Welcome to Gaia! ::

As for Rivven... well, back on his feet, what did you think he was doing?

This guy was pulling all sorts of tricks, and dangerous at any range, but he'd be better prepapred to deal with them up close.

The floating man would stick out like a sore thumb, and while Rivven wouldn't take long to spot even with all the dust cover from sand kicked up, and the confusion down below, he had a head start.

The spread water was losing dirt and substance, quickly growing very difficult to see, but anyone who could, would see it jumping from the ground as Rivven passed, more or less hopping up his sleeves. Which made a certain few cliches painfully apparent.

Considering that the chain was still wrapped around the other man's neck, though looser due to it all, sure to come off with a bit more time and bouncing, one absolutely stupid idea came to mind. But he'd likely be interrupted before he covered that full distance between them by foot.

Small glowing, orange spots, floating in air mysteriously.

Yeah.

Not going to touch those.

Pulling up his strength, Rivven burst into a high jump, grabbing at the part of the chain hanging down. Tucking up his legs, he swung on the hanging part of the chain below the man and his time freeze below him, chain folding around and arcing him up again, into the air behind Tacitus. The chain slipped quicker with this, coming loose rapidly, looking like Rivven was going to lose the center point maintaining his circular travel in about a moment.

Which was about the time, his second round of artillary came in. If this guy was going to get all flashy, he might want to bring in a little himself, mostly with intent of throwing him off.

What happened?

From outside the arena, long, skinny bodies that were nearly invisible in the distance had slingshoted themselves into the air, pulling the tail part along. Flying up through the air, they gathered around the point of the arena walls, and let off again.

And came down in form of two streams of water, pulling the ends tight like a javelin, coming in a steep arc down onto either of Tacitus' shoulders. The hit, even if his armor held up, would prove quite hard enough to bring the man to the ground, or whatever floating equivelant, if he wasn't too distracted to keep that up.

If his eyes were following the swing, he wouldn't have a very good view as the chain hit the far side of the little platform of stilled air he was standing on and hitched the end upward, sending Rivven over, as it slipped off from around his neck and Rivven let go.

The lack of the force maintaining the circle of the swing would send Rivven flying straight: feet first at Tacitus' back, arms spreading to other side just a bit and legs going straight not during the hit which would have made a massive strike that likely would have been absorbed, but rather more of a full body tackle. Only let by the feet instead of the shoulder.

'Behind' Tacitus, in the usual sense of on and just short of his back, would be empty though. It may have worked like a tackle, but he'd been speared feet first, and the human body was top heavy. Rivven would have fallen on the same platform supporting Tacitus, his feet somewhere around the man's hips.

It was terribly disconcerting, standing on something invisible. He did it with water all the time, but he could see that, and he could feel it in more than one way. This just felt unreliable. Rivven wasted no time in sitting bolt upright, legs clamped down, and stopping short of continuing at that bubble of whatever it was above Tacitus' back.

He had figured out any grappling that went extended was dangerous. He figured that bubble was bad news. He had the man's lower body exposed to him though, even if the rest was more or less off limits from current position.

It was so painfully obvious, he felt stupid for having considered his options at all and not simply hammering away by nature.

He hauled himself up onto his knees, and drew an arm way back, bringing the shoulder forward with it. Rivven usually would have avoided such brutality, but he was tight pressed and needed something to do for it.

The hand would come down in one heck of a punch, swinging at his capable shoulders and putting from the waist up into it, charged with a burst of force to feed his body just a moment of supernatural strength.

As the water shot down his arm, taking on the effect of physical matter as it formed into more or less a thick spike that encompassed his hand, slowly coming to a point.


It wasn't incredibly sharp, but Rivven needed the huge excess of force, he thought, not sharpness, to puncture with that punch through the armor and into the man's leg, severing the hamstring as the spike punch would jam through armor and effectively less than poke through, smash the knee, ruining tendons connecting above and below, for motion and for securing muscle, and shattering bone.


Rivven didn't know how he'd finish, but Tacitus would be losing a lot of blood internally on top of the external bleeding, and that leg was pretty much out of it.

Tacitus would probably scream in pain and do something Rivven would have to deal with then, but given literally about two seconds to recover and pull his shoulder up again, the other leg would find itself in the same predicament.

[Translation: Antimagic, no real grenade.
Also: selective stoppage. Ports are active- normal construct life functions remain active.]

((No explosion or we'd both be dead, plus you didn't mention any effects besides antimagic.
I don't know why it doesn't effect the ports, but my impression is that for a limited time you have nearly no use of the ports, and nothing but them, and I lose water and physical boosts.))

s**t!

Only, the water creeping rapidly up Rivven's neck and face trying to cover it in time disappeared in something other than a ball of fire, his arm and head didn't fly in two directions with his body in a third, man's leg following. The water fell away. And then, so did they.

Standing on air- pfsh! his mind repeated a former skepticism as he twisted, body coming out of position as he lost the footing beneath him. He flung his arms out wildly, grasping onto Tacitus' good leg. Luckily for both of them, as otherwise what was about to happen would have torn the lower part off in a very sickly, painful way, and left Rivven nothing to work with but a stump.

Pulling with his arms, he knew that a fall was short and he had no time to rethink what he'd already started, nor get a position and push off. They were high enough it'd be painful, but not so much it would be a devestating or epic fall.

He simply pulled down with both arms by a good grip on that good leg, Tacitus' right since the first drive would have used the greater distance between left knee and right shoulder to it's benefit, pulling downward and tucking his legs up a little.

The idea was not to slingshot Tacitus at the ground. Nor to grapple or brace himself against the armored man. Rivven was just putting him roughly beneath himself. It wouldn't do a lot, but this guy had his armor which would reduce the over all injury of the fall, though certain places were bound to hurt like heck because of it, even if there was no real injury. Rivven was placing a body with soft inside beneath him, something he could bounce off of when he landed to eat part of the impact up for him.

((Situation: I DON'T KNOW THE DAMN MOVIE gonk

So this is starting to feel like Vahn explaining what he does by using a long list of anime/comicbook references. Does not work.))

A metallic bang below him was about all he got in way of warning to grit his teeth and brace for pain.

Rivven's chest made contact with Tacitus' back just as the first man began to settle from the fall, stopping Tacitus from being bounced around after landing at expense of a little impact on his back, and Rivven would hit the first man's back and go bouncing off to the left, rolling along the ground awkwardly several feet.

Ouch.

Not wasting any time about it, he dug his hands in, starting to push himself up. Something felt odd. Off. He-

The hell-!?

It hit him all at once.

Water- there's water around here somewhere, why can't I-

He couldn't feel the water. Forget controlling it. He couldn't feel that it was there. In horror, he stopped to feel a bead of sweat, somewhere inside his clothes, slide down his arm. He couldn't feel it even though it was obviously there.

By this time, Tacitus would have had his few seconds to recover, laying there and figuring out that he had a hole through the back of his knee all the way to the shattered cap, but not out the otherside luckily. Rivven had spent the time figuring out why he was feeling the equivelant of a missing limb. After he'd adapted though, he'd be up on his feet, and closing the distance again.

Rivven didn't know what the heck was going on. That made him edgy, and if edgy, he was likely to be more cautious than usual. That, in terms of combat, meaning less that he'd suddenly take on ninja-esque dodge everything feats than that he'd opt for the side of brutal effeciency if need be. Rivven wasn't a cruel guy, but this man was doing a lot of dangerous stuff that he didn't understand. He needed to put him down. So if an opportunity arose, he'd do it. And if he was forced to it, he'd kill, but that should be reserved to if it was to keep the other man killing him.

Not that he hadn't had rows of bullets fired at him, all of this crazy s**t, and some dud-grenade fired in his face, but still.

Approach with caution.

((2/4, just to keep track.))

Rivven walked right up to the guy, sitting there in his daze. Rivven was dizzy too, a little, and REALLY tight strung just then. He'd just stride straight up, no pretenses, to Tacitus.

"You want to fold so we can go take care of that before it falls off or you bleed out?"

He laid out the offer. Because he really wasn't interesting in messing the guy up any worse than that, and he very well could bleed to death pretty quick or lose the thing.

If the answer was a flat no, or some violent response, Rivven was like to introduce Tacitus temple, or more where it should be under that odd armor-suit, to his steel toe, and drag the unconcious Tacitus off to recieve the treatment on his leg anyhow.