Match of the Millennium

Description: What can change the nature of a man? When one's nature is jolly, when one is set as naughty, or nice, what can change it? Can the promise or denial of gifts be enough to change the fundamental nature of a man? Or is it simply the belief of such gifts that can transform them? Erika and Munin will find out at the Living Forest, thanks to the miracle of the MIDNIGHT CHANNEL. Erika is an SENSATE, hedonists who seek enlightenment through new experiences. This will be shown through a bonus to defenses, encouraging her to experience even more of what her opponent can give her. an Munin CHAOSMAN is; nonsense accordingly act chaos believe who truth in unpredictability and and. This will be reflected by large bonuses in luck and power hit odds. Both are required to deliver their gifts to Shang Tsung under the Living Christmas tree. Belief is power, however, and one gift can remain. What can change the nature of a man?

[MUNIN]
Deep within the living forest, another shadow moves among the branches. A dark, misty form makes it's way cautiously among the trees in what almost seems to be a grid search pattern of some sort, searching for something among the evil place.

Munin isn't sure WHY she feels drawn to this place from her abode of safety in the wasteland.... but the pull is strong. Something is here waiting for her. After the events with Sawdust (supposing that was indeed his name), she has just enough confidence restored to think she may have a chance in this place of death.....

She stops on a branch, the glow of her violet eyes sweeping the ground beneath, listening for sounds differing from the normal ambience of the place.....

[ERIKA]
Since she was eliminated from the Mortal Kombat tournament, but not killed, Erika's been kind of at loose ends. Frankly, she was kind of bored. She wanted something to do, and challenging the people still /in/ the tournament was kind of a no-go for various reasons.

Fights in an exotic location (a sorta-kinda-maybe extraplanar island) count, right? She's not sure how they're going to broadcast on Saturday Night Fight. Maybe someone will smuggle the recording out someday. Wait, is anyone recording at all? Maybe someone from Shang Tsung's castle is watching.

"This place is kind of a dive," Erika grumbles, because she doesn't like the Living Forest. She's in the clearing, sitting on a stool made of ice, which is somehow not freezing her butt (thanks, cryogenics). She already went and stared at the eldritch trees but has mostly left them alone besides that.

She's very definitely not hiding. Or concealed, at all, provided you can poke your way through the forest.

[MUNIN]
"You must be the one i was sent to find for a battle......." comes a voice behind Erika.

A few feet away a black mist forms, which itself forms into a person. Munin takes in her opponents equally odd features, analyzing the implications it may have for the coming encounter "I hope i haven't kept you waiting long. The trees bite if you aren't careful".

[ERIKA]
"I know, I tried to get them to bite a stick but they weren't having any of that."

Erika rises from her stool, which almost immediately starts to crumble and melt. She dusts her hands off against each other, turning to look at Munin with a grin. "Nice trick with the mist. So you're the one I'm supposed to fight? I hope you're up for a good one! I want to see everything you've got."

Taking a few steps backwards, Erika stops well before she runs into any of the trees or the skeletons. She stretches, twisting her upper body left, then right. "Right!"

COMBATSYS: Erika has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Erika            0/-------/-------|

[MUNIN]
Munin smirks, eyes pulsing brighter a moment as a pair of dark-violet 'blades' of chi form from her palms and are given a few test swings before vanishing again "We'll see what happens. no promises, other than trying to win of course". Dark mist begins drifting off her shoulders as she assumes a ready stance

COMBATSYS: Munin has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Munin            0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Erika

[ERIKA]
"You're weird, you know that?"

This is coming from a blue girl who's just waiting for the opportunity to see and feel what Munin can do. Erika does nothing for a few moments, shifting her weight, bouncing side to side on her feet.

But very quickly she gets bored with this. Raising her hands and cupping them, Erika exhales sharply, and ice and snow seems to lift off her cupped hands and form a whirling storm, blasting toward Munin! The sparkling frost is hard to see through, and whirls around her for some time after Erika stops her exhalation, allowing her to move around.

"But that doesn't mean we can't get a good fight out of it!"

COMBATSYS: Erika successfully hits Munin with Whiteout.

[    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Munin            0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0            Erika

[MUNIN]
Despite being ready and waiting, Munin winces as multiple pieces of ice cause small stabs in her skin! Far too late she whisps to the side, hurt but still going strong "Oh, i quite agree!". With a flick of her wrist she sends her own projectile at Erika: a crescent-shaped projectile of shadowy chi streaked with violet!

COMBATSYS: Erika reflects Shadow Wave from Munin with Frigid Aegis.

[     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Munin            0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0            Erika

[ERIKA]
Going after Erika with chi... well, it isn't doomed to failure by any means, but it's definitely attacking her where she's strongest.

Erika keeps her hands up. She doesn't even try to dodge, planting her feet and deciding to remain steady. Instead she holds her right out, palm-first, in the air. Ice spreads outward from her stretched fingers and thumb, forming a gleaming plane of ice, with little strands of blue-white chi webbed through it.

Interposing the shield between herself and the incoming blast, the shadow wave is weirdly distorted by impact. It ripples and reflects backwards, now shining around the edges with the white-blue icy chi that Erika uses, leaving a trail of frozen mist behind it!

"Come on! Is that all you've got?" Erika flicks her fingers, and the shield breaks, shattering and falling to the ground with chiming sounds as the pieces bounce and skip off one another. "I want to see more!"

COMBATSYS: Erika successfully hits Munin with Reflected Shadow Wave.

[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Munin            0/-------/--=====|===----\-------\0            Erika

[MUNIN]
Well THAT wasn't an expected response! Munin rushes in to close just behind her attack, and when it is reflected, shes going too fast to change course, and plows right into, and through, the whispy return! No counter-response is given other than a gruntof pain as the violet blades erupt from her wrists, and she swipes with both hands simultaniously, aiming for Erikas midsection!

COMBATSYS: Munin blitzes into action and acts again!

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Munin            0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0            Erika

COMBATSYS: Munin successfully hits Erika with Shadow Spike.
-+- CALCULATED HIT -+-

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Munin            0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0            Erika

COMBATSYS: Munin successfully hits Erika with Shadow Spike.
- Power hit! -

[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////        ]
Munin            1/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0            Erika

[ERIKA]
Ow.

That was a little more than Erika was expecting. Faced with two strikes almost simultaneously, she freezes up (ha ha, a pun!) and deals with neither particularly effectively. Her sweeping arm fails to block one of them as it penetrates her hip, and that interrupts her step to the side, meaning that Munin can drive the other one in slightly higher.

"Gah," Erika grunts. She staggers, unimpaling herself but painfully. Reaching out in a sudden lunge once she's no longer got shadow spikes in her, she grabs at Munin, trying to simply lay a hand on her; if she manages it, she discharges a sudden burst of chi, superchilling Munin and partially numbing her from the sheer cold! It's a little disorienting, though the burst of cold doesn't last long; she starts to warm up almost immediately.

"I really felt that! You must really be trying now!"

COMBATSYS: Erika successfully hits Munin with Deep Freeze.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Munin            1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\0            Erika

[MUNIN]
Being so close, Munin is too slow to respond to the grasp. The freezing burst hurts her full on, driving her backwards.

She shivers for a moment, as feeling and temperature return, grinning and eyes burning with violet light "Next time better you don't start to underestimate your opponent too soon". She abruptly splits in two, moving in two different directions! One Munin comes in left, the other from the right! Which is real!?

COMBATSYS: Munin successfully hits Erika with Combo Grapple.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////              ]
Munin            1/----===/=======|=======\=------\1            Erika

[ERIKA]
Erika objects, "I wasn't underestimating you!" Which is at least partially true. She was challenging Munin, not underestimating her. It's totally different!

Erika swings to the left, going to block the form on that side. And she does! She manages a picture-perfect block against that Munin, interposing her hands between her and that phantom Munin's punch. Unfortunately, it /was/ the phantom Munin, which means as soon as it impacts, it vanishes into black smoke.

The other one catches Erika in the side of the leg. She /almost/ goes down in a trip, but staggers backwards, bouncing and hopping to stay upright as she's punched a couple times in the shoulder. She gets dangerously close to one of the trees...

...and slides to the side, kicking herself along the ground as she freezes it, literally skating away. Erika stops about fifteen feet from Munin, cold starting to radiate from her; frost freezes out of the air as she concentrates, forming a thin layer of rime on the ground near her and making a cold mist appear.

COMBATSYS: Erika gathers her will.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Munin            1/----===/=======|=======\=====--\1            Erika

[MUNIN]
With a burst of darkness Munin vanishes, reappearing on the branch of a tree above her. With a hard stomp, and the following loud CRACK of wood, the branch falls free towards her opponent below! Her hope is that Erika won't be aware of it until the last minute, or at least manuever her into a more useful position for attack in the next few moves.

COMBATSYS: Erika blocks Munin's Large Thrown Object.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Munin            1/----===/=======|=======\======-\1            Erika

[ERIKA]
gathers more power, which has the side effect of chilling the area around her even more. It's downright wintry in a bubble around her as chi dances around her - but eventually Erika has decided she's done enough.

That's about the time a branch threatens to land on her head.

It doesn't; she manages to bring her arms up and catch it, though she still manages to get some of the smaller twigs and leaves in her face, scratching irritatingly but not especially deeply. "Gah!" Throwing the branch to the side, Erika looks up at where she thinks Munin is. She can't see her, but...

Erika slams her hands on the ground. A massive pillar of chi blasts upwards and outward from her, forming a very elongated bubble of churning, whirling chi and ice cold. It hits the branches above her, freezing their outsides before breaking them off the tree and throwing them violently upwards; if Munin isn't careful, she might go with it, under attack of the giant storm of cold!

"I can still find you, you know!!"

COMBATSYS: Erika successfully hits Munin with Fimbulvinter.

[                           \\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Munin            2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Erika

[MUNIN]
Wao!

This is Munins first response to seeing the incoming storm of cold! Her eyes blaze a moment, and the shadows beneath Erika deepen abnormally, and with a flick of her arms multiple blades of darkness spring up from the ground beneath the frozen lass, attempting to impale her from multple angles and in multiple places!

It's all Munin can do to get this off before the storm impacts, and she's blown away!

She is nowhere to be found afterwords. Did she get carried off with the attack, or just decide she had taken all she could? Unknown. In either case, she doesn't reappear.

COMBATSYS: Munin can no longer fight.

[                   \\\\\\\\\\\  <
Erika            0/-------/----===|

COMBATSYS: Erika blocks Munin's Iron Maiden.

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  <
Erika            0/-------/---====|

[ERIKA]
Erika rises from her explosion of power with a leap.

This is because the ground around her is deciding to spray razor shards of shadow at her. Erika bounds past one, freezes a chunk of ice to stand on for an instant (two of the chunks of shadow carve into it) and jumps off it, making it some distance toward the middle of the clearing. There are both fewer trees and fewer violent shadows there.

She looks up, trying to find Munin to throw something else at her; her hands shimmer with energy. But she can't, and when nothing else comes out at her, she lets it dissipate with a spark of white-blue, slowly returning her chill to normal.

Victory! She supposes, anyway. And it did entertain her for a while...

COMBATSYS: Erika takes no action.

[                      \\\\\\\\  <
Erika            0/-------/--=====|

Log created on 14:58:09 01/01/2017 by Erika, and last modified on 11:58:00 01/04/2017.