ShiningSector

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Travis tried to pay no mind to Nemo and Raiya's brief exchange as he continued to disarm all of the runes he laid down everywhere around him. The process of disabling the activation sequences was a tedious task but a necessary one none the less. He couldn't have anyone be walking around him while giving off enough of a mana signature to trip one of the overly sensitive traps. However compared to the largest of them, the ware comparatively small-fry.

With the last unheard verse of his incantation muttered, all the runes he imprinted into the earth fizzled and went off in a quit poof of burning vapors, signifying their disarmament. Stepping back up after finishing nulling rites, he had then turned to face Nemo who was now reporting to Felix of their success in acquiring the Paragon. It was not a moment later he had then shifted his attention to Travis and beckoned him in to show Felix their sought after bounty. 'My dear'...? Ehh...

With a nod, Travis complied and approached Felix, only stopping just a couple of feet apart from his superior. Pulling on the left lapel of his coat with a native hand, he reached into the apparel with his right hand and gave a light tap upon a patch within the coat. A second later, a faint illumination could be noted as he retracted his hand with the Paragon within its grip. Securing the mana crystal with both hands, Travis then presented it to Felix as if offering it.

"As ordered, one Paragon of Espial."

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Travis was unsure if his query hit home or even provoked a response; the mist that visually concealed both him and Alya from each others' sights still drifted within the arena and thus denied any kind of confirmation to be desired. But in the coming moments, the mattered little. The ground beneath them soon shook violently all of a sudden due to nearby activity. At first Travis believed the engagement Raiya was participating in was still raging but then again, he remembered Thadeus moseying in on a fight with Nemo. Perhaps only for a few short minutes, the new battle would rage and Travis would find that no response from Alya was to be heard. If she was taking advantage of the interruption and maneuvering inward or nullifying his traps, she was doing a good job, especially with the physical racket the next-door fight was causing. Of course, there was also the chance that she too was also startled by the unexpected brawl.

Not a moment later did everything suddenly stop and the great stone walls that divided everyone had then receded back into the earth. The new change in architecture and atmosphere quickly dissipated the mist that had claimed the arena when it first became constructed. Naturally, Travis was puzzled by this and questioned why the spell Thadeus had casted was no longer active. While contemplating the results of Thadeus' mad tourney, he quickly realized that the loss of the arena walls meant that Alya could now maneuver freely past his defenses. With his best advantage had over Alya the entire fight also vanishing, Travis prepared for the worst to come; to expect Alya lunging at him from any of his unguarded flanks. Once he caught the shadow of a figure now upon him from his left side, he reeled back and braced himself.

But instead of Alya coming through the thinned out mist, it was Felix whom greeted him with his presence with Nemo and Raiya well behind him.

Travis stood dumbstruck with a utterly surprised expressed washed onto his face, still frozen in the taken defensive, if not, cowering stance, as if anticipating something far more threatening than this pleasant surprise. Tilting his head around to his right, he found Alya still in her position he had guessed she would be after his first trap went off; almost intriguing that she never left. Apparently, she too also seemed a tad perplexed with the situation but not as deplorable as Travis was unfortunately broadcasting. He eventually let himself loose after tensing up throughout the entire skirmish, nearly falling over on his rear in the process with all the adrenaline now diminishing as he exhaled. As Felix confirmed it in once simple sentence, the fighting has ceased and Thadeus was nowhere to be found. Travis took the random assumption that he had fled upon Felix arriving on the scene.

It was then Alya finally agreed to stand down and took back the more sincere aura she had displayed before the battle had begun earlier. If that was not pleasing enough, Alya had then demonstrated courtesy and sought to heal everyone's injuries. Azure-colored threads that reach out from her spell and reached to every living body including Travis himself. He watched in fascination as the healing thread seemingly stitched his cauterized wound into healthy muscle and skin as if the injury had never occurred.

"T-thank you." Travis almost sheepishly responded to Alya's efforts in healing everyone. It was natural for him to show gratitude whn it was clearly deserved but after having fought hard against the same person, he was still under the cautious mindset and thus effected they way he spoke, even if they were now on even terms.

While he watched and listened to Alya and Felix discuss her fate and nearly glaring at Felix for unintentionally blurting out a rather hostile reply, he then caught a glimpse of the the battlefield Alya and he had fought in. Unlike the damage observed in the other former arenas, the earth was hardly destroyed but it remain littered with scorch marks and un-triggered runes. But one such rune with its lines and characters glistening with a dark flowing pink, caught his eye now that it was visually noticeable. It was Travis' earlier half of his would-be-trump card, a Graviton Seal, still on standby and awaiting his trigger had Alya chose to attack him within the runic circle. Miraculously for Alya, she stood only a couple feet away from the large magic circle that separated the space between them.

"I'm...gonna go ahead and disarm this so nothing bad happens..." he announced. Not wanting a black hole-on-demand still armed beneath their feet, Travis walked forward and began to cite the incantation to neutralize it and the other runes too.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Travis eagerly awaited for another aggressive move from Alya after his defiant and meaningless attack against her. However no such response came, interestingly enough. Had she deduced the number of runic traps laid in front of her and plotted to address them? Possibly; he didn't take that out of consideration and it did make sense to a degree. While the endurance of Alya's barrier was seemingly absolute, there was however no evidence of that it didn't have a limit. But in the strategic sense, triggering the runes would give her position away and the more that detonated allowed Travis to meter his opponent's relative distance in order to trigger his latest trap. Another thought could be a quick relocation though Travis would question how much room Alya truly had without eventually being obvious.

Then came Thadeus' unwelcoming voice echoing into their arena. In the way he had spoke, it had seemed Nemo had defeated Nevar but Travis wouldn't put it past him to figure that Nemo had killed off his opponent. However unexpectedly, Thadeus actually congratulated Nemo's performance in finishing off one of his own as if their battles was simply a play. While it could not be seen, Travis' face contorted into disgust as Thadeus sparred no expense into his adulation of Nemo. This guy is nuts, thought Travis he is kept his gave slightly shifted to Thadeus' skyward direction, how can he be so...sanguine, over the death of one of his own?

Trying to keep much of his attention to the fight, Travis then realized Alya had yet to make move still, even throughout Thadues' almost obnoxious announcement. There was hardly any mana flow detected through his mana analysis so what was keeping Alya up? Of course, he wasn't against the delay if it meant more prep time. But taking into account of Alya's honest behavior as observed earlier, he was curious if she was in anyway effected by this unpleasant interruption; Thadeus' congratulatory statement or Nevar's demise. Even both maybe.

It was almost below him to question or deprecate about people's motives or how they feel about certain subjects. There was a distinct right he felt that everyone had to operate in accordance to there own way of judgement, however moral or immoral as it may be unless it was arguable to protest. But with Thadeus' persona more realized, it did however present an opportunity that Travis would be more than eager to exploit if it meant controlling the flow of this fight or better yet, ending it. Still wanting to maintain the an order of imbalance, Travis extended his arms straight to each side while enclosing his thumb, ring and baby fingers into his left palm whereas his same right fingers secured the tome still in hand. The next setup were his index and middle fingers reaching and splitting out into fork before channeling a small amount of mana. Whatever response he would get would allow him to learn more about his opponent but more importantly; provoking a response.

"I hate to pry but if you don't mind me speaking my mind," echoed Travis' voice as it resonated from all around the arena, casting the disorientation of where is voice was coming from despite the known fact of his maintained position, "What is Thadeus to you? One of your friend's has...regrettably fallen, and he treats it as skit of a theatrical production."

Transformers - One Shall Fall

I'm still game.

Doe...@pyroman waiting a reply in IC

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Having succeeded in covering a portion of the arena in runic traps while the mist isolated Travis from his better-fit opponent, he took another brief moment to pause and exhale. Never before had he applied so much effort into anything this dire. It was a frightening thought for Travis that he would have to fight for is own life; in fact, it was rare for danger to take an interest into his well being. Granted, dealing with Enlightened Cultists and Salem Disciples were plenty bad enough but never would he expect to run into someone of much greater magnitude in comparison to the grunts he had run in before. If anything, Alya was shaping up to be an entity could not hope withstand against with his simple powers. The image frightened him so but what else could he do? He was alone and confined to a large and yet enclosed space. Clearly with no where to run, he would need to challenge this immovable obstacle by any means necessary.

Before picking himself up again, an unexpected flurry of dark violet bolts screamed out from the mist and leaped towards him. He gritted his teeth as he cursed and quickly pushed himself to the floor as the almost ebony bolts of mana flew above him. While suffering no direct hits from what he could tell, Travis however could feel a searing sensation across his left shoulder. Peering at a notable blackened burn mark on his coat, he deduced one of the shots had indeed scratched him. Even if it was a minor contact however painful it was as he growled in discomfort, the same depleting effects he had felt before were already present within wound he had the luck of being inflicted by.

As he rose, he gave Alya's recent counterattack some thought. While the shots were definitely inaccurate, they were however spot on with his current position. This further proved that Alya could "see" him through the steam but not to a significant degree. It had to be apparent that she was using some sort of method in order to locate him, as inefficient as it seemed. With this new information in mind, there was no doubt that continuing this charade would not last forever now that he could be tracked. This battle had to end soon for sure and he needed to start sowing the seeds now less this expiring advantage literally fades away.

Upon the detonation of one of his backdraft runes, signaling Alya's approach and direction, Travis sighed as he knelt down with both of his hands and focused, Mana rushing through his body has he developed a much broader spell than the ones before it. A series of flat ebony tendrils crept from his palms before quickly spreading throughout the ground under the guise of the mist, imprinting into the earth a large triangle before the ink-like contours spread out into various shapes, covering a slightly moderate section of the arena. Normally, Travis would have taken the time to draw out this magic circle as a means of practice and analyzation purpose but time was short and he had little alternative but to divulge a sizable portion of his already limited mana to embed one of the more, if not the most proficient of his runic arsenal.

With sweat beginning to drip from his face, warning him of growing fatigue, Travis pull himself self up and walked further to his right flank while producing a tome from one of this belt holsters. As he prodded the pages for a specific book mark, his left arm extended forward and ignited another stream of spreading fire into the direction of where the the first rune trap reacted. At this point, he cared little what his meaningless attacks did against Ayla's barrier; all that he wanted now was for his opponent to come and get him.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Its that time of semester again; college finals. Currently getting the essentials out of the way until the end of the week. Almost done though so I anticipating posting (late) tomorrow evening.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

Well, that didn't work, thought Travis after witnessing Alya rushing through his fiery blaze with little effort at, all thanks to her barrier that seemed to intensify against the attack. If anything though, he didn't expect his spell to have much effect in the first place and rather served its purpose in prodding against the barrier in order to expose its function and weaknesses. Based on the results, the barrier was reactionary; strengthening once a magical attack was upon it. The defensive spell was no doubt a more hardier element to deal with than he first expected.

However as he guessed, Alya was already pushing ahead with another swing of her staff ever-radiating its draining haze, this time to Travis' right flank. It truly surprised him how much ground Alya was aggressively gaining in order to strike out at him; it was almost a wonder why she wasn't using any spells to engage him. The fact didn't matter to much to him but if he had to surmise, it was likely an attempt to passively neutralize him which made sense considering the effects of the aura he could easily pick-up on.

With mana already collected, Travis had little choice but to respond again through another evasion. However retreating backwards again would only be more encouraging for Ayla to keep up her assault in a single direction and eventually cornering Travis to one of the erected walls. Moving was his only sure way of keeping his counterpart off balance. While it was completely against his personal wishes, Travis leaped into the path of Alya's swing with his hands extended forward, this time conjoining his palms as a spell formed in response to his released mana. Just before the staff connected, he had then casted a repulsion spell in hopes of reflecting the attack. But with his own present momentum flying against the oncoming attack, his spell propelled him away from Alya to her rear left flank.

Meeting and rolling against the ground, Travis quickly enacted another part of his strategy and formed two additional runes his palms; another backdraft rune and his new cryo rune as well before discharging them at once in close proximity to one another. The two opposing elemental forces reacted to each other's presence as the streams of fire and cryogenic gases converged, exploding into mass cloud of steam that rapidly enveloped the entire arena. Now that a natural smokescreen has been laid down, Travis spent only a few seconds to recuperate himself, especially after he had grazed the exhausting influence from Ayla's attempted strike. But he couldn't stay still for long however; he still didn't know whether or not could even see through the thick mist of steam.

Just as he was about to move out while using the steam to cover his movements, an idea had then came to mind. He still needed to keep Alya off of him somehow and restrict her movements as he formulated away of dealing with that barrier and hopefully his opponent in the process. A spell and a tome incantation came to mind but both required preparations to meet. For the time being, he would press his right hand into the ground and imprinted once of his runes in with the stone and dirt before vanishing into the mist, repeating the process while maintaining mobility. If Travis' opponent were to continue her assault, there was now an inlaid and overly mana-sensitive "minefield" to pass through.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

@ShiningSector sorry I'm a bit late, but the post is up now. Feel free to reply whenever. :)

@Mal2103

Tis all good. =)

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

"Oh, now what?" Travis groaned as he felt the ground rumble beneath him.

From the earth arose a multitude of massive stone partitions, each forming an enclosure around each of the commencing duels. Travis was completely caught of unaware of how Thadeus's intention on he saw these battles to flow. It was almost as if Thadeus was treathing this engagement as some kind of tourney almost however vocally, the didn't want anyone to coordinate with their respective allies; a troubling factor Travis would have to take in to account. He was all alone now, by himself, against a more powerful adversary. If he was going to make it out of here, he had to make the most of his reserves in the best way possible.

However, planning would simply have to be done on the fly, now that Alya was on the move. Whatever calming aura she had projected before, now became something more sinister than Travis has anticipated. Already, Travis could feel the sense of negativity and waning from this hazy aura, gripping at him and sapping him of will. Out of instinct or reactive reflex, Travis took several steps back, hoping to put distance between himself and Ayla. It was clear now that Alya was going to be more difficult to manage, now that getting to close would compromise his effectiveness to stand against her.

Speaking of which, whether she took Travis' goading seriously or not, she quickly closed the distance and swung her staff down to his feet. The glowing runes upon the staff were evident enough to Travis that he quickly surmised that they served as an extension to Alya's dark influence. With a brief yelp, Travis quickly leaped backwards, already having the slight advantage of already moving away to prevent contact from her runic staff. Anticipating a follow up, Travis extended his hands forward and produced the holographic images of his newly created backdraft spell within each palm. With the a sliver of mana pushing into each rune, the spells instantly detonated, vomiting twin torrents of surging flame that lunged at his attacker.

At such pointblank range, Travis would not think Alya would have have amble time to outrun or evade an artificial backdraft, but what damage his spell would cause was not of his concern. What was on his mind however was to keep to the building strategy in out playing his opponent. Just before casting the explosive runic spell, Travis was sure to leap backwards and allow the momentum of the detonations push him back into a more position where he could have plenty of room to make his next maneuver while he channeled more mana.

Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]