Zere vs. Lazule

[K2]

Zere found himself wide awake and thrilled with the upmost enthusiasm as he waited for his opponent to show up. Where was he? A fighting arena, much like a football stadium. Instead of a field, though, there was a stone floor which served as the fighting grounds, designed for the most intense of duels.

Normally, the seats of the stadium would have been packed, but at the moment, they were empty. It was better this way. The fight was going to be insanely intense, from what Zere had been told, and his opponent was not one to be underestimated. Whoever he was... Or... she. Zere really didn't know WHO he was fighting today.

All he knew was that he wanted blood. And he wanted it... NOW.

[The Blade]

Lazule roused himself from his meditative state, being just a suit of armour meant that he had no need for sleep or any other such silly things. Besides, the construct had more pressing matters to get to today, such as the fight he was participating in against some opponent he knew very little about. This trivial information mattered not to Lazule anyway, he wasn't going to be cocky and say he would win but he wasn't about to let his opponent get away unscathed. These thoughts were irrelevant however as the armour stood up from his spot on the ground and vanished in a flash of sickly black energy.

Barely a second later and a second black flash appeared in the arena where Lazule and his foe would be fighting, he looked around with dark green eyes, noting how the stands were empty which was perfect for him, he wouldn't have innocents get harmed while he was here. His gaze then wandered to his foe who appeared rather unremarkable to the massive suit of armour but his rational side kicked in saying that unremarkable does not mean weak and this caused Lazule to reach down with his left hand, gently closing his fingers over the hilt of his runeblade as he watched, wondering just how quickly this fight would start and if it did, he would not be the initiator.

Not only though did Lazule take his sword in hand but he used this as a distraction as he gathered four points of energy to the tips of his fingers on his other hand, hoping his foe's eyes would be drawn to the much more obvious and noticeable blade at his hip rather than a slight glow around his right hand, to even help this along, he put his magic into his sword, forcing it to be the more noticeable of the two spells to throw his foe completely off the attack spell's trail. Lazule knew though that whatever way this went, it would not end pretty.

[K2]

Noticing the sword and anticipating a swing from it, Zere prepared for the worst. But before he made his move, a psychotic grin spread across his face. This guy was... Interesting. Here he was, wearing a black cloak, and his opponent was in a full suit of armor. Well, if he thought it'd protect him, so be it.

"The name's Zere. Pleasuring to be killing you today," Zere spit out, each word filled with the menacing psychotic insanity that plagued his mind. He bowed slightly before his opponent, a sign of respect, and then prepared to have... Well... Fun.

All across Lazule's sword, black circles, almost like ink, would begin to appear, staining themselves into the hilt, and spreading outward. This 'ink' was appearing all over the sword... But what did it do?

[The Blade]

Lazule would've narrowed his eyes if he had any as he watched his foe for a moment, noting his lack of armour and therefore less defence compared to the construct, that would just make the fight a lot easier. The runes on Lazule started to glow softly with built up arcane energies as he prepared his strikes, the magical signatures would be obvious but he had a plan, first he had to deal with the magic on his sword however which he noticed, without looking, by feeling the signature so close to him.

"I am Lazule, may this be a good duel" His voice was dark and sounded dusty and dry, containing almost no emotion whatsoever. He then set about banishing Zere's magic by forcing his own upwards and out of the blade in a form of barrier, pushing the offending magic away before swinging his blade up and out of its sheath, a wave of black energy sparking of its edge and launching forwards towards his foe. At the same time this wave happened he reached towards his pistol and fired off his second spell in the process, a quartet of black bullets appearing behind Zere and rocketing towards him. These bullets would hold less energy and therefore a smaller signature than the wave but they were not weak at all. While all of these things were happening the construct also drew his pistol and fired off a trio of explosive warheads towards Zere, trying to distract him from the bullets to give them the best chance of success. This would hopefully work because who would think of a small amount of magical bullets over a wave of magic and explosive bullets?

[K2]

The black ink markings that Zere had formed on the sword were called seals, and, well, they did exactly that. They'd started to eat through the sword, sealing the metal that it was eating through within the "ink". When they were pushed off the sword by the barrier, they'd already eaten through a good bit of the blade's surface, though the blade was certainly still usable.

The seals floated along the air near the sword before vanishing into thin air. As the black energy came flying towards Zere -- as well as the bullets, which were coming from behind -- Zere materialized three portals, one to intercept the black energy and one to intercept the bullets. The third portal? It was the output of the other two portals, and it formed right behind Lazule, sending his attacks right back at him.

 He did not, however, notice the explosives as quick, and was almost hit when he teleported out of the way just in time, the explosives flying past where he'd been and causing a great deal of damage to the ground near where he'd been standing. Zere reappeared, floating high in the sky above Lazule, a small ball of swirling dark magic pulsing in his left hand as a small ball of white magic swirled in his right.

But the attack he was forming with these balls would have to wait. To hold his enemy over till he was ready to use the attack he was working on, Zere casted another spell at the ground. All around Lazule, ropes would begin shooting up from the ground. The ropes were flying around in a wild fashion, and quickly began to surround him, tying themselves together around his body.

[The Blade]

Lazule growled quietly as he saw the damage done to his poor blade, he would have to fix that later but for now a small burst of strengthening and holding magic would have to do to keep the blade strong for now. The runes upon the blade's length started to glow a sharp white, charging up a second wave for use later but kept by for now.

At the failure of his other two spells he used his powers of deduction to know where his own spells where coming from as he threw up a large portal behind himself, capturing all of the spells once again and opening it below Zere to give him something to think about as he turned and fired off another quick double shot from his pistol and put it away for the moment, his hand would be needed once again.

He then looked around at the ropes starting to surround him and he opened a portal under himself and put it behind Zere, appearing standing on a black platform suspended in midair as he stamped down on it, sending out a ring of platforms around his foe and then sunk into the one he was standing on and copies of himself appeared on all of the platforms, he suppressed his magical signature however to match the clones on the other platforms, making him completely indistinguishable from them while he started to gather up magic into his free hand, all of his clones following his movements.

He kept the energy low however and suppressed his magical signature further so the real one of him wouldn't be noticeable because of the increased magic, he wanted to make Zere paranoid at the moment, hopefully entice him into a mistake or a larger attack than he would need which Lazule could then use to his advantage, he just had to play careful and exploit his strengths and his foe's weakness'.

[K2]

"DAMN!" Zere shouted, "This too smart. Oh well. Guess it'll make this so much more fun!"

He started laughing as the attacks came flying at him. He didn't have much time to react with the portal appearing so close to him, so instead opted to fly up a bit higher, out of the range of the attacks, and let them play their course while he watched.

But he quickly turned around the moment Blade appeared, anticipating his arrival. It was what Zere himself probably would have done. As the ring of platforms surrounded Zere, and the copies appeared on each one, Zere smiled. Damn. This one really was smart. He was getting... Nervous. But he wasn't going to let some mind games ruin all the fun.

Joining the black and white balls, Zere threw the swirling mass of colliding magic energies towards the ground. As the ball sunk down towards the ground, Zere began to focus on the platforms. He did not attack the clones directly, but instead focused on the space between each platform. A thin line began to appear between the platforms, connecting them. This line? It was made of a fire with black flames. Black fire.

As the fire linked the platforms into a true, well, ring of fire, Zere anticipated the next attack of the copies... And it worried him deeply.

[The Blade]

Lazule completely ignored his foe's comment, not wanting an ego boost at the moment as he had much bigger troubles to contend with, namely the large orb that Zere threw into the ground that didn't seem to do anything and the lines of fire trying to connect the platforms.

The construct focused on the latter of his problems first and brought up a large series of portals, capturing the lines of fire before they could touch him and then putting the output portals in a circle around Zere, forcing his lines of black fire to attempt to attack and ensnare him rather than connecting the platforms. He then implemented the second part of his plan and backed up, using the fire as a distraction so he could make it a small distance away before slicing away all but four of his clones, leaving only five of them.

From his reduced clone amount he gathered up more magic, putting it into the clones as well to give them the same signature as him before he decided to trick him and worked on the trick as he dropped his hands, his clones following his movements before they launched beams of black energy at one another, the beams connecting with each other to form a very cliche symbol, a pentagram.

Once the Pentagram had formed he started to pour magic into the lines, as he formed two more clones above and below Zere to act as conduits before he focused his magic into his eyes and fired out a pair of blasts from his eyes to distract Zere from the growing pentagram which, when completed, would connect all of the lines of magic, trapping Zere in a sphere of black energy from which Lazule started to form up a tactic.

The suit of armour then pulled off his trick and made his magic flare up, only slightly though as though it was an accident, picking him out as the real Lazule before he formed another clone and vanished, he was the one standing behind Zere so he used the time it would take him to turn around to vanish into a portal, leaving a clone with a "fixed" magic signature in his wake before he would then appear behind Zere, his magic signature almost fully suppressed but it should be barely noticeable in the sphere of magic. When Lazule did appear he swung his runeblade towards his foe's back, intent to slice him open.

[K2]

Zere easily cut his fire out before it could affect him, stopping the flow of magic that was fueling the Black Fire. This allowed him to focus on one of the Lazules moving backwards, and before he could attack his clones, Zere created a huge seal -- a black circle that floated in the air -- in the path of Lazule's sword as he swung. Effectively, he caught Lazule's sword with his seal, which, once more, started eating at the blade.

As the clones tried to form the pentegram, Zere took after the tactic his enemy had just used, intercepting the black beams before they could connect with portals, the output portals being at random locations, spread out away from each other. With the trap stopped, Zere was still able to move freely around the stadium, and with Lazule's sword trapped in the seal, Zere had time to react to the trick Lazule tried to pull -- with Lazule weaponless and Zere not trapped, and the real Lazule now right behind Zere, it was as simple as that.

Zere's hand lit up with a red energy, and Zere extended his hand straight towards Lazule's heart. If all went as planned, his hand would pass right into Lazule's skin.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the orb of black and white energies hit the stone floor, and caused the ground to tremor greatly... Something was about to happen... Something big.