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<10/21/1962 – 22:22 | Route 96, Junon, Sprawn Valley>
"But, but what makes you think I can pull it off?" Mainne had to be realistic. She knew this battle was coming, but there wouldn't be any point in conducting it now. She can't fight like Vanoss can, and her skills still haven't been fully refined to her own liking either. "You have to be the one to defeat him."
"Nonsense!" Kite denied. "I understand that these battles can get intense, but you still need to try."
What does he expect me to do? Mainne tilted her head in disagreement, but she felt lost in her own argument. She would just have to battle and lose. "I don't know what I'll be able to do."
"Well I'm not giving you any other choice, and neither is he. Now go out there and put Danton down. Do your best. It's all I ask of you tonight."
Kite sounds so serious, like he hasn't lost a nerve, but Mainne knew this was just a bad idea waiting to happen. She glanced over toward Danton who was finally sitting up, glowing from the ambient light of the healing orb he found. She would still need to drag Vanoss over here before anything more could happen, but this is crazy! Danton is way more trained than the four of them combined. He already qualifies as a Trujima member by skill. What is there to gain by battling?
By the time Danton healed up, he helped Mainne pull Vanoss out of the next defined battle zone, to the same exact area as before. Despite healing from his battle, Danton felt more exhausted than before. Vanoss was tougher to defeat, and there was no telling what Mainne might be hiding in her arsenal of skills.
Until they prepared to take their places, Mainne was totally silent, perhaps nervous to begin, but Danton reassured her that this was normal. It's totally natural to get excited or nervous before a good battle. Though there is one more thing to remember. "Mainne?"
Mainne looked up at Danton. His voice was still so clear despite all of his physical exertion earlier, and he spoke her name so precisely. "Yes?" He isn't intimidating at all right now, yet he seems to be completely focused on her.
"I only ask you one thing when we go into battle." Danton was sure that Kite could not hear their conversation, which was a good thing. If Kite could hear this, he would protest simply because he is the one asking this favor, but Mainne is already missing something important to her. Danton could see the lack of life and luster in her eyes, and that isn't what she needs before a Leray battle. "Whatever it is you're doing, however you're doing it, just remember that Leray battles are about bringing out the best of your Leray skills, and all of that brings out the thrill of combat between everyone involved. I want us both to have a good time; to have fun, regardless of who wins. Am I clear?"
Mainne couldn't answer right away. What kind of request is that? He wants her to have fun fighting in battle? Using Leray magic is fun, but battling is about more, right? Grinding her teeth didn't do much to help her think about it. Kite told her to do her best, and now her own enemy as asking her to have fun instead? Is there even a difference, or is he just insane? "Can we just start the match?" Mainne began thinking tactics while Danton began the match officially, creating an energy scope and another Siriean dome.
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Chapter Theme Shift: Re.Trauma ~ Tutti Sound
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image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-000.png]image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Mainne-N-000.png]
Danton announced himself over the distance between himself and Mainne, prepared to begin just like before. "I'm ready to begin the match. What say you?"
Mainne simply nodded and held her arms slightly while shifting her legs in preparation to strike. Her dress sphere for battle was already prepared for action, though Danton wouldn't know a thing about it. As soon as Mainne was ready to fight, the dome shield formed around both of them, creating the holographic text that officiallize every battle.
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There wasn't a need to wait or prepare, for Danton was ready to fight the moment that holographic text showed up again. "I'll go first," he announced respectively. "Charge Attack!" Danton rushed in with his short saber held out again, prepared to take Mainne on beginning with a close combat tactic. Being so far apart to begin with, Danton would also risk the time it would take to close the distance on her.
Mainne charged the Leray energy into both of her hands, forcing her eyes to shine brighter than what would naturally occur, and she discharged her energy aiming both open hands in Danton's general direction. "Icy Wind!" Mainne unleashed a burst of freezing cold air down towards her front. Despite the Icy Wind spell containing a non-damaging power level property of three, Danton was literally interrupted and stopped in his tracks.
Danton tried to shield against the cold wind with his arms, stopping because of how unexpected the lower level of that trick became. Mainne's Icy Wind made the air around him brisk, while the wind pushing against his clothes seeped through to his skin, creating goose bumps on contact. It felt like walking straight into an artic wasteland, while the Icy Wind held against him for a short duration.
Successful to stop Danton's current actions, Mainne followed up her spell with one designed to cause actual damage, releasing more of her energy into an ice elemental glyphring. "Ice Bolt!" Mainne's spell shot out a solid bolt of energy, freezing to the core as the projectile zoomed through the air homing in on Danton's face.
Noticing the light in front of him, Danton swiveled his body downward, narrowly avoiding the Ice Bolt even though the material grazed the side of his arm. The Ice Bolt continued going beyond his location, but the touch of the cold on his left forearm lasted long enough to degrade his HP level on the energy scope by one percent. If that were any more of a direct hit, the bone freezing cold rush the impact brought on would have been disabling to Danton, on top of the slow-down brought on by the constant rush of cold air from Icy Wind.
Danton held out his short saber firm, charging energy to flow into the metal of the blade. "Blazing Sword!" With a low power level designed to conserve MP energy, the spell Danton cast supercharged the metal blade in his hands with an elemental magical spell of fire and flames. Needless to say, the blade itself became engulfed in a fiery aura of orange with short burning fire from the metal, glowing in the darkness around him. After the spell was cast, it was time to use that elemental property to combine the strike damage to Mainne. Danton took off in her direction in a hurry like before, but this time he would be packing heat in the event of another blizzard.
Mainne suddenly found herself on quick defense, since Danton was closer this time than to start with from his first Charge Attack attempt. With that fiery blade coming to crash down on her face, Mainne was left with little choice but to try and block it by holding both of her wrists up above her crossed. With that, the solid sound of metal clinging off of another hard object brought further attention away from Mainne and Danton.
Just like that, Mainne's wrists though covered slightly by the firm material in her dress sphere totally blocked his attempted sword strike as if it struck metal. The impact itself caused a bright spark to fly off from the now exposed metallic substance around Mainne's hands. Danton brought the sword back and away to process what kind of a defensive technique that was. Mainne must have some sort of protective material around her hands, all the way past her wrists, but he wouldn't know it at first glance. Or was this some sort of spell?
Mainne inhaled for relief that her tactic would still be effective even against the heightened power level of Danton's Blazing Sword strategy. Using a light mercenary outfit that Mainne modified herself, it was easy to throw in extra protective padding around each hands and wrists, though the protection goes all the way to block out all types of physical damage, so long as she isn't hit there with magic from a non-elemental spell, and this is the result. Instead of ducking or jumping out of the way, why not wear the shields on her own hands? What will you do now Danton?
Kite began to wonder if this will go either direction with this development. To his entire team, Mainne's defensive blocks on her wrists are not something new, but she has been able to use them effectively in the field. That said, it has become a strategy less popular in her recent winnings. Still, Mainne is nothing like himself or Vanoss, so this could all just be to draw out time.
"Fine then," Danton accepted. He began where he left off, sword still blazing with a fiery aura soon to wear out. He dashed ahead wielding the blade up high, and carefully coordinated his aim with a downward diagonal side sweep to make this less predictable for Mainne. With another swing, Mainne simply jumped backwards with a simple leap, and blocked Danton's third sword slash again with her right metal bangle.
Mainne kept herself concentrated on the direction and trajectory of that fiery stick. Each time Danton would try and strike her with his quick tricks, Mainne was more than capable of moving one wrist or the other in enough time to position the collision where the material would simply reject the damage and create the loud metallic noise that followed, but she had to constantly be on the move to not take any hits elsewhere. It took a lot of physical dexterity each time rejecting the amount of force put against her arms.
By the time Mainne found an opening to go on the offensive, she punched Danton straight in the face with enough power to send him back far enough to take another transition. Mainne then immediately shot off a Fire Ball glyphring from her left hand, striking Danton again in the face while his hands covered that spot for recovery. Mainne then opened her right hand and quickly charged another glyphring on her wrist, shooting off an Ice Ball, which slammed into Danton's chest.
Despite the clean hits and the slight decline of health for Danton, both of those spells have such low power levels and pain levels, so Danton recovered from both of those very quickly, though it was surprising how fast Mainne was in her style. Her spells are not very predictable; they're too quickly triggered and invoked to be made readable. In a close combat situation, she isn't defenseless at all. Still, this didn't stop Danton from trying to strike her again with his sword, soon to run out of magical fuel for the fire blazing around the blade.
With several more evasive maneuvers mixed together with successful blocks with Mainne's metal wrists, Danton failed to score any damage to her over the course of five long seconds. In the heat of that moment, Mainne got the best of Danton again with another spell she charged all while defending herself. "Lightning Strike!" With just an aim at the target and the release of her magic, Mainne began to electrocute Danton where he stood, totally disabling his movement and defensive ability to dodge such a fast kind of spell. When Mainne finally let off to give herself some extra distance, the change on the energy scope was finally working towards her side.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-012.png]
Danton found himself through the painful shock and its painful after effects. With Mainne no longer on a constant barrage, she's just left herself vulnerable to long-range magical tactics, of which those metal wrists won't be able to shield. "Sphere of Might!" With his battle getting more intense, Danton noticed subconsciously that both his spells and Mainne's magical abilities were being invoked at much faster than normal speeds despite the incredible requirement for focus on every spell. With this one, it was less than a second of time before Mainne was suddenly slammed down the front by a barely translucent red sphere of non-elemental energy. The sphere spawns right in the same location as the target, which then causes immediate blunt based damage. In other words, that hit to her face and chest may leave a bruise, and a painful sensation at that.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Mainne-N-001.png]
Mainne wasn't in trouble yet, and Danton would have to do better than this to win at a long-range battle too. Mainne copied the idea, and began charging for a spell that would triple the damage she just took towards Danton. "Radial Hammer!" Chanting the name aloud only to help her focus on one of her newer spells, there was a bit of delay since her MP levels were still declining to fulfill the quota needed to use Radial Hammer.
Even though Danton knew of the upgraded form of Magical Hammer, Mainne's attempt to turn the spell into a more powerful area attack spell fixated on one general selection of land wasn't a good enough idea. The spell is a flawless tactic, but he should have been hit by now in the casting. Danton didn't even see any hammers spawning by the five yellow glyphrings that normally associates with Radial Hammer attack spells. In other words, she is still too new to the spell to make its invocation quick enough. "My turn then. Earth Gave!" Danton raised and lowered his right arm quicker than he could finish his sentence, and executed the lower MP cost spell which immediately shot ground dirt and boulder chunks in Mainne's face from below her position. The interruption to her charging spell ended up forcing her to cancel the action since she was being launched up from the ground. As usual, Danton knew it was more effective to quicken Earth Glave by spawning the location further away from the user, a modification from the original spell design plans.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Mainne-N-002.png]
Mainne had to take more time than usual getting back up, but in the process, Danton was taking his time too strategizing. He did so by slowly walking forward with his saber out again. It looked like he was planning for a major assassination right now, but fatal would it be for him to mistake his confidence. Mainne pushed herself back together faster, her MP already charging into both of her hands like before. "Icy Wind!" Mainne blasted the area in front of her with cold wind while Danton was only twelve feet away from her, and the freezing cold air still had an effect on him. Though Icy Wind deals no damage, there is little way to defend against its freezing cold effects.
Just as she planned, Danton's change in posture gave her enough time and motive to charge energy for another spell; one designed more to her liking. "Cold Shower!" Since this was a spell Mainne made up herself from other existing magic tricks, she had two ice glyphrings spawned at once, one for each wrist. With her right hand, she unleashed an invisible power above Danton's location, which combined another Icy Wind spell with small chunks of frozen water. With the air rushing down from above, the simulation turned into a brutal hailstorm only limited to a small radius. While she bounced those small ice rocks off of Danton, her left hand worked to fire a massive barrage of Ice Needles, sharp frozen shards of water that would be painful to impact, and work double as effectively to make sure Danton freezes to incapacitation.
For the long duration that Mainne's so-called Cold Shower affected Danton, he found himself unable to move from the freezing cold air on his arms, legs, and face, a pain compelling enough to force a change in strategy. This didn't stop Danton from charging MP energy into one of his most powerful spells. This one he kept off the records despite practicing the spell in open fields. It will have to do since Mainne specializes in the cold element. "Flamewheel!" Sure that Mainne wouldn't have a clue what this would entail, Danton got over the immobilization of the freezing cold, and created a massive red colored glyphring aimed vertically into the air while attached to his right wrist.
With that, Danton noticed his HP dropping just slightly from Mainne's barrage of attacks, but her cold spell was over by the time the glyphring activated at full power. With Danton unleashing the concentrated form of energy, the glyphring launched 36 separate Fire Balls consecutively into the air, all forming a large area of a spiral formation that generated a hot vortex. Danton then worked with his spell and concentrated on tipping the vortex over as part of the design with Flamewheel. When turning the glyphring on its side and aiming it at Mainne, the vortex of gravity also shifted in the same direction and angle. Now with a horizontal vortex of heat and thirty-six Fire Balls all spiraling towards Mainne's general location, she quickly became stunned by the surprise that followed the incredible advancement of the spell. This of course nearly drained Danton dry of his MP levels, especially since the spell is considered to be at a power level of eight.
Mainne was powerless to think of a way to try and get out of this, and was thus hit by nearly half of all the Fire Balls thrown in her general direction. The path of each Fire Ball was on a spin, though linear and without any homing properties. The heat they brought on gave Mainne several uncomfortable burning sensations all over her arms, hands, legs, and a few that grazed the side of her face and ears. When it was finally over, the absence of anything else also allowed a silence to endure. Mainne was too dazzled by that very spell to think straight anymore.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Mainne-N-003.png]
Kite was also amazed that Danton could pull off such a powerful spell, but as his luck would have it, Mainne was not far on the losing side of the battle. Still, she wasn't fighting like she normally does. What is with all of the cold spells anyway? Making up magical spells and specializing that way isn't going to work against a tough guy like Danton. Mainne should have known better than to try new things at a time like this. "What are you doing Mainne?!" Kite had to yell for his voice to properly penetrate the Siriean dome further away. "Stop using ice spells and do a better job! I'm calling a time out!" This is ridiculous, and Kite had to stomp his foot down. Fighting his best team members is one thing, but it won't count if they are not doing their very best.
"What?" Mainne didn't know whether to agree or disagree with a timeout. Ultimately, Danton would also have to be okay with the idea, otherwise this Siriean dome won't go down.
Danton couldn't understand what was wrong. He was winning, and now Kite wants to give Mainne a second chance? "What's the problem?" Danton figured this wasn't going to go well, but he allowed for the timeout simply by agreeing to it in his head. With a little extra magical exertion behind that thought, the Siriean dome shut down immediately.
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Chapter Theme Shift: Age of Dragons ("The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" Trailer #1 Music) ~ Audiomachine
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Kite hollered from his position to voice the obvious concern. "I'm calling that a draw, and demand an immediate restart to the match. Mainne? I've never seen you fight with that style before. Stick to what worked out last time. None of that Cold Shower non-sense!"
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Danton winced with his teeth becoming unglued. This was a sight he never would have expected to see at all. Why would Mainne's own mentor say something like that? Mainne was fighting so well, and she was simply inexperienced with some of her spells. Her spells had everything to them; strategy and passion to make them work harder than the inventors themselves. Mainne was going with a specific strategy, one she seemed to be comfortable with. Freezing Danton's body where he stood was making it challenging for him without a doubt. All of those Icy Wind blasts still had him close to shivering in the night. But Kite would shut Mainne down on that just to try and win? It's not your battle yet!
"What do you want me to do?" Mainne was very frustrated with Kite's command, and didn't mind stressing it to her voice.
"Making Danton chilly won't be enough. Just do what you normally do for every other win you've had. Stick to the results that work!"
Danton felt like smacking Kite upside the head. How dare he try and force Mainne to adapt to a less comfortable style! That's not what battling is all about! He let out a soft breath and prepared himself again. "Fine!" he allowed. "We each use one healing orb and start again." Mainne was doing just fine using her cold spells to disable Danton's ability to fight close range; it literally cripples his factor of speed, even though Mainne is already quick on her reactions. But if this is how Kite responds to failure, he'll have to learn of his own mistake the hard way. Sorry about this Mainne, but fighting battles for fun is all it takes to get motivated, and I'm going to wipe that cocky look off your boss's face once and for all. "Let's do this fast!" Danton healed himself with another healing orb, while Mainne used her own. With each energy scopes reset, the recreation of the Siriean dome didn't take long, and the fight simply started over from scratch.
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Chapter Theme Shift: Cybernetica ~ Sonic Symphony & Trailer Bros (Maximus)
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image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-000.png]image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Mainne-N-000.png]
Danton knew this was crap. Kite has gone and taken the fun out of battle, with Mainne now about to be lifeless in her own style. Forget fighting fair, we shall throw that away too. Danton knew he was going first, and wasn't shy about charging a solid spell this time to start things off. "Fire Wall!" Casting the stored energy was easy with this low grade effective spell, forcing a solid tall wall of fire spanning over twenty meters wide as it slid in the ground towards Mainne like a Shadow Wave attack spell.
Mainne was used to seeing these Fire Walls before from other opponents, and now that she was given a second chance to fight and win, her own style should work again here. "Ice Wall!" Mainne charged enough MP energy into both hands, causing her eyes to glow again until the release of her magic. On cue, her spell created a ghostly like glacier wall of freezing air and water, advancing forward at the same speed as Danton's Fire Wall.
Danton wasn't expecting such an intuitive counterattack by Mainne, using an exact opposite version of Fire Wall. Upon the collision of both magical walls to the center of the field, the impact created a powerful force of wind blowing back in all directions, while both walls collapsed downward to nothingness. The Ice Wall negated the Fire Wall evenly.
Mainne knew it was a risky trick, since it tanks much of her MP levels on the spot, but that turned out to be worth the shot, and now it was her chance to go on the offensive. "Bullet Blitz!" Immediately creating two yellow generation glyphrings close by to create small sub machine guns in her hands, and with little chance of evasion, Danton was caught in surprise as she pulled both triggers in aim towards his direction. As expected, Danton could only stand there and take the low damage attack of speeding bullets while Mainne emptied both magazines in place. By the time it was over, she threw the useless guns to the ground and assessed the damage level.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-013.png]
Feeling the sting of those bullets was something Danton had to bypass quickly, before Mainne was given a chance to speed herself up like before. Danton created two small yellow glyphrings of his own, generating two daggers into his hands. There was only one obvious trick to this action. "Flying Guillotine!" With both blades burning with a magical coat of aura, Danton threw them in a crisscross manner, generating a red circle of damage by the time the blades made it halfway down the field.
But Mainne knew of an easy way to dodge this attack as well. In the early days of her training, the same instructor taught her how to perform evasive maneuvers acrobatically. It was as simple for Mainne to recall the moments and execute them on cue. Just as the Flying Guillotine circle approached her, Mainne performed a half-backflip behind her, using the tops of her hands to land for support. After successfully getting some more distance from the quicker oncoming attack, Mainne assisted her gravity-defying maneuver by blasting a close range Push Wave magical spell just off the ground to her right. The result caused her to soar far left into the air, just barely avoiding contact with the spinning sharp blades in time while landing back on her feet. As the Flying Guillotine of daggers returned towards Danton by spell design, the trajectory had no intention of tracking down Mainne for the second hit. As a result, she easily dodged the costly spell while opening a new window of attacking.
Mainne prepared the energy into both of her hands, creating two ice elemental glyphrings at the same time. As she fired the projectiles off towards Danton, there would be little time for him to react to the obvious spell cast.
Danton knew he had to dodge, but Mainne sent both of those Ice Bolts in succession so quickly after she evaded his own spell. Since Ice Bolts tend to track the target, it would be next to impossible to try and move the way she just had. On top of that, she was still sticking to her previous strategy, despite having Kite try and force her to adapt to a new one. Danton had no choice but to lift his short saber up to try and block the projectiles, slicing through each one in an effort to defuse the situation. Since Mainne's magic was cast so quickly, Danton didn't have enough reaction time to coordinate a proper stance to block using his sword, despite his attempt to place the metal in front of the path of the Ice Bolt. After getting slammed into the chest by the sheer cold bolt of Leray energy, Danton was quickly hit again on his right shoulder by the next Ice Bolt, forcing him to cover the afflicted area and try to warm it with his displaced body heat.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-014.png]
Kite stamped in the cement where he stood, disregarding how effective that trick may have seemed against Danton. It wouldn't be enough to overcome his overall persistence. "What are you doing Mainne?! I told you to stick with the old strategy!"
What a moron. Danton personally wanted to just skip Mainne and fight Kite to prove how wrong he was. If Mainne actually does change her strategy now, it will become too easy for him to shoot her down. Still, new strategy or not, Mainne has excellent close range defensive techniques. It would be fair to test that again, just to show how much potential they both have. Danton however had every intention of winning this fight, battling to the bitter end. He lifted his blade as a sign to charge, and took the initiative to get in closer to Mainne.
Mainne felt confused at first by Kite's demanding orders not to fight Danton with her effective ice attacks of magic. This probably allowed Danton to feel superior in his morale to overcome her ability to battle at all, but Mainne prepared herself and her stance, knowing full well just how to repel a close combat counter attack from anyone. With her indestructible bangles ready, Mainne waited for Danton to get within striking range.
As Danton was ready to hit Mainne, he swung his sword downward, with Mainne using both of her wrists crossed over each other to block the metal steel with her own. The wrist guards that went way over her wrists provided an amazing amount of metallic defense, but she also had to put all of her muscle and might into making this trick work. For Danton, it was overwhelmingly enough. Mainne stopped the advance of his short blade, and immediately deflected the weapon to the side, giving her the edge and decisive move to sweep over to Danton's side and kick him above the shin.
Despite how well trained Mainne was at stopping Danton's close combat advance and strategy, he continued to try swinging his sword from different angles, trying to outflank Mainne, or at least score some hits against her, but with every attempt made, Mainne was able to dodge the swipes or block them with her metal wrists entirely. It wasn't long in continuous fighting before she finally gained the upper hand against him. Mainne threw in an unexpected punch right for Danton's face, forcing him to momentarily back off. Mainne responded with an additional counterattack, one that involved two quickly formed and immediately spawned Fire Ball projectiles. Both of the fireballs struck Danton at the same time, forcing him backwards even more. With that little bit of damage set in, Danton halted his attempt to overcome Mainne by force completely.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-015.png]
"Uplift!" Mainne left Danton no possible moment to try and recover, as she threw much of her magical energy into a very unique spell. Uplift; with a power level of seven requires the brownish color of an earth elemental type of glyphring to form around the wrist. Though it costs a high amount of MP energy, the spell effect is triggered almost instantly to prevent evasion. When Mainne unleashed the magical energy from the center of the glyphring, it caused the invisible force to shoot a massive chunk of solid rock from beneath the earth, breaking thorough the crust of the ground and cement, and sending Danton high up into the air with a solid slam from below.
Mainne wouldn't even wait until Danton was to come back to the ground before executing her next combination of attack sequences. Fighting him close combat was simply not good enough either. "Lightning Strike!" Mainne made sure to once again use two of the same spell at the same time, one glyphring for each wrist. Her spell with little delay struck Danton with a double Lightning Strike attack just as he finally hit the ground, zapping him where he lay for two solid seconds, while the HP declined on his energy scope rapidly.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-016.png]
Danton felt the pain of electrocution and bruising everywhere. If this was Mainne's alternative strategy, it was defiantly just as effective. Did Kite personally train these people to be fighting warriors? He had faced challenges like these before, but never to such great lengths. Danton coughed some of the dust out of his lungs while attempting to stand back up. After losing a large majority of his health, it was soon clear he needed to try something different to get the best of Mainne.
With much of her magical energy spent, she was taking much longer now to recharge and catch her breath. A simplified spell should make things even harder for Mainne. Danton lifted his glowing hand up, charging magical energy for a special Leray spell. "Drain!" The aura lit up around Mainne, immediately zapping her of her natural energy and draining her base HP levels. Drain has the linear property of always stealing an average of 5% HP from the affected target, while costing the user 10% of their MP reserves. With such an instantaneous invocation time, Mainne was zapped helplessly. Though 5% meant little to her, it made much more of a difference for Danton, who felt energized again from the successful use of his quick striking spell.
Mainne didn't retaliate with an attack spell. She felt further drained by her loss in MP energy from all of the magical fighting she took part in earlier, and though using an MP booster would be against the rules in a Leray battle, there are very rare spells that take care of the same issue. The spell she had in mind would only cost Mainne 4% of her MP reserves, something she would get more back in return.
"Calling of Light!" Though Mainne's magical spell came with a long delay, Danton stood totally still since he didn't know what to expect with the unknown name of the spell. Only after a few seconds, Mainne became shrouded in a transparent cyan colored aura, all around her body and giving off a small amount of light in the darkness. With that in place, Mainne would soon be feeling better again, with her MP levels passively regenerating so much faster.
Calling of Light as Mainne knew was the hardest spell she has ever mastered so far. Due to its rarity and high power level, hardly anybody is capable of learning how to use it, and it is a conditional spell too, totally dependent upon the weather and time of day. Only usable at night with totally clear skies, Calling of Light generates an aura, which passively absorbs distant starlight while converting that into usable Leray energy, speeding up MP regeneration by ten times the speed for as long as the aura lasts. After it ends, the spell cannot be used again for at least another hour.
It didn't take Danton long however to realize that Mainne's delayed spell was a support spell, and saw how quickly her MP levels were climbing. She's going to regenerate her low energy to counter her loss in speed and get the upper hand again! Danton knew he couldn't let that happen, and took immediate action to try and strike her from a distance again. "Crush Wave!" Sending out a magically assisted Shadow Wave combined with earth power and crushing rocks, Danton waited for the advancing wave to hit Mainne again, but she easily dodged the attack by running far to her left side, changing the angle of her own attack vector. As Danton noticed this shift, he immediately added another spell to his combination, trying to recover from his spent magic. "Rush Assault!"
After becoming shrouded in a white transparent aura, Danton charged at Mainne with untraceable speed, using his sword with that momentum to increase the damage level, but despite this, Mainne was perfectly capable of dodging his attacks, or blocking them out. What Mainne didn't realize was how much faster the aura around Danton made his movements. Danton swiftly tried over and over to slash the blade into Mainne, and with his increased speed and shifts in strike angles, he succeeded quickly. Mainne wasn't able to block anymore after the first hit, and Danton kept up the combination of attacks since each strike would momentarily stun Mainne with the stabbing sensation of the sharp sword penetrating her skin and causing additional physical damage.
It wasn't until Mainne fell to the floor when Danton finally stopped attacking her, but that was because his aura soon wore off from the spent magical assistance. He had to gain some distance before risking a tricky attack from Mainne again. As he checked on her energy scope for the damage, he noticed how well her MP reserves were climbing, with that blue aura still around her body for support.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Mainne-N-004.png]
When Mainne pulled herself together, she realized that Danton was just getting desperate to finish her off. He's running out of HP much faster than she is, and with enough combinations, she could finish this even faster. "Shadow Mace!" With a short burst of energy dispersion, Mainne became shrouded in a dark black haze, the small dark earth-bound cloud that disappeared shortly after, but Mainne was nowhere to be seen after that mist cleared up enough to see through. Before Danton could realize that Mainne's position must have changed, he was smashed upward from a spiked metal mace that Mainne was wielding, spawned from the yellow generation glyphring made invisible to Danton's field of view. The uppercut strike is designed to teleport the user just before using a blunt metal mace to uppercut the target. Danton naturally didn't see it coming. With Mainne's impact a success in knocking Danton off his feet from behind, Mainne let the translucent mace weapon fade away from her magic, and began charging even more MP energy into both of her hands.
This gave Danton plenty of time to get back up, even enough to visually see that Mainne was up to another counterattack from a short distance away. As he hurried himself on his feet blade in hand, Danton prepared to dodge or counter the oncoming spell soon enough.
"Shadow Wave!" With her left arm only, Mainne launched a typical Shadow Wave towards Danton. By itself, it wouldn't deal a lot of damage, nor would the spell be hard for Danton to dodge, but with her right hand, only two seconds afterwards, Mainne fired from a red glyphring three solid bolts of fire, shouting "Triple Fire!" to support her mental concentration. Launching the Fire Bolts from the cannon of her right palm, Danton was now pinned down by two spells at the same time. Though Shadow Wave does not home in on the target, it does cover a large area of effectiveness. If Danton were to try and evade it now, he would be totally vulnerable against the Triple Fire launched by Mainne.
Too upset to find some way to get out of the well-coordinated double attack, Danton once again froze up and braced himself for the initial impact of the Shadow Wave. The wave clashed into his feet, thus expanding the magical dispersion while cuts and slashes of magical energy dug into his skin. Shortly after, before the Shadow Wave aura disappeared, the Fire Bolts touched down on Danton's chest and face. With the final burst of fire and the pushback from the expended Shadow Wave, Danton was again knocked backwards and off balance, nearly too dizzy to stand up or comprehend what just happened. While trying to recover, Mainne took her time to read the scope and plan out her next move.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-017.png]
Feeling first-degree burns on his upper body, and several open cuts on his lower body, Danton made another struggled attempt to get back up, his unused blade still in hand. The fact that he wasn't already under assault again was daunting to him, since Mainne's skills could have just now finished him off. Kite made an interesting call for Mainne to shift her strategy. Danton believed fighting her the first time was hard.
After regaining his senses, Danton noticed that the blue aura around Mainne had gone, and she was breathing heavily with fatigue, likely brought on by her constant movement more than her MP drain. Mainne must have wanted to wait and plan a better attack, but with Danton's health still in the clear, he could perform any action he wanted against her. It's time for the infamous Drill Horn maneuver to live up to its name. Danton would be able to give all the credit to his previous master if he could pull it off again against a more experienced fighter, but first, he needed the time to charge all of his remaining energy. "You fight well Mainne. Your skills are defiantly impressive."
"Less talking - more fighting!" Kite hollered aggressively over the shield dome, addressing Mainne more than Danton. It was obvious that she was well spent, but Danton was about to turn this around again. It was obvious that his words were just a diversion to buy time!
Danton knew Mainne wouldn't try saying anything back, and she would be able to move again shortly. She could try and intercept him right now, but it was already too late. "However, I don't stop fighting until it's over! Flashpoint!" With a new white aura around his body, Danton flew with the speed of a bullet in Mainne's direction, stopping just short of her body before thrusting his fist towards her jaw. With all of that magically supplied momentum packed into the single punch, the hit threw Mainne far off balance despite her stance still remaining persistent. Danton then pressed his saber to his hilt, putting away his weapon to fight Mainne again, this time without his sword.
Though Mainne was a bit winded by that punch to her face, she quickly recovered enough to block out some of Danton's unarmed hits. He was brave enough to try punching and kicking Mainne with his own close combat maneuvers. Despite her ability to block Danton's punches with her metal wrists, he seemed much faster and more agile without a blade in his hand. Danton soon overcame her a few times and landed his punches to her shoulders or to her chest. Mainne however landed a few of her hits as well, but both of them remained strong and continued to fight, since unarmed physical attacks retain low damage levels.
It was then when Danton found an opening that Mainne left, when he swung his arm down to prevent Mainne from blocking her face given enough time. Danton simultaneously unleashed some of the magical energy he had secretly stored in his body's aura, blasting Mainne's face close range with a spell coming out of his right hand. "Harmonic Blast!" Though to Danton the spell just seemed like a concentrated blast of wind similar to Aero Blast, the story was entirely different for Mainne.
The moment she was hit in the face from Danton's Harmonic Blast, she was prevented from taking any more action. Sounds of high and low pitch booming triggered from right within her ear canals. It felt like the roar of bombs had gone off inside of her head, while the screeching of the high pitch noise melted her thoughts straight away. Mainne found herself holding her head on both sides and praying to make the sounds stop. The spell was already giving her a severe migraine!
Danton thus took the opportunity to strike Mainne again while she was disabled. Harmonics is a spell used to disorient the target, much so in a painful manner by overloading their hearing abilities with random noise. Nobody is immune to the spell, though Danton knew of a method to modify the spell to travel faster and more precisely by adding a wind element to the dispersion of the energy, giving it the ability to travel at the speed of sound for accuracy. Now that Mainne was stumbling in her feet to desperately recover, Danton took action by adding the blade back into his hand. With the rest of his energy prepared, he gave his next spell all of his effort. "Splice!" Danton used the common spell Splice by adding the aura into his blade, and slashed the blade through the open air to create a diagonal two-dimensional white line of magic, which drilled its way through the air. But Danton performed the same action again going from the other direction, spending double the amount of magic for two Splices to drill through the area.
Used at close range like this, Mainne was a sitting duck, still affected and too distracted by the sonic pain in her head to do anything about the situation. Thus, both Splice lines cut their way through her body, gashing open her underarm and her upper thigh. The pain signaled from that far outweighed the blasts of sound in her head, sending Mainne to the ground in screams of panic. She had never felt any spell this painful before, and she couldn't move or hope to recover from the damage.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Mainne-N-005.png]
Danton didn't move anymore. He didn't want to watch how the rest of this would go. Mainne was obviously finished already if Splice was this painful to her, and that new migraine was probably causing more issues than he could imagine. She should just give up and surrender already. It wouldn't be right to keep attacking her now.
Kite couldn't bear to watch this either. Mainne was out there on the ground, still screaming though less intensely after the moments passed by. How could Danton be this powerful?! "Mainne! Get up and defeat him before it's too late!"
"I can't!" Mainne screamed. Finally accumulated enough of her senses to concentrate on what was right in front of her, Mainne knew what was to come. There is no sense in denying this. "I can't beat him! I give up! I can't fight anymore!"
Before Danton could even honor Mainne's agreement to forfeit the rest of the battle, the Siriean dome began to collapse around them. Mainne's forfeit was automatically detected rather quickly by the automatic spoil system. When the battle finally came to a stop, Danton could relax.
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Chapter Theme Shift: Henry Briggs ~ Jeff Broadbent [Planetside 2]
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After it was clear to him that Danton won the battle against Mainne by forfeit, he soon turned his attention to the brutality of his combination spell and the effect it was still having on Mainne. His little operation Drill Horn obviously worked, despite going through the unnecessary movement of fighting in between the initial Flashpoint attack and the Harmonic Blast. It's a maneuver designed to quickly end a battle against a tough opponent, forcing them to surrender to pain rather than chipping away HP reserves, but Danton was still new to executing the combination of spells. Harmonic Blast was hard to invoke, Splice even more difficult and draining to his stamina.
But right now, Mainne is the one suffering the most. Danton had to step in and help her up with two different types of healing orbs in his hands. They were supposed to be for himself, despite his heavy abundance of healing orbs. He first gave away his own equipment to Mainne, who tried to use them as quickly as possible. The first healing orb simply replenished her health and stamina, while the white colored orb was designed to work as an effective magical painkiller. Even after Mainne used the white colored orb, she was still suffering from all the damages. The wounds had gone away from the healing orbs, and the pain was cut from the other orb, but the sharp pain in her thigh and under her arm still lasted halfway. Her migraine was still here too, proving how much rest she was going to need in order to recover.
While Danton was helping Mainne to recover, Kite nearly lost his patience from the distance. "This is absolutely absurd! All of you should be ashamed of yourselves for letting some hot head blow through our ranks! This is the proud Trujima Gang! Or did you all forget?"
"Calm down!" Danton commanded from afar. "Your crew fought well, and you'll be getting your turn soon enough." Danton's lack of fear soon silenced Kite, perhaps stunning him with the daunting realization that he too would now have no choice but to fight him.
Mainne let Danton help her stand and limp, holding her stomach for physical support like a brace. "Thanks. I didn't mean for our leader to get so upset."
"You should be thanking yourself too," Danton replied. "You fought well against me, both times. Even with changed tactics did you adapt to make it work. Seeing as you nearly had me beat, I actually had fun in that battle."
What is with this guy? Mainne couldn't look away from his concentrated expression while he helped drag her to the area out of bounds for battle, where Kite and his crew would be. Danton must not be as young as she initially thought. His experience is far up there, yet he's so polite and patient just to deal with hot heads like Kite. Then all of this about the fun of battling... Mainne didn't want to agree with Danton especially with Kite close enough to hear, but she could imagine herself being anywhere else today. Despite losing that fight, though Mainne didn't understand why, she still wanted to try again and again. Right now was out of the question though.
"Oh come on!" Kite pressured. He was already furious about the way Mainne was limping, and how she was letting Danton help her out. "You can't be hurt that badly!"
Danton helped Mainne to sit down against one of the boulders near her other teammates, and then turned to face Kite while using a healing orb on himself. "Kite Fargenst! The time has come for you to recognize what Leray battling is all about. I now challenge you to the final duel. You already know what the terms are if I defeat you in battle." Danton was more certain than before, having cared less about destroying this gang until seeing what Kite was really like. Defeating him will be the ultimate thrill.
Standing to face the threat in front of him, Kite exhaled heavily while preparing himself. It has been such a long time now since he actually faced such a tough opponent, but there must not be any more mistakes. His so-called teammates are simply too weak to finish the job. "I have no choice it seems but to prove it to all of you that this shaggy hag will not be capable of toppling the Trujima leadership. We shall get the battle underway. Immediately!"