[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[Necrophage]

The attack came with more force than was expected but it was just what he needed. Force and energy rippled off the shield until Zelriane's akari form broke through. The very friction caused by the opposing forces heated the room. This was not a desperate defensive measure. It was one he'd hoped to use against blatant heavy-hitters like Rajaka. One that was impossible to use against other order members like Adarina. As his shield cracked, Oz thrust his open palm against the technique. At first he was pushed back a foot or two across the floor without faltering. That was all the space it moved him.

It became increasingly evident that the attack was losing its effect as the energy that should have been lashing and cutting Oz instead bounced off to the sides, collecting in the air like a cloud of raw blurring motion. Zelriane seemed to catch on quickly as he dashed around the arm and kicked off of Oz's chest to create distance.

"With your eyes I'm sure you saw it. The moment I diverted your technique." He raised the arm between them and all that motion and energy forcibly trapped in the air swarmed around his hand like a great invisible gauntlet. "Let's see how much that would have hurt." It was a force-master's feat to redirect that much energy. If Zelriane had changed tactic instead of advancing his attack Anvil would have been in vain.

Oz punched backwards, launching himself at an alarming speed straight at Zelriane's torso with a flying kick.

[tex]

Zelriane pivoted the oncoming human bullet on his right foot, letting Oz shoot past him quickly. "You think me foolish enough..." His robe fluttered violently as he reached out to touch Oz as quickly, and as safely as was possible in the moment that he was locked into his forward momentum. His hand that reached out was coated in agoniki for a brief moment as it came within inches of his skin.

"...To challenge that might head on?" His left foot slid across the floor as he motioned towards Oz, and he lowered his left hand, gathering compressed air around his fingertips in preparation for their next exchange. If he could bombard Oswald with enough agoniki before taking any damage, this fight would eventually lean totally in his favour. It was a question of who's blow struck with its full effect first. With his speed and prediction though, the moss headed warrior was not worried for his safety.

[Necrophage]

The proximity to agoniki made Oz's skin crawl. He zipped into the wall, crouching against it and then bounding back to the floor. Zelriane always won drawn out fights. Oz needed to keep the man from physically touching him as much as possible. There was a creeping feeling in the back of his head that Zelriane didn't always need to touch to apply his agoniki however. It would be best to slow him down if direct hits were ineffective. Maybe he could disorient Zel with the built up energy by damaging his ears. He frowned, he missed having two arms.

Oz shielded himself against his own attack before lifting his arm and slapping the ground with all the built up energy in order to produce a roll of thunder. A sound wave to damage Zelriane's ears and hopefully disrupt his balance.

[tex]

Zelriane winced at the sound wave, but backed away and waited out the resounding shock wave until it petered out into nothing. His hearing was particularly honed, but no so sensitive as to fall prey to something like a loud thunderclap from so far away. With his new position, several yards away from Oz, he began to fire repeated bursts of pressurised air across the room, waiting for an opening. If he could land a clean Akari, they may be no need for a drawn out battle against this big lummox. He'd just need to hit him when his barrier was down, and find a way outside his range of vision. One, two, four, six, twelve, a bombardment of wind-pressure spike zinged across the room, all aimed for vital points on Oz's body while Zelriane danced sideways, strafing around Oz, who now literally had his back against the corner, despite the room being perfectly circular.

[Necrophage]

Oz managed to deflect each and every projectile while waving and weaving his hand through the air. The rapidity of Zelriane's attacks left him with little room to make any immediate counterstrike, it was all he do to keep up his defense with one hand.

[tex]

Zelriane fired several more shots, until taking up his high-handed stance. A fairly obvious tell at this point, it would be impossible for him to land a hit on Oz if he could see it coming from a mile away. But he attempted it again. "Akari." The words left his lips in a quick, disciplined hiss of air, and his body was engulfed in a familiar green light before launching across the battlefield once again towards Oz like a razor knife made entirely of light. Was he trying to catch Oz off guard while he was busy defending? Or looking for another angle?

[Necrophage]

Oz reflected the last few shots before widening his stance and bending his knees. "Anvil."

[tex]

A rush of air flowed past Oz as Zelriane's aura neared, but what transpired was not the same resounding impact as before. Instead, Zelriane emerged from his Akari Dash standing firmly in front of Oz, with his right hand placed gently against the side of his barrier.

"Agoniki Ihan" From his hand, a rush of his meta energy emerged, pushing to breach his outer shell. But it wasn't with physical might like his Akari aimed to accomplish, it was with sheer dominance. His agoniki wouldn't take long to overpower Oz's veil, even if it did bare a natural resistance to his power. It was the same principal as hard boiling an egg, really. Except instead of cooking his insides, Zelriane was going to assault them with a stream of torturous pain. "Hide behind your clever little techniques all you want. I'll just have to cook you from the inside out. A much less favourable fate than death by internal bleeding. Weigh your options carefully, so that you may choose your method of death with a shred of honour still..." He glanced at Oz's stump of an arm and smiled. "intact"

[Necrophage]

"Good. You learn just as I do." Zelriane showed some true intelligence but drawing together always posed risks to both fighters. Oz pushed his hand forward, exhaled and drew in a focused breath. He completely dropped his barrier.

Whether it was stupid or bold could be answered later. He reeled his arm up and threw his weight forward to elbow strike Zelriane. He followed all the way through and added some spin so that he could backfist Zelriane should he flit behind Oz.

[tex]

Zelriane' face contorted angrily at Oz's comment. As his barrier fell though, there was nothing in the way of his expulsion of meta energy. Like floodgates, Oz had opened the path for Zelriane's agoniki to strike him in full force, rushing through the center of his body a moment after he dropped his barrier. Zelriane was force to release the technique early, and jump backwards into a flip. While midair, he pushed off of Oz's shoulder and landed a few feet away, before thrusting his right palm towards Oz’s right thigh, aiming to cut off the flow of Ki to his leg with a precise strike.

[Necrophage]

Oz managed to swat Zelriane's thigh strike out of the air with a vicious downward parry from his arm. While he was able to defend himself there he was running out of options. He could feel the burn begin, it would develop into indescribable pain and any more would incapacitate him. This was almost like last time except this time he was down one limb. Oz was alone, out of options and getting ever nearer to defeat.

Alone? Oz projected another shield around himself. He was never alone anymore, even if he wanted to be. He fell to one knee, the pain was blossoming. He looked down and closed his eyes. Oz was no longer himself, his own man. He hadn't been for a while now. He had become something else, not quite a monster but definitely no longer a man.

Energy began to fume out of Oz's skin. He wasn't gathering anything, it was being expelled into his surroundings. Mixed in the purplish hue were streams of green; Zelriane's agoniki. Beads of sweat ran down his body and dripped from his face. This was taking its toll on him. Oz looked up and opened his eyes, staring through Zelriane. They shined a brilliant violet, illuminating his face. "I hope you didn't forget that you're the reason I'm here."

[tex]

Zelriane pulled himself back and began gathering a great deal of power in his legs. The aura that began to spread pushed him further back out of caution. Although he could see it, Zelriane couldn't discern the true nature of meta energy like Yzeira or Nexus. His eyes were purely designed to predict outcomes through analysis of his target's flow of energy, not to deconstruct the metaphysical makeup or properties something like veil. He tightened himself in place and pulled his arms inwards. It was a compact stance, unfamiliar, similar to that of a safe boxer, with his forearms blocking his torso and hands bunched tightly in front of his chin.

"Of course not. At first, I'd not expected your to take to Void poisoning so frightfully well. The awakening of Meta energy in such a short period of time is unheard of, outside of Primeirian cases." He stood in place and moved slightly from side to side, light on his toes. "But you're here now, because of me. Just as planned. Once we're through eliminating your friends, we'll be taking you in. Yzeira will subjugate you, and we'll be putting this little world behind us as nothing more than a dirty memory." Zelriane's legs began to glow with lime green light, and his body appeared to float a few millimetres off the ground. "It's a shame that I'm the only one around here that actually follows orders. If there was any semblance of coordination among my forsaken allies, Ada wouldn't have ended up the way she did."

[Necrophage]

"Why do you follow his orders? Why did you ever join him at all?" Oz questioned. He stood in a flexible side stance and reduced his output on shields to prepare himself for spontaneous bursts of movement. It looked like Zelriane was readying himself to move faster and he wanted to be ready to respond. "I've seen no redeemable qualities or intentions in him. His actions are petty and unjust. Is it coercion that reins you in? Fear? Respect? I would know you so we can fight unhindered."

[tex]

Zelriane was silent for a brief moment as he hovered lightly in place.

"He has unwavering conviction, and ultimate power. His ideals are unhindered by silly principals, like moral obligation and sentiment, the very nonsense you and many others align themselves with in order to circumvent your own weaknesses. I see it the same way, life and death, power and weakness- It's all part of a just reality. Only the powerful are allowed to create the rules, and by my own beliefs, I am to follow them, lest I lose myself in my own arrogance." Zelriane lowered his hands slightly to reveal his face. "There is nothing petty or unjust about a god's ultimate sentence. You are to look upon beings like him and kneel, or be consumed by the void, and die without purpose like every other pitiful mortal in this wretchedly entitled multiverse." His eyes narrowed. "What purpose can a naive fool claim in a reality that purports strength and knowledge over pitiful emotions like love and sadness? To claim any authority without a divine position- That is the ultimate act of arrogance. You will learn with time, or you will disappear. To be perfectly frank, however..." Zelriane's body began to fade as he spoke, and his final phrase echoed across the room, as if he surrounded Oz from all sides.

"I'm fine with either outcome"

He was already behind Oz, with the length of his right leg firmly pressing against his back. This was not typical agoniki. The energy only served to inflict sheer damage. As Oz was struck from Behind, Zelriane uttered a phrase with a quick, trained gasp of air.

"Seikaku Akari"

[Necrophage]

Zelriane's strike was so sudden that it knocked Oz off balance in addition to causing a nasty bruise on his bare back even through his shield. A normal man would have easily been crippled for life. Or dead. Oz gasped as he stumbled forward but caught himself from falling. The speed wasn't so shocking at this point but it was effective and proved Zelriane didn't need to rely on his agoniki to disable tough targets. I can't think of any way to predict that fluid of speed, let alone match it. But there was still a way and he wanted to use anything but it.

Oz gripped his fist tightly, the shield around him started to slowly expand outward as ribbons of energy lapped up out of it in marbled patterns. They had their own sharpness to them. Once the shield reached an appropriate size it stopped expanding and the marble patterns moved in more intensity around it. He had his doubts it would stop Zelriane but it may at least prove damaging to strike him.

[tex]

Zelriane stood his ground and waited patiently for Oz to make a move with his newly summoned energy. There was something curious about it. The technique resembled his 'Atlas' in some way, but to use such a massive creature in a relatively small room, with only 16 feet of space from the ground to the ceiling was questionable. The energy around Zelriane's legs flared outwards, and he rose his guard.

[Necrophage]

"Atlas!" Oz did not fail to meet the expectation. Atlas was a changeable construct so space constraints and shape were not a big issue."Phalanx." He commanded. What was unmistakably an arm came out of the rotating shield stretching out to Oz's left. It extended into a long, thin limb with a spiked star at the end. It went with the rotational force of the shield increasing its momentum as it swung across the room toward Zelriane.

[tex]

Zelriane side flipped over the flailing star and stopped inches above the ground, before dashing directly towards Oswald once again. This time he reeled his right arm back, and began to gather energy into a spherical shape. "Agoniki Judan" He stopped himself several feet in front of Oswald and thrust his arm forward, firing a small sphere of energy that contorted as it ripped across the small distance with astounding speed that broke the sound barrier. The wooshing and crashing of Zelriane's own movements were pitiful excuses in the wake of this sonic boom, and the bullet itself sought to look for a weak point in Oswald's shielding. In the same moment that he fired his ranged attack, Zelriane zoomed behind Oswald and looked to place his hand on the man's back, both to hold him in place, as well as...

"Agoniki Ihan"

[Necrophage]

Zelriane's Judan almost struck true. It hit his barrier while it shifted but still managed to punch through. It was forced off its original course and grazed Oz's left shoulder, drawing blood before slamming into the other side and losing the rest of its power.

Brief dimples appeared around the barrier as Zelriane moved behind Oz. As the Atlas arm withdrew into the barrier, the dimples erupted outward in spikes of energy. If it didn't take Zelriane by surprise it would at least keep him from continuing his Ihan.

[tex]

Zelriane retreated immediately, standing closer to the edge of the room. "Hmmmm..." He pondered the situation for a moment. An all encompassing defence was not to be trifled with. But he wasn't about to give up. Zelriane began to circle the entire room at a remarkable speed, moving in such a uniform line that it streaked across the room's edge like a belt of green energy. He continued to pick up speed, quicker and quicker, waiting to see how Oz would respond. That, and waiting for the energy to climax.