[IC] A Hero Tale {Complete}

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce's own ki reformed again into an entirely new weapon, the oversized mace elongating into a chain that circled multiple times around his torso, waist and shoulders. Like the mace, the ki of the weapon occasionally sparked, but its strength was not to be questioned. He chose again to forgo trading useless banter with Vale, instead responding by whipping the chain out to its full length and meeting Vale's whip.

[tex]

The whip and the chain met furiously, midway between the two fighters, but Vale's whip moves with finesse, wrapping around Bruce's weapon, stopping it in midair, and climbing it towards Bruce at an alarming rate. Vale dropped down from the pillar, onto the ground, and grasped the handle of his weapon with both hands, forcing it to split into three. Two more tendrils of black steel lashed forwards, towards Bruce, aiming to grasp onto his arms.

[Jensoman]

Jenso frowned as Prisma charged at him. "So...how did you end up getting stuck in those amulets, anyways?" He asked, smirking. He jumped back in order to avoid the slashes, ready to use his Ki-coated hands to deflect the man's strikes. "Did someone kick your ass and force you in there?" He asked, taunting Prisma.

[Brucenorris007]

Before the whips could reach him, Bruce dissipated the part of his chain that was attached to him, maintaining the ki necessary to keep the chain the first tendril was intertwined with in existence. He returned to his reliable blade of ki, momentarily throwing caution to the wind and launching himself upward, once again, into the air with a burst from the floor beneath him, tapping his finger against the pillar on his way up. He took up one of his last spearheads with one hand to parry the two freely moving tendrils, aiming to cut through the first that was still twining through his chain.

[tex]

Prisma ignored Jenso and giggled, slashing at him continuously with both of his arms. Until he was cornered against the wall. Prisma suddenly fused his arms together into a larger sword-like appendage. He slashed at Jenso horizontally, cutting through the wall behind him as well. "I am never trapped!" Prisma shouted, spawning a clone behind his blade as it headed for Jenso. The clone followed the blade in a lunge, and attempted to grab him, while another clone popped up at the opposite side of the room, next to the clone from earlier. It charged a similar sphere of blue energy.

"No Hope!"
"No Hope!"
"No Hope!"
"No Hope!"

~
Vale's snake-like tendrils began to twist irritably as Bruce slashed at them, retracting back into their handle quickly. Vale cursed under his breath and put his small dagger away, once again drawing his Ying-Yang Katana. The vampire dashed towards the exit of the temple, keeping his eyes on Bruce, with his blade at the ready.

[Jensoman]

Jenso's eyes widened as Prisma slashed at him. "No...please!!" Jenso cried out in a paniced tone, acting as if he was truly frightened of Prisma. He suddenly ducked under Prisma's slash, and used his left hand that was still coated in Ki to deflect the sword from the clone that was lunging his sword at him. He followed up with his right fist, rocket punching in an uppercut punch, aimed for Prisma's jaw.

[tex]

Prisma's body was launched back by Jenso's attack, and his nearby clone was sent backwards. The masked man landed near his two clones that were charging, and got up with a quick hop. "Haha! I'm fine, fine! All fine! Durable, indestructible, invincible!" Prisma's clone near Jenso disappeared, whilst one near Prisma released its orb. It moved towards Jenso slowly, crackling with energy that struck the ground, and reached several feet outwards. "And you, you're dead!" Prisma rose both his hands, and summoned two walls of electrical energy on either side of Jenso, trapping him in an angled portion of the circular room. The ball of electrical energy neared him, and the clone that launched it ran into the electrical cage, turning both of its hands into blades again. The other clone did the same, launching its orbs of electricity at Jenso, this one slightly faster and less powerful. Jenso was now face to face with two blade-armed clones, and two electrical orbs in a cage of death.

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce's brow furrowed, genuinely confused as to Vale's sudden retreat. He briefly glanced behind him, considering the option of deconstructing the wall that lay between him and Jenso, who had yet to emerge.
'No,' he thought, pressing the fingers of one hand hard against the wall and concentrating until veins throbbed on his forehead. 'I'll stand by him by putting my trust in his power.'
Bruce began to run after Vale into the next chamber, which, he noticed now, was much more expansive in scope than the last. Grunting with the effort, he completely reshaped the layout of the temple. Pillars ground against the floor, and the ground rumbled as full sections of walls perpendicular to the temple's exit reformed and stretched out, sliding in alternating order from either side of the room to create new walls between Vale and the exit. Pushing himself a bit further, he also broke down the floor immediately in front of Vale into sand to slow him down.

[tex]

Vale's foot stopped hard in the sand, and he struggled to maintain his upright position, but turned to face Bruce nonetheless as his exit was blocked. "Growing a pair, now of all times?" Vale taunted, grasping his sword with both hands. "Perhaps I should lead by example!" With that, he charged after Bruce, and slashed at him vertically, with a perfectly sturdy blow.

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce took an instant to inhale and exhale, set his stance wide, dig in his heels and concentrate the ki in his blade to the greatest degree possible. He raised his sword over his head horizontally, one hand on the hilt with the other palm pressed against the dull edge of the blade in anticipation of the clash.

[tex]

Vale's blade crashed against Bruce's, upsetting the dust around them. The sheer impact dug Bruce's feet even deeper into the dirt, and brought Vale into an advantageous position. With all his might, he pushed against Bruce's guard, successfully closing the distance between his blade and the swordsman's head. Slowly, slowly, Vale could feel it. Challenging his strength was a mistake, surely.

"Die! Die!! Die!!!" Vale growled, flexing his arms to their fullest extent.

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce grunted with the effort of the clash, but kept his focus. The ground beneath him broke down again into sand which erupted up between Vale and Bruce toward Vale's face. He split a bit of his ki into another chain, one of the links closed around one of the few spearheads he had left. At the same moment that he jumped backward, he whipped the chain such that it brought the spearhead off his waistband and snapped it back upward through the sand toward Vale's jaw.

[Jensoman]

Jenso frowned as he was backed into a corner. "NO!!!!" Jenso shrieked, still feigning fear. 'Looks like I have no choice...' Jenso thought, as Pij emerged from his chest. The flame phoenix landed on his shoulder. "Let's do it, Pij." Jenso muttered. The bird chirped happily, as Jenso rose his hands. The bird landed on the palms of his hands.

"ONE WITH NATURE!!!"

He called out, as a flash of orange light emerged from him and Pij. Jenso was revealed, with flame wings on his back and talons on his hands. He swung his left wing at the first clone near him. Feathers erupted from it, which took the shape of daggers. They were aimed to strike the veins in the clone's left arm. If they struck, they would temporarily seal the arcane system in the clone's arm. He moved behind him afterwards in a fast-moving blur, clawing at the back of the clone's neck with his right talon. He moved out of the way of the faster moving orb afterwards, keeping his eye on the slower moving electrical orb and the second clone.

[tex]

Vale didn't give up his assault, pushing and pushing, even when the sand obscurred his vision, and the spear-head found itself lodged in his jaw, dislocating it one one side. Vale took another step forward and flooded his sword with another burst of strength. Bruce's blade couldn't hold against his assault. Within moments, Vale's katana met the surface of Bruce's left collarbone, and began to dig into his flesh. Vale's tongue hung out eagerly as the smell of blood filled his nostrils, fresh and ready for the taking. His pupils dilated, and he opened the half of his jaw that was still attached, ready to bite into Bruce's neck the moment he got into range.

~

Prisma's eyes narrowed as Jenso transformed, and in an instant, one of his clones was dispatched, shredded into a blur of arcane smoke. He second clone vanished and Prisma looked up at his new target with a devlish grin. Both of his electrical orbs fused together, and then suddenly shot upwards, towards Jenso, like a spear of energy. Meanwhile, he began to close his cage, lowering the amount of space Jenso had to move in.

[Jensoman]

"Shit...! Dad...I'm sorry!" Jenso called out in faked despair, as the spear headed to him. He slammed his wings together in a false act of panic, and a smoke screen clouded the entire cage. He hoped to deceive Prisma this way, and make him believe he'd perished. Despite being unable to see, he could still sense exactly where the spear of energy was. He soared downwards to avoid the spear, moving out of the smoke screen and the cage at top speeds like a blur, and moved around Prisma.

Jenso and Pij suddenly unfused again, as Jenso landed behind Prisma. The flame phoenix then flew overhead and was flying right at Prisma's face from the front, swinging it's flame wing at his face. Jenso launched a rocket punch at the side of Prisma's head while he hoped that Pij would distract him momentarily using his Overheat form for an instant.

[tex]

Prisma's eyes followed the actions as best they could. As Jenso disappeared in the smoke, Prisma smiled under his mask and nearly slammed the cage together, to follow through. But as he brought the edges closer to one another, the cage was dispelled as Pij slammed him in the face with her wing. He took a step back, straight into Jenso's fist, which threw his body forwards, and against the wall at the opposite end of the room. Prisma pushed himself up and glared at Jenso with one eye. Half of his face was completely torn off, revealing a pure-black sphere of matter in the center of his skull. His flesh returned, covering the orb again, and his eyes widened.

"PEEK-A....BOO!"
"PEEK....A-BOO!"

Prisma's voice sounded from behind Jenso, as two clones spawned and slashed at him with their bladed arms. Their voices were slightly de-synced in that moment, but their attacks were not affected.

[Brucenorris007]

Bruce kept his concentration on avoiding losing consciousness, remembering the last time Vale got a taste of blood not his own. The ground moved again, and the wrist of his hand holding his sword twisted until the blade came full circle down toward Vale's own hands.
Consciousness slipped further and further from him, but he refused to die here. The ground reformed again into a giant spike that shot out toward Vale, but it began crumbling almost as soon as it came into being.
The scene of the painting, Jenso's shoulders slumped in front of it, the other four bodies on the ground that it depicted. He saw one of them as his own, the other three people he hadn't even known yet.
His pulse pounded in his ears. Aching at first, making him hyperaware of all sources of pain he was in- then it became deeper, stronger, louder and resonating with his very being. The earth under him pulsated, trembling, sliding, cracking, eroding and rising all at once. He could hear everything that touched the ground within the temple and for miles outside of it.
'The planet,' he realized. 'I'm feeling its heartbeat.'

Bruce's drooping eyelids snapped up- the ki in his blade spiked anew, even as he was still moving it to cut Vale. The skin where Vale's blade had sunk into changed, hardening into rock that closed itself around the blade and simultaneously clotted the bleeding. Bruce's one free hand also changed, as if becoming the hardest materials of the natural world, closing around the Vale's sword, yet not getting cut. Words that were at once Bruce's and not his fell from his mouth, in a deep, reverberating voice that nearly whispered.

"Earth Sage-"

Bruce's feet shifted, aiming to heave Vale up over his back with his next motion.

"Resonance"

[tex]

Vale's smile curled back into a frown as his body was slowly moved upward. "W-Wha!?" He shouted from his mangled Jaw, getting thrown right off of his feet, and into a nearby well. He lost grip of his Ying-Yang Blade entirely, leaving it with Bruce. As he struck the ground again, Vale was able to stand himself up, and tear the spearhead from his mouth, quickly pushing his jawbone back into place. He looked at Bruce in shock, narrowing his eyes angrily. "Sage magic," Vale growled, "SAGE MAGIC!?"

[Jensoman]

Jenso's eyes narrowed as he noticed the black sphere of matter. 'So that's the weak spot...' He thought, dashing further to the left to avoid the first clone's slashes. Pij responded immediately, soaring down towards the second clone as he slashed. The bird's wings seemed to solidify like steel, in order to block or deflect the slashes that had been aimed at Jenso. Jenso dashed towards Prisma's real body, and launched an omega saw horizontally at Prisma's torso while trying to cover the distance between them.

[tex]

Prisma's clones were deflected, but each one immediately shifted their two blades into cannons, launching condenses arcane spheres are Pij rapidly. Two more clones spawned in front of Prisma, defending his main body while it regenerated by turning their bodies into two walls of liquid steel. Unfortunately for them, Jenso's omega saw pierced them easily, and cut Prisma's body right in half. His upper torso crashed against the ground, and his clones all began to return to their normal forms, and cease their attacks for a moment.