she'd ruin her precious babies.

Abigail sat down and took her screwdriver out of her tool box and starting working on her jet boots. Okay, to adjust the force of the blast, I tighten this, slightly move this, adjust the pressure here, and tighten the screw here. Abigail wanted to cry. Her shoes would only work once before breaking. Fixing them would be a pain in the ass. At least they work to get her out of this stupid situation.

Using the pressure build-up, the boots can have one singular blast that, according to her calculations, would deliver enough force to bounce her across the water, just like skipping a stone. She set her boots to activate once she went into the water, and jumped. She soared over the water, and sprung off the surface of the water to land on the unoccupied duck boat. Her boots started smoking, and she hastily threw them off before one of them caught fire.

Now barefoot, she moved the duck boat to the enemy pixies. Furious, Abigail grabbed the blazing boot, trying not to get burned. She hurled the flaming boot on the group of pixies.

[The Fate Twister]

While the woman tinkered with her strange shoes, the wings of the wet pixies had dried pretty well, thanks to some natural pixie magic. Seeing their opponent fling across the lake with amazing agility weirded out the pixies for a moment. How did she do this? Now the human was on a nearby boat, quite near the pixies, and another burning thing was flying at the group. Not wanting more bad things happening, the pixies ducked and let the flaming... boot? They let the flaming boot fly to the side of the duck boat and set the whole thing ablaze.

Flame was truly a scary thing for pixies. The human already saw the destruction it caused the last time. The pixies feared the fire that was now spreading across the boat a lot. They revered it. The pixies that had lost their ability of flight permanently were already losing it. The crackle of the flames, their blinding colour...
The queen too was scared. She didn't want to lose other allies to the burning menace, so she quickly tested if she could fly, and satisfied with the result, made a command.

Now able to fly omce again, the pixies quickly flied up and pushed the duck boat away for good, after which they gathered the rest of the pixies, and with them in arms, flied over the boat on which their enemy was located, and dropped the wingless pixies. They dropped on the head of the human, and started scratching at it, trying to distract her.

The rest flied to the side of the boat, near the location from which the woman took out the electrical root, and started clawing. Eventually, the hard material gave up, and let the pixies into the strange system of different coloured vines and roots, or whatever they were. Taking out one of them, the pixies bited it open, revealing a yellow stream of buzzing noise. They took the root near the woman on the boat, and sticked it in her pants. From what they had experienced in their life, that was a human weak spot. Then, they joined the "ground pixie army", and continued clawing the woman, focusing on the eyes. Again, a human weak spot.

The pixies WOULD win this - their queen commanded it. The fire-using human would not use the element to harm any other creature.

[Griff]

Her boots set the whole boat on fire. Oops.

The pixies flew up and started clawing at her head. Not painful, just annoying as hell. They started crawling on her face, pulling and scratching at her skin, nicking the areas around her eyes. She quickly put on her goggles, to avoid damage. At the very least, pixies probably aren't very sanitary, scratching an eye can cause a serious infection.

Abigail was distracted while trying to pick the pixies out of her hair, she didn't notice the pixies by her feet. This is like picking out ticks, she thought before she felt a searing pain in her leg, which quickly spread throughout her body.

She cried out in pain, and collapsed on one knee, as she swiped the pixies on the boat away into the water. Fighting to stay conscious, she ripped the wire off of her skin and threw it into the water. Dazed, she collapsed on the boat. Abigail's vision and thoughts were hazy. The pain from the electric shock was making her lose consciousness. Her body was "restarting", like one of her machines.

Abigail's thoughts returned to normal, and she laughed bitterly. Those pixies probably didn't even know what that would do. Note to self-- take near death by electrocution off my bucket list. She struggled to get up, mostly due to the fact that her leg would convulse when ever it tried to move.

Knowing that the pixies would take a minute to attack again, she decided to just wait for them and prepare. She managed, after what felt like eternity of missing, to grab her boots. The fire had long died out on the boot she decided to use as a weapon.

She went back into her tool box, flinching at the static shock, and began to fix her boots. It would take time but eventually they would be functional. Soon, this would all be behind them.

[Kris]

Wow, your battle was brilliant! I get it you both enjoyed your ducks XD

Anyway, time to score, just a note in advance, you both did wonderfully, and I really hope to see you both next year.


The Fate twister:

Writing Style: 8
-Ideas 3
-Flow 3
-Conventions 2.

Effectiveness of Combat: 8
-Character Consistency 3
-Ingenuity 2
-Interaction 3

Control of the Field: 5
-Environmental Awareness 1
-Strategic Awareness 2
-Control of the Fight 2

Total: 21


Griffin

Writing Style: 9
-Ideas 3
-Flow 3
-Conventions 3

Effectiveness of Combat: 9
-Character Consistency 3
-Ingenuity 3
-Interaction 3

Control of the Field: 6
-Environmental Awareness 2
-Strategic Awareness 2
-Control of the Fight 2

Total: 24


Griffin continues to the next round, but, and this is important for me to say, I think the Swarm is one of the hardest classes in this Rumble, and I think you did beautiful job Fate! Please know that you've earned my respect as writer and fighter!

Thank you both for a wonderful fight!

http://duckies.homestead.com/Happy_Duck.gif