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Had his Deitric noticed? There seemed to be several things Deitric had seemed to overlook about his opponent and it would start to cost him dearly. “Jabs were meant to harass an opponent, draw them out, force them to react…” His jab was merely a feint and luckily for him would keep him from having to worry about dealing with a magnetized hand. Working under his unlocked mind it was all too easy to quickly take note of Deitric’s moving right hand.

To Vash it was the reaction he wanted and was waiting for. As his opponents hand slowly, at least by will of his mind’s eye in its unlocked state, moved outwards to capture his hand, he quickly snapped his arm back. Air brushed against his exposed upper body as he quickly lowered his profile, stepping in with his right foot while bending his knees so that he would be under the intended counter arm of his opponent. It was then without hesitation he turned his waist quickly to the right while extending his left fist from a chambered position at his side. His upper body remained undisturbed by his lack of adornment and could move freely and quickly, apparently also unbothered by the knee strike from earlier.

By the time Deitric would realize what was going on the up and out driving motion of his arms would keep him from being able to drop his arm to guard his exposed side and this time a full powered punch was coming dead on. The target of his strike was the same as the last two strikes. He intended to continue to assault the lower ribs of his opponent until something broke or at least till it gave him some fruitful results or another opening became present.

Upon a successful strike Deitric would be pleased to have his energy pool increased by the sudden influx of energy that his left gauntlet would release but with that small piece of good news there was also some bad. The attack would double the strength of his punch. Even under normal circumstances a strong regular punch could easily break ribs. Vash’s was targeting the weaker area with a metal covered fist and a strike that could fracture the thickest part of the human ribcage.

Simultaneously to his left arm strike, Vash’s right hand would be chambered at his side, fingers fully extended before quickly closing to a fist. Instantly his bag that sat away in the distance from them would jet towards the fighters as if pulled by a magnet of its own. Deitric wouldn’t be able to see the bag coming at him from the rear with his eyes focused on Vash. Its target was unclear from the distance but it would soon become evident.....

Charge Lvl (Varying)
L: 0 Volts (0)
R: 30,000 Volts (2)
B: 60,000 Volts (2)

Note to self. Thunder man can move really really fast. Deitric was right. Speed and time were all relative and merely because he could see and process fast enough to slow down a high speed assault didn’t meant that he would be able to move his own physical body fast enough to catch up with the strike or dodge. Or did it? The first note Deitric would have to realize was that it was not a hook that was thrown but a straight punch that targeted the lower right side of his ribs. Vash was quite reckless in battle, often going up against much larger opponents but he was by no means and idiot to continue throwing the same kind of punch. The second was that Vash could easily see super human speeds. Unless Deitric was moving several times faster than Omi’s rocket fist from the previous tournament, Vash would have no problem seeing Deitric’s supercharged fists.

The first strike would inevitably catch him square in the chest and defiantly hurt like a b***h despite the seen and braced for, well as best as he could, against the incoming onslaught. Yet again a crack could be heard as the fist thumped against his body but this time he wouldn’t be able to keep his secret. Heat caused an immediate weakening of his armor, penetrating through the first thin layer and turning it to liquid. Discomfort and pain seared through Vash’s body from the strike but since the cat was out of the bag so to speak, there was truly no reason left to hold back. Within the next few moments Deitric would be introduced to something quite odd.

Vash would stand his ground during the onslaught of fists. He had no real reason to move just yet. The pain from the first strike he felt was not dehabilitating nor did the heat allow it to fully penetrate his armor even though if given enough time it would. Three strikes connected with his body, each putting an obvious crack in his armor before the first head bound fist came in. As the strike came Deitric would be pleased to see that Vash was going to keep his promise to “get serious.” With matching super human speed Vash’s body dropped below Deitric’s oncoming fist, his knees bending quickly while his torso leaned forward. What came next could be described as instant as the sudden rain of electrical fists.

Ice exploded from his now bent and chambered legs, extending them as quickly and as forcefully as Deitric’s knee strike earlier on in the match. Using his ice to move versus the strength and speed of his own body, he allowed himself to not only evade but to launch an attack as well. Vash’s body would rocket into Deitric from point blank range and literally ram Vash’s hardened shoulder into Deitric’s abdomen. Regardless of how fast Deitric was, Vash, was just too close for him to evade or counter.

Like the knee, the force would carry Deitric back and unless he had armor across his upper torso, hurt like a b***h. Vash was not willing to go along for the ride though. What Deitric would be riding on was not a Vash’s shoulder but a round slab of ice planted directly in the center of his abdomen from his shoulder. The ice that had shot him forward like a rocket refused to let him nor the ground it tore into go. The ice slab stuck to Deitric’s clothing would continue to push him back at an accelerated rate until it was removed and even if he tried to super heat his body it would still take some time to melt. As an extra precaution the small portion of melted through armor that was now liquid hovered close by and ready to coat his hair if needed or deflect his hands. He couldn’t have Deitric grabbing his hair again. It was annoying enough the first time.

Now Vash was not concerned about how damaging his shoulder strike was, but merely to take Deitric off balance with a quick strike and carry him back several feet. It was time for the coup de grace. The cork that covered the top of the jug that flew, now obviously towards the airborne man, tore apart as its contents rocketed out while remaining in his blind spot. Water flew from its container, launching forward as if it had just been fired from a gun. The large mass split into three masses, two that targeted the area just below his shoulder blades while rotating like drills and one targeting the lower back of his opponent intending to hammer it with intense pressure. In a perfect world, Deitric would be struck just hard and long enough to allow the drill to tear his should blade apart and rip up a few back muscles in the process. The lower back assault was intended merely to cause more pain and possible heavy bruising to the area and it all much more worth while.

The cheer of the audience turned into a roar of satisfaction as the tables continued to quickly change. They didnt know who to think held the upper hand and now that Vash had revealed his hidden attributes they didnt know what to think. As his opponent flew towards what Vash hoped to be his the prelude to his demise, Vash gauntlets quickly changed into their second form. It had been obvious since their first clash that they both held some immunity to electrical assualts. The second thing they held in common was the ability to draw in electrical energy from outside sources. His opponents immediate area was covered with electrical charge and his weaponry couldnt help but take some of what he naturally expelled into their own power pool. Lucky for Vash his weapons werent fully charged already or they'd be dealing with a repeat of last year. This time he doubted it benificial to him.




Charge lvl (Varying)
L: 5,000 volts (0.1)
R: 35,000 volts (2.1)
B: 65,000 volts (2.1)

The argument is: Whether Deitric's YATATATATATA attack will stop Vash's ICE ARMOR TACKLE.

Vash pretty much stood there and took the attack. And then he tries to rush in and gain momentum against the flurry of fists? There's a reason why you don't try to run into a flurry of anything. If anything, he'll be getting struck with so much force that Vash would be knocked off to the side in his tackle. Vash would have been better off guarding against the blows or getting away until they were over.

Ruling: The tackle is knocked off to the side, sending Vash to the ground. Your move, Vash.

The shards that had been chipped away from the armor, and those that had been too close to Deitric, let alone touching him were melted into water vapor from the heat of his power output. Water, however, only expanded when froze - unfreezing water would leave it taking up less volume than if it had been ice. There were bursts of pressure from the shards that hadn't been evaporated (and there were a few of those), but perhaps less water than one might have anticipated.

There was enough water and enough pressure to do something though, and Deitric was knocked back in a cloud of steam as the water quickly evaporated from his form even as he was pushed backwards, forcing him to regain his balance by going into a quick roll. The two bursts of water that were aimed for his shoulders had missed and evaporated in bursts of steam as the whirled past, but the third smashed headlong into his upper back as he was knocked over backwards while his opponent was being hurtled in the opposite direction.

Thankfully, the brave's armor had been developed specifically to deal with such small area, high impact blows - not unlike bullets, spears, or the like. It struck him, and the ablative plates of his armor locked together; the ones at the exact point of impact broke, which served to expend the force of the blow and keep it from being transferred wholly into the flesh beneath.

But that initial force put more oomph into Deitric's roll, flipping his legs over prematurely and set him on his feet, leaving him to promptly stand, a look of strained calm on his face and a twinge of pain pulling at his lips. The attack had struck the thickest, most muscular part of his back, but it had obviously caused some sort of pain, no doubt deeply bruising the muscles. His armor had served its purpose though, much of the attack's force had been wasted through breaking the small plates layered beneath his leather jacket.

The air around Deitric practically boiled as electricity snapped and popped, wisps of steam rising as any water or ice within a few meters of the tribesman began to evaporate. Vash might have wanted to reconsider closing his eyes - he was quickly going blind of any sight near his opponent. For Deitric's part, he didn't even look as if the water had touched him - the sheer heat he was putting off had dried him by the time he had completed his roll, and now the area within a good three or four meters of him had dried, as well.

What he did look was unimpressed - his black eyebrows furrowed slightly in what must have been a pinprick of annoyance. He wasn't one to waste time though - in a flash of steel, his opponent would have something worse to worry about as Deitric abruptly hurled one of his tomahawks at the man who now stood(?) some twenty feet away, aiming to plant it squarely in his opponent's shoulder, a cackling arc of electricity following in its wake for a few feet. The air warped around him like a mirage - chances were, water wasn't going to be very helpful anywhere near the warrior's body.

The longer the fight went on, the more powerful he seemed to grow, and the world began to regain color, although now he was breathing heavier than before - no doubt from his barrage of blows earlier - and blood dribbled from a split lip that his opponent hadn't dealt him. He was suffering worse from the side-effects of his own power than from his opponent's attacks, but it was power that he still had control over, and that made him dangerous.

[Post-post note: Just noting that Vash's response will be after the 24 hour mark, but requesting that he not be penalized (if any such penalties are in place) because I'm aware of his personal situation IRL and don't want him getting penalized because he had stuff to handle and RL should come before RP.]

Deitric stood amidst the steam and roiling air, the warping mirages giving him an altogether inhuman appearance through the heat haze. His eyes had since become opaque and almost milky, as if he were blind, but the glow that suffused from his sockets spoke otherwise. The static charge in the air had tugged at his hair, drawing it away from his shoulders to wave in a wind that didn't blow.



His hands hung at his sides, raised just a ways from his hips, his bloodied lips pulled back into a rictus-mask of a grin. He had been building here and there throughout the fight, taking power from his opponent's generator in one instance, and constantly drawing at a steadily greater rate to match his use, and he was paying for it in blood and flesh - but that payment paid dividends.



The reason for the excess heat - indeed, the heat that was growing ever hotter every second, as if one were steadily descending into the depths of Hell itself - was that the brave was "venting" it. Forcing himself to toe the line of his energy generation, he was forced to vent the heat away from himself, lest he burst into flame as he sought to contain the swirling maelstrom of eldritch, elemental force growing inside of him. His own body was only somewhat heated - but the air around him? Considerably more so and growing, any water in the area of ~5 feet or so would no doubt be evaporating fast. His opponent could likely simply reconstitute it as water for his own use, but no vague amount of water was going to stick around Deitric for very long. It was by no means instantaneous, but it was inevitable - water, when placed under intense heat greater than room temperature, would eventually turn to water vapor.



Ever one to push the boundaries of his personal abilities, the tribesman had steadily pushed himself to the edge throughout the fight for the first time since his fire-side brawl with Damon Xylander the previous year, and the similarities showed, visually - but a year later, Deitric had become greatly empowered by means that confounded all but three entities in the whole of the multiverse; one of whom had ceased to exist. He didn't do it for the crowd, or to deal with his opponent - the action was solely for himself, just to see if he could.



The tribesman could, and he had. Walking along the razor's edge, he was like a walking storm - arcs of lightning cackled in the air around him, spitting and hissing, growing in frequency the more he amassed his power. Cocking his head to the side, he spat out a gobbet of blood, something white and hard inside of it. A tooth. It didn't seem to bother the tribesman, although a dulled throb of pain drummed distantly in his jaw, and blood was still running freely from his stinging split lip and both nostrils, aspirating into the air in a red mist.



In that warping, heated storm of blisteringly hot air, it seemed as if Vash's opponent had been replaced with a nightmare of barely contained fury, waiting to be unleashed. The tribesman walked forward, and as he walked, the heat began to decrease as he focused his mind, keeping the energy he had gathered tightly under his control until he needed to use some of it. The greater control, the less he needed to "vent."



"Don't keep me waiting too long," Deitric laughed, stepping towards his opponent slowly, reaching up to point an index and middle finger squarely at Vash, as if he were holding a gun, when in truth he was "holding" something much, much more dangerous. The way electricity cackled around the fingers, he looked ready to blow the blond haired fighter away at any moment - whenever he had gathered just a bit more energy, it seemed, to make sure he could accomplish the task.



Feint or not, it was certainly a dangerous prospect.

The current of air didn't do a terrible amount - much of it had been reduced until there was only a very small "field" surrounding Deitric's body. The reason for it was an increase in focus - and for the sake of preparation. Of course, any ice that was within a few feet of Deitric was going to have trouble staying frozen, thanks to the fact that increased pressure on ice actually lowered the melting and sublimation points, whereas induced excess pressure could raise the boiling/evaporation point for water.

But the water that Vash had sought to surge toward Deitric wasn't going to get the chance to try and freeze anyways - the tribesman had gotten where he wanted. No blast emanated from his hand to strike his opponent down, however - instead, the tribesman seemed to trip, immediately dropping to the ground--

And covering his eyes and face as if he had ducked for cover.

KRAKA--- THOOM!

A blast of blinding, burning light seemed to erupt from Deitric's position as massive fork of lightning struck him and the air around him superheated and expanded outwards rapidly into a deafening thunderclap. The lightning and the thunderclap, however, were simply means to the end he sought.

The lightning - which acted as the physical manifestation for the energy he had been gathering - carried enormous amounts of energy, just like the natural phenomena. It was also immensely hot - hot enough in fact, to not only sublimate ice (that is, to turn it from solid to gas), but to disperse the water vapor, turn sand into glass, and worse besides. Deitric manifested the lightning, and in that flash of light had poured its energy into the thunderclap.

At the speed of sound, the air around him expanded, and he fueled the power behind it exaggerate the effect of the super-heateded air's expansion through the very considerable static charge that surrounded him, burning off his own energy stores. To what purpose?

The energy of the lightning bolt had been suffused as heat into the thunderclap, which would normally raise the temperature to such levels that it could fuse silica. However, the as the energy had been expended outwards, it covered a greater area, in turn being less than lightning-hot. That being said, it was hot enough to severely burn a person caught in the flash of the heatwave, and the temperature of the sonic-speed heated air was more than high enough to sublimate ice and evaporate water into gas.

As the air was cleansed of excess water, it joined the current of superheated air outwards with the sonic-wave of the thunderclaps bombastic THOOM, forcing the water vapor to disperse outwards away from the fighting area. Fueled by the lightning's energy that Deitric had expanded and set to work, thunderclap expanded in force across the entire arena. Normally such a thing was wholly possible for the sound - but not, the sound was accompanied by heat and air.

Sound and fury, but not without significance. Deitric had just robbed his opponent of an element to manipulate - there was no doubt some gaseous water in the air, but nothing solid or liquid, and nowhere near the previous amount - the air was now achingly dry, as if they had just stepped into a desert heatwave. Vash, if he hadn't covered himself with ice beforehand, might have suffered some serious burns, thanks to the expanding heatwave of air. Fortunately, superheated air behaved differently with flesh than it might have with water or ice; fatalities in the ring were still going to be at an all time low.

On top of potential burns, he was probably permanently deaf. Deitric, in the epicenter, was safe - but his opponent would get to "hear" the thunderclap just fine, being so close to its point of origin, and it was perhaps the single loudest sound ever recorded in GTB history - loud enough that the first several rows of the crowd would be momentarily deaf or dealing with ringing ears, and the first row would feel a small amount of heat, as if they were sitting next to a campfire. But Deitric's powers had its limits - the brave could force the thunderclap and superheated air outwards to try and "cleanse" as much of the arena as possible, but the entire stadium would have been out of the question; the scale was simply too large.

However, Deitric hadn't come out entirely unscathed. He stood, clothing smoking, breathing heavily through his nostrils, his chest rising and falling steadily. The dark haired fighter looked as if he had been locked into a tanning bed too long - his skin was brightly colored from indirect burns, and some of the metal decoration on his jacket burned through the leather and dropped to the ground in a steady plink plink of metal on marble. The smell of burnt ozone wafted acridly on the desolately dry air, so much so that most likely everyone in the crowd could smell it.

Now, however, the air around him was supercharged with static electricity from the lightning strike, and although the heat (and water/ice/etc) had been dispersed at the speed of sound, it still felt as if the two men were standing in a "dry" sauna - all heat, no humidity. Deitric peered to where his opponent had been last, to see if the man or his ice armor had gotten away from the explosion of superheated air unscathed.

Vash didn't need to worry about the lightning - it was the thunder that proved dangerous.

Deitric didn't much care that his opponent had used his armor to give himself some more ammunition - he had anticipated it, after what he had seen earlier. His intent was to remove as much water and ice from his opponent's arsenal as possible and to change the playing field via such a hefty reduction - and, given that the air was acrid and hot, he had succeeded.

His opponent might have had some water left thanks to his armor, but the heat was so sweltering that hopefully, he would have to rely on water, given that the heat was far too much to allow for water to freeze effectively. It didn't completely cripple his opponent - and he never thought it would - Deitric had only sought to remove variables from the playing field. Remove the ice, the ability to make it, and any initial water on the marble floor or in the air - three variables that were now gone.

Now, however, Deitric had an opening. His opponent had sought to take what wasn't his to own - the electrical charge in the air. Deitric had used it, turned it to his own means, but he hadn't released it from his grasp. And when his opponent's gauntlets sought to tap into that latent, charged energy in the air, Deitric felt it, and he used it as a "line" between he, the charged air, and the gauntlets. It was natural as blinking - and every bit as easy.

And he began to feed, pulling the electrical charge from his opponent's gauntlets as soon as Vash began to try and collect energy. The brave was funneling energy outward, drawing it in, and he had one advantage - generators were static, unchanging machines, and they couldn't force or bend anything to a will they lacked, being inanimate objects.

Deitric, despite his human physiology, his identity as a human, was much more. He had control over the electricity, and now he bent it to his will like a smith did with iron on an anvil. If he had his way, the gauntlets would never change to the third form - in fact, there was a strong chance that his gauntlets would actually revert to previous forms as Deitric cannibalized their electrical charge for himself at an impressive rate, now that a connection had been made.

That course of action hardly required Deitric's attention - it was almost wholly natural, just like breathing. Like a lightning rod, he naturally drew the charged energy to him, to replenish his pool at a speed that bordered on the terrifying. What did require his attention was the man charging him, and the roiling sphere of water he still had. Suddenly, from behind Vash, came the tomahawk Deitric had thrown prior - blade edge first, it was flying back via the charge he had divested into it, and it was seeking to bite into the hamstring of his opponent's left leg, dead into the back of the thigh with as much force and speed as if the black-haired brave had hurled it a second time. After all, there was no more ice to hold it in place - not that it would have stopped it when its master called it to his will.

At the same time, the leather garbed fighter hurled another weapon - his ball-headed club. Essentially similar to a mace but somewhat smaller, the weapon was a steel head set into the top few inches of a haft, as opposed to deposited onto the very top. This one was hurled for a higher target - aimed to catch his opponent squarely in the face. However, there was no physical motion - Deitric was launching both weapons via magnetism, so there was zero telegraph for either weapon's movement. Getting smashed in the face with the flying mace would feel about like it sounded, except it lacked the ability to be fatal because there wasn't an arm - and thereby muscle and weight - powering the mace's movement.

However, said flying mace could still break a man's face, if he were that unlucky. And getting smashed in the face with a flying mace was, as far as things go, a fairly unlucky occurance

There was little chance that Vash would somehow continue to make the same attack in the face of being attacked from two directions at once, but if such a possibility existed, Deitric was already on the move, retreating back and to his own right as soon as the dual weapons took to the air. Either way, he'd constantly draw in the charge from the air - and from his opponent's gauntlets, seeking to drain both for his own purposes.

If Vash had hoped to avoid the trap Deitric had set, he had not - he was trying to use Deitric's singular elemental mastery to counteract the man; that path of action was of particular folly, because unlike the black-haired warrior, Vash could only generate electrical or magnetic effects from machines, he could no more control them than Deitric could control water if he were using a water gun. Essentially, Vash could borrow those tools of war - lightning, magnetism, and so forth - but Deitric owned them.

Vash's attempt to alter the trajectory of his opponent's attacks would have - in any other case - succeeded spectacularly. In those cases, Deitric was an elemental manipulator of electricity, and by extension magnetism. He was already controlling both weapons via magnetism - the introduction of a magnetic push would have no practical effect. That was because Deitric had continued to draw forth from the air constantly, taking in the charged energy. As soon as Vash's gauntlets even began to put energy out into the air, it would be drained at the same rate it was put out, meaning that the lightning encasement would never come to be - the energy that was meant to be used for it was being siphoned as fast as it could be released.

Vampirizing the energy from the lightning encasement as it sought to manifest meant it couldn't change the trajectory of either weapon, both of which had been launched simultaneously. Even if Deitric hadn't been able to steal the energy, he was still in control of the magnetization of his weapons in the range that the two men were fighting, meaning he could control whether or not it would be affected by outside magnetization.

Which had true control over magnetization of the weapon; the tribesman or the machine? Chances were, it was the one who was living, breathing, bending the energy to his will. It would be as if Deitric had shot at Vash with a water gun - Deitric's mechanical tool could emulate the effect, but it could never control the water and bend it to his will, as Vash did with the water -- as Deitric did with electricity. It was the greatest single flaw of Vash's gauntlets - and Deitric's biggest advantage when his opponent sought to use them.

The generated effect of a machine would have no effect for one reason or the other (or even both, perhaps), meaning there would probably be a dull WHOP as the mace probably smashed headlong into his opponent's face with enough force to make the man considerably uglier than he had been a few seconds prior.

As for the axe, his opponent had raised his leg, but how far? It had been aimed for the upper thigh - by raising his leg, he would have put his calf directly in the path of the thrown weapon, which could chop deeply into the flesh, unless Vash had lifted his leg stiffly, straight out and unbent at the knee to avoid such an event.

However, Deitric had directed both weapons at the same time, while simultaneously moving backward and to his right - they did not happen sequentially, one after the other. He was manipulating and moving, just as his opponent could, meaning that as Vash sought to dodge the twin attacks, that the brave would have to be on the move, being that they acted as simultaneous actions.

If Vash somehow still unleashed his attack, the blast of water would blast into Deitric's upraised arms - the tribesman wasn't stupid, with Vash trying to bear down on him, there would be no way that he would fail to adopt a fighting guard. The water caught the warrior at a higher point of balance and turned him, spraying into the air like a fountain as it rebounded off of his guard, knocking him aside in a stumble. The armor plating beneath his jacket's leather cracked and shattered to absorb the force, leaving an array of bloodied gouges along his forearms where the broken armor plates had been pushed into his flesh by the water, leaving his jacket sleeves in tatters around his wrists and forearms, blood streaming freely over his arms from the myriad of cuts and puncture wounds in the flesh. The water pressure had been too great to stand in front of for long - the force had knocked him aside.

If Vash were still standing and able to attack after getting mace'd in the face (and potentially axed elsewhere, although he might have avoided such a fate), he would find an opponent bloodied and battered by his concentrated water blast, but not undaunted or defeated. Worse, it was an opponent who was still capable of attacking.