[center][h3]The Lady in White vs. Gaben's Chosen Round 3[/h3][/center] The man with the green eyes’ flight was halted when he was caught in the outstretched arms of one of the sculptures in the foyer. The statue, a reedy thing of twisted metal that resembled a metalsmith’s representation of a scarecrow, tipped back on its concrete stand, then slowly toppled back in a slow fall. His bewildered eyes met Pithy’s gaze for a split-second before the sculpture fell from its stand, obscuring the both from view. [i]Pushed him away from the frozen floor. He won’t have issues maneuvering.[/i] Pithy began to hobble back, inching closer to another such statue and the concrete pedestal on which it stood. The clanking echo of the toppling sculpture had barely begun to fade before, the man stood behind the pedestal, a small shooter in his hand. Pithy recalled her sheet of ice just in time to shield herself from the barrage of projectiles that suddenly assailed her, still inching back towards what cover she had seen. The barrage ended as quickly as it began, and in the short lull, Pithy caught the man’s eyes straying off to the side. Following his gaze, she saw the long-shooter lying a short distance away from him. It did not take much thought to see what the man was planning. He vaulted over the pedestal, dashing straight for the weapon. The badger had managed to destroy a hastily formed shield with two well-placed projectiles from her weapons. [i]I’d rather not see how many it takes this one.[/i] A trio of icicles came into being before Pithy and launched themselves at the running man, sharpened points aimed at lunges, neck and kidneys. His gaze swept in her direction, fixing over the incoming projectiles, and the man threw his body back. He slid over the polished floors, lances flying over him, and snagged the weapon with his uninjured hand. In a fluid motion he rose to a crouch and braced the shooter against an arm, and the barrel swept to face her. The rapport of the weapon was immediately followed by a hoarse curse. A quick glance spared Pithy a view of the long-shooter’s barrel resting against the floor and the man’s bleeding arm wrapped painfully around his midsection. She saw as the man’s face hardened. He slouched back to a sitting position and braced the weapon against his other shoulder, the barrel held up against the man’s raised knee. “Can’t believe I gotta try-hard this shit.” It looked to be an incredibly awkward position, but something told the duelist that she could not count on him missing another time. Pithy hurried her pace, gritting her teeth at the pain that lanced up her leg like hot pokers under her skin. [i]Only a few more feet, dammit...[/i] Another icicle appeared before her, launching itself at her enemy. The man twitched, almost imperceptibly. [i]Just one more step—[/i] Once again, the weapon thundered. Pithy realized the flying arrow had exploded in the air, but that was only an afterthought. The bladed barrier she had brought into the gallery, expecting a ‘ganfight’ as she had been, shattered inwards as the projectile punched a fist-sized hole through it. Just then, she felt something pulling from her left shoulder. But there was no sudden surge of pain. A glance at her shoulder revealed a large hole had been ripped open on both sides of one of her empty sleeves. When the man had shifted his aim to the incoming projectile, he had lost a proper bead on her. And then she allowed herself to fall behind the pedestal. Even as her back hit the concrete wall, her magic snatched a piece of the shattering barrier, almost as large as her hand, and brought it close to herself. As it passed by her outstretched right leg, Pithy found herself struggling not to stare at the red stain that was blooming in her leggings. She heard the weapon firing once again along with the sound of stone cracking, but the loud swear that followed told her that her cover had proved thick enough to avoid being penetrated. Breathing a relieved sigh, she looked at the crystal she held in her magic and whispered a lilting word. Its surface shimmered like a ripple in water, then swiftly stilled. Her reflection’s blue eye stared back at her from the crystal. She levitated the sorcerous mirror over her cover, and turned it until she found her enemy. The man was still where she had seen him last, but his shooter was no longer trained on her. He held something else in his hand, a dark, yellowish rectangle. Pithy realized she had seen that kind of item protruding from the long-shooter’s underside. Her mind went to the special ammunition the badger had used in her previous encounter and Pithy felt a ripple of unease run through her. She could not let him take the initiative. She held a fist up, drawing from the wellspring of her magic, and five crystalline daggers appeared between her fingers. Without so much as glancing over her cover, she flung them upwards. The knives spun carelessly into the air, their glittering reflections drawing the eyes of her enemy away from his task. Almost as if noticing his regard, the blades stilled, points turning to face him. The man began to move just as the blades flew at him. He rolled to the side, flinging himself out of the way and onto his feet with surprising agility, but rather than clattering against the ground where he had stood, the knives turned in unison and fanned out, homing in on him from different angles. In her mirror, she could see the man mouth a single word. “Shit.” The first blade whizzed past him as he stepped aside, swinging his shooter at another pair of knives. They were turned away, spinning out of control until Pithy reasserted her will on them. The swing returned the shooter to a holster on the man’s back, leaving his hand free. The fourth was aimed at the man’s head, and he ducked under it, veering straight into the path of the fifth. At the last moment, he turned, putting his injured arm in the way of the blade. It sunk into flesh, deep enough that it touched bone, but before Pithy could drive it in deeper, his gloved hand closed around it, wrenching it out of the wound and flinging it away. Pithy could faintly see red welling between his uncovered fingers. His face turned in her direction, and his hand suddenly blurred, something coming into being where once there was nothing. Before she could either redirect her knives at him, or see what he had conjured to his hand, he brought it up to his face and made a chucking motion in her direction. A clattering noise drew her attention away from her floating mirror, to the cylindrical object that had dropped next to her. Alarm bells rang in her mind. She pointed her rapier at it and let out her strongest gale. The object flew off towards the gallery’s entrance, exploding in the air in a conflagration of sparks and lightning. A rush of warm air buffeted her face, forcing her to close her eye. She cursed, blinking rapidly as she sent a searching glance at the mirror she held aloft. Her enemy was nowhere in sight. Pithy swore in alarm and gave shape to power as swiftly as she could. The ice mirror lost its reflective sheen, growing from the center into a hastily constructed barrier like the one it had come from. Pithy began to stand, using an information sign by the statue to pull herself up. She heard shoes stomping against the ground before she saw her enemy rounded the sculpture she had hidden behind, and Pithy pushed the sign towards him as she tried to move away. The man cleanly side-stepped it, green-eyes keenly focused on her retreating form, and he raised the orange blade in his left hand. Pithy’s hastily-formed barrier came between them. The man’s blade bounced back, but a spiderweb of cracks had formed on the shield’s surface at the impact. Pithy grunted. [i]It’s all I can expect from such a hasty construct.[/i] She found herself shaping another gale within her rapier to blow the man back once more, but stopped herself. Even if the man did not predict such a move now that he pressed her, flinging him away again would only delay matters. She keenly understood that their duel had nearly reached its end. Who would come out on top would depend on the next exchange. With a flash of her rapier’s runes, the barrier in front of her shattered along its cracks. The pieces spun, a myriad glittering surfaces seeming to expand from a center as though they were floating in water. Her enemy paused in his approach, glaring at the crystal shards that suddenly ceased moving, sharp edges all facing him at once from only a step away. Pithy gave the man a cruel smile, watching his fragmented image from between the floating shrapnel and knowing that he was doing the same to her. “I admit,” she told him, “you are slippery, but not as much as you’d think. I’d like to see you get out of this one.” The young man answered with a tight grin. “Leave the shit-talking to the pros, Elsa. You suck at it.” Pithy heart soared, but she kept the triumphant feeling away from her face. Instead, she scowled at the enemy’s dismissal, bringing an arm to her chest as though containing her outrage. In her hand, she surreptitiously grasped the clasp of her robe. Coolly, she answered. “Very well.” The runes in her rapier flashed, prompting the suspended shrapnel to converge towards their target. Pithy had a moment to see the man’s expression turn smug before he disappeared under the deluge of blades. And then she ducked under the orange sword that slashed out from behind her. Pithy undid her robe’s clasp with a practiced flick of her fingers and the fabric billowed out, slipping away from her shoulders. “What the f—” came the frustrated cry before a sudden gale of wind threw the blue cloak at her enemy’s face. Unbeknownst to him, among all the pieces of crystal that she had spread to limit his approach, one had remained facing horizontally at her. And that one piece had been enchanted to work as a mirror in the moment that her enemy had answered her provocation. She had seen it when the man had appeared behind her, and responded to the blow aimed for her neck. Such a ploy could only have worked on a man-child as massive as the one before her. And so Pithy twisted around, ignoring the fire in her leg as she lunged at the covered figure’s torso. The man fell back, throwing the robe aside, and his wild eyes fixed on the silver lance aimed at his heart. The speed of the orange sword stunned her. It flew up as though of its own volition to protect its master, pushing her rapier away such that it only scraped against her enemy’s vest. Unable to stop her lunge, Pithy swore and pushed forward, locking the blades between them, knowing all the while that she was the weaker of the two and would not be able to use her weight with a wounded leg. Which left only one choi— The enemy found his balance and pusher her away from him with his blade. Before she could retreat to a safe distance, a foot crashed against her stomach. Air exploded from Pithy’s lungs. She was flung back. The impact on the gallery’s smooth floor sent a tremor through her, and she felt something tear inside the wound in her leg. A scream tried to pry itself out of her throat, but it found no air to ride on. Her grip on her rapier failed, and it clattered away. Pithy squirmed, turning so that she lay on her belly. Short, pained gasps rose from a sore throat, and her wide eye blinked away unbidden tears. Behind her, she dimly heard approaching footsteps, accompanied by a mocking laugh. “You really had me worried for a moment there, you know? Ambushes, Stage Hazards, homing projectiles and throwing a fucking cape at my face to blind me? That’s some next level cheese right there, but I guess that’s the best I can expect from—” He paused. The approaching footsteps stopped. “Why are you laughing?” [i]Am I laughing? Oh, these gasps… no wonder I’m having trouble breathing. Fool, why does it matter [/i]why[i] I’m laughing? In what realm could it ever lead to something good for you?[/i] Pithy turned herself over, glaring at her latest enemy in this blasted tournament. In one hand she held her own phylactery, having dug it out of her shirt while she was facing down. In the other she held its twin, the heart beating rapidly as though alarmed. The length of chain from which it had dangled from her enemy’s neck was broken. “You talk too much,” she rasped. The man looked down to his chest and understanding dawned on him, followed by a dark rage. He took another step towards her, raising his sword. “Give that back, you bitch!” But Pithy had already driven her phylactery’s needle into the other heart’s rubbery flesh. The man stopped in his tracks, his injured arm reaching to his chest as though a new pain had all but overridden the old one. He stumbled back, the orange sword falling from his hand as his left hand joined his right. His breath sped up, rapidly reaching the levels of hyperventilation until a keening scream tore its way out of his throat. His legs crumpled under him, as if they could no longer hold his weight, and spasms began to wrack his body. Pithy continued to watch from her place on the floor, wide-eyed as the man’s scream slowly died, only for it to start again at the next gasped breath. All the while, the beat of the heart she had stolen from him gradually slowed. It was not long until the man lost consciousness, but Pithy held onto the two interlocked hearts for long after her enemy’s had stilled.