Welcome to Gaia! ::

The entrance is simple in its elegance, a single man stepping out from the northern gates. A flurry of orange feathers surround his form, dancing about him in an endless dance of grace. A tall man with the face of a bird strolled out leisurely into the arena, orange and green feathers accenting the large wings that extended from his back. He wore robes of orange, long and baggy to cover all but his wings, for doing so was too uncomfortable to him. Underneath the robes he wore a golden breastplate, a shimmer of green light passing down his right side while orange passed down his left. With wings unfurled to their full extent he held each hand out to his sides, palms facing up with clawed fingers extending towards the sky. His right leg pulled up to hold position with the foot against his knee, his beaked face falling to only show the feathers atop his head. His stance was odd as he waited, for it looked like he should surely fall, hardly a combat stance at all.

As the raised leg moved forward the aven blurred from his position at the northern gates to the center of the arena with incredible speed. Once he arrived his leg slowly rose to return to the stance he had been in moments before. He looked as if he were resting, almost as if he had run quite some distance much too fast. Furthermore, under the down of feathers his muscle structure seemed highly odd, the muscles moving much to slow for the aven's motions and even seemed to be out of sync with the motions made.

By a similar process the aven crossed the distance to be within thirty feet of his opponent. Somewhere along the line a staff was drawn from what seemed to be an extraplanar space. In reality he had created the temporal steel weapon on the spot, but how would Tommy know the difference? Standing now some thirty feet away the stance would resume, the staff held in his right hand such that he held but the very end and the rest of the 7 foot length spanned out to his right and behind him.

The aven would advance towards Tommy to the point where the two were within ten feet of one another. His right arm would whip forward, carrying the staff out wide to the right to slash in front of him. There was enough force in the blow to embed itself in the man's ribcage without obstructions and shatter bone on contact. Should he miss the swing would carry the staff to his left hand to catch it at the center and spin it back for a thrust with the end of the staff. This strike would be less powerful, aimed generally around the forso, but could still likely crack a rib.

The motion of the staff blurred as it pulled back, a quick spin bringing it up to swat Tommy's arm away with enough force to shatter the bones therein. In the aftermath of the staff trying to throw Tommy's arm wide the lower half would swing up, aiming to deliver a blow to Tommy's left side. Should the man's strike somehow continue the aven's head would simply slip back, the field of energy around him flaring up around the area of intended impact to ensure no connection would be made.

When Tommy moved away the aven did the same, putting some distance between them as his stance shifted to something a little more casual. The staff moved to his left hand, held at the middle with him putting part of his weight on it. His right hand, however, was not idle as it traced intricate designs in the air that left behind a burning orange glow. These sigils were the opening of a line of spellcasting which would focus the divine will of his Lord to whom he was a Herald.

Tommy would be waiting in vain, as The Herald really wouldn't be doing anything quite yet, simply tracing those glowing sigils in the air. To anyone with magical affinity they might spell out something, but it was an ancient language and only vaguely made references to flame and divine wrath. Much similar to how this post is three sentences where it could have been three words.