Match of the Millennium

Description: Atlantis and Might and Magic both come off of strong showings in the quarter-final to meet in Zack Island's famous collectible shop. Will the standard fairytale heroes (good witch and knight) be able to overcome the stock fairytale villains (ice queen and dragon) in this tropical trope-down?

[CHEVY]
This is a fight just like any other, isn't it? Zack of All Trades is the battleground for one of the semifinal battles between Might & Magic and Team Atlantis, and with a few NFG officials in tow, the battle will be starting any moment now!

Chevy Beaumont has done her level best to prepare for combat. Just as in the previous two battles, and in the fateful trip which brought the fighters to the island, she's wearing a flattering teal-colored bikini beneath denim short-shorts and an unbuttoned white shirt. The long-sleeved shirt is rolled up to her elbows. The hayseed has done a decent job of keeping the shirt -- and her matching high-top sneakers -- in tip-top condition despite the severe conditions of the island. The shoes do... slosh with water with each step she takes, so something may be a little... awry. Her reddish hair is a bit frayed from not having a proper brush, but she's kept that covered beneath the rim of a floppy hat bearing a depiction of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.

The last fight in this venue, between Homura and John Doe, had left the aisles in a state of disarray. Chevy had shown up as soon as she could to help tidy the place up; some items had been returned to their proper hooks on the aisles, while others have been chucked into a collapsible bin and pushed off to the side. All she can think of is the time she'd fought Ayala in a grocery store -- and she remembered how important it was to have the aisles clear!

Though. There are -some- signs that this fight may go a bit differently than Chevy's previous battles.

For one, her weaponry's looking a bit worse for wear. Her replacement pole -- a found treasure presented by Coco and Kenzo -- is a bit dinged-up, but serviceable. Buckets have been patched up and duck-taped together, though there are a few leaks here and there.

For another, the heavy bags under Chevy's eyes suggest that the last twenty-four hours might not have been the best for her. She may be toggling the pole around along her fingertips as she waits for combat to begin -- but there's a good chance she'd be ready for a nap without much provocation.

If there is a silver lining to the clouds in her sky, though, it's that she's wearing the same bright smile she normally does for these sorts of events. It may be slightly overcast outside the island's general store, but Chevy aims to bring the sunshine to the room as best she can!

[IRIS]
Comparatively speaking, equipment issues are not Iris Osterlund's... well, issue.

The Brit's issues are more about morale than anything else, from one point of view. Which might sound crazy, coming from one half of a team that's doing amazingly well in the -- airquotes earned -- 'tournament' so far. However, looking at those fights (or looking back on them, as she's been doing), the wizard can't help but notice that it's been Albert who's been carrying the team, having to come to her 'rescue' each match.

It's not that she begrudges anyone anything; Albert's been doing well on his own merits. But it has uncomfortable echoes of her time in the first season of the NFG, feeling like everyone else was on a whole different level than she was. It would probably be nothing... if the entire situation were not compounded by the frustrating and, frankly, a little scary context of what's happening on Isla Zaca right now. You can't strand people on a HORNY ISLAND [backspacing intensifies] TROPICAL ISLAND with no way off and few survival resources and not expect the group's mental health not to be suspect!

And the worst part is that various NFG crew members who only know Iris's abilities and background from her performance in both seasons of the tournament keep wondering -- often aloud, and often in the form of questions TO HER -- why the wizard hasn't just magic'ed everyone off the island already, or conjured up a banquet for everyone to eat, or any of a number of things that Iris is manifestly unable to do.

Nobody wants to hear 'you could create food with magic but eating it wouldn't be helpful', or 'I tried teleporting a coconut through that field of fire and it literally exploded in the process', or 'no I can't telepathically talk to people outside the barrier like I'm Professor Xavier'. They just think 'magic will solve our problems!' and when they find out it can't, they blame... the magician, rather than something more discernibly responsible, like THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE.

Thus she's had good reason to keep to herself -- from Albert, from the NFG crew, and from the other fighters. It's been useful on some level; she's made some progress on some personal projects that don't necessarily require something like a forge and anvil. But that's about all.

A hand comes up, pushing open the store's front door, complete with obligatory little ringing bells to announce customers, as she looks around. "Afternoon?" she tries, scanning the aisles until she finds a, by her own description, unbowed but slightly rumpled Chevy Beaumont, a sight which does take the Brit aback a tiny bit.

"...You doing alright, love?" the wizard asks, tilting her head somewhat.

[ALBERT]
Truth be told, Albert was probably pretty worried about not seeing much of Iris (read: AT ALL) during the downtime leading up to the next 'match'. But he is also still maybe a little too polite and awkward with the mage to really have actually tried to approach her over it all. If... he could even find her for that matter.

So after the directions for where and when to go for the next 'match' (if you are willing to call it that anyway), convening just outside of the dubiously-branded store (why is everything 'Zach' something?!) is probably the first time in a hot minute for Albert to have actually even *seen* Iris.

There's a thousand questions running through his head when he does, too. Does he ask her about how she's doing? WHere she's been? Should he try to discuss their potential tactics for the oncoming fight? Should he ask her for her opinion on socializing with members from other teams and advice on asking someone--

Er, let's put a pin on that last one.

Well, either way, the only thing Albert actually manages after reuniting with Iris is just offering his trademark sun-challenging smile to her and a boisterous greeting of: "Hiiii! You ready to go kick some butt?" before obediently moving to pad along after her and peeking over her shoulder into the store.

And the faux-knight, for his part, gives a looooong stare past Iris at the waterbender stood over thataway, before finally whispering to his teammate:

"...She's not a ghost right now, is she?"

[TANWEN]
And then, almost abruptly, daylight floods into the moderately-lit shop as a fourth figure stands on tippy-toes to lift open the hatch previously covering the front window of the shop, casting a shadow over those already inside.

"Oh! Hiya! Have any of you seen Tanwen, like?" comes the lilting Flat Holm accent (can an island with a population of two have a local accent?) of the dragon girl's girthy guardian as he fixes the hatch to the canopy above the wooden platform encircling the shop proper. Winn reaches an arm up to wipe sweat away from his bald pate, which has been reddened by the week-and-a-bit-or-so that the cast and crew have been trapped at the mercy of the rays of the Isla Zaca sun.

(Well, really, there's a pretty decent amount of shade around, but Winn happened to fall asleep while re-reading an issue of SLAM magazine on a sun lounger under a beach umbrella at the start of one afternoon and didn't wake up until the sun had shifted completely to the other side in the early evening.)

"It's alright! I'm already here, I am!" Tanwen announces, popping out from behind a mysterious and questionable golden mannequin devoid of extremities. She's in human form at the moment - technically humanoid, given her tail and horns - and dressed in her usual Welsh flag-styled bikini, with the added accessory of a string of scallop shells serving as a necklace. On her left arm is a classic pub-style dartboard that's been jury-rigged into a literal target shield, and in her right hand...

"Look! I've got a proper sword this time, I have!" she announces boastfully, skipping over next to her mentor and partner.

It's a katana with a red tsuka and hexagonal golden tsuba. She's strapped the saya, which has a long and distinctive red sage-o, to her bikini bottoms.

"And do you know why it's perfect?" Tanwen, having skipped the part where she mentions that it's perfect, asks with clearly barely-suppressed glee before blurting out - well before anyone can develop a healthy level of suspense - "Because this is /The/ Dragon Sword! It said so on the label!"

Indeed, there is a label with a price tag next to it directly beneath a now-empty display stand on the back wall.

"Hello, Sir Albert! I don't think that she's a ghost, but I'll check to be sure!" Tanwen says, before holding out the sword to poke at Chevy in a test of corporeality.

Of course, this methodology is flawed for two reasons. Firstly, the legendary blade known as /The/ Dragon Sword can almost certainly touch ghosts, making it a fairly useless indicator of tangibility. Secondly, /The/ Dragon Sword is likely deadly enough that even a light prodding with its tip could result in a fatal amount of bleeding (if Chevy is not a ghost) or spiritual disintegration (if she is).

Fortunately, underneath the words 'The Dragon Sword' on the label on the wall is the phrase '(replica).'

So, it's not the real Dragon Sword. In fact, it's not even very sharp. So being poked with it definitely isn't fatal; it's mostly just a bit annoying.

"I've never used a curvy sword before," Tanwen admits as she gives the repli-katana a few more of the practice slashes she's been practicing on the weird statue, easily cleaving the air into invisible pieces. "Oh! That looks like some proper armour that you've got, Sir Albert!" the dragon girl says as her proximity allows her to get a better view of the knight without quite so much back-lighting. She approaches, leaning close to try and see if she can see her own face in his breastplate.

Then, turning to face Iris, Tanwen lights up. "Oh! Lady Oysterland! I was hoping I would get to meet you!" She quickly crosses the short distance separating her from the NFG's most accomplished wizard. "Have you had any luck with thinking of any spells that might help us get off the island? I'm only asking because you're a wizard, so you're probably the smartest one of us. But I suppose that means that if you had thought of a spell, then you would have already done it. Unless you need any material components that we don't have, but we might be able to find if we explore? That seems like a likely quest." Having reasoned her way through the conversation at breakneck pace, she pauses to inhale and exhale, then puts on a hopeful look. "Maybe we can help? After we're finished fighting, that is."

[CHEVY]
The door jingles as Might & Magic strolls into the shop. A smiling Chevy waves to the two new arrivals. But, there's a distraction that follows, as the brilliant sunlight suddenly streaming into the room convinces the bleary-eyed Southern belle to edge back into the shadows. Which only serves to make her seem like even -more- ethereal, unfortunately!

Blinking as her eyes adjust to the new light levels, Chevy answers Winn: "Oh, yeah, she's around here somewhere..." Once Tanwen introduces herself and the Dragon Sword, Chevy turns her attention to her but does not interrupt.

The question comes as a shock. Chevy stares back at Iris' question -- and then Albert's followup. "... Wait... what?" she stammers, looking at her hands in the off-chance they'd be fading away in the style of Marty McFly... "... I ain't a ghost! Why's everyone thinkin' I'm a ghost?"

After a beat, she realizes why people might -think- that about the pale-skinned farm girl, and breaks into another one of her trademark smiles. "... Y'all, that's offsides, now! I actually -got- a proper tan this year..."

Speaking of a proper tan, an improper Tan(wen) pokes the point of the Dragon Sword into a surprised Chevy's thigh. This elicits a surprised "Yeow!" from her as she backpedals sharply. The actual pain: not much! But she still wasn't expecting it.

"Whuh..." she answers, finding her good cheer. "Geez, Tan, don't poke -me-, save it for pokin' *them!*"

She does remember the question Iris asked initially though. And she shakes her head cheerily. "Nah, seriously though, Iris, I'm fine! Just a little sleepy, I guess!"

Chevy... -does- have a lot on her mind. But she has a feeling that bringing up what's -really- bugging her would just drag the collective mood into the shadows with her, and that's something the freckled farm girl definitely wants to avoid.

Which is why she loops the handle of a plastic bucket around one end of her pipe, and then swings the system around so she can hook the second bucket as well.

"How about y'all? Everythin' goin' alright with you two?" Smiling broadly, Chevy hazards a quick glance over to Tanwen. "I think we're 'bout to see how good The Dragon Sword really is!"

[IRIS]
"It's 'Ah-ster-luhnd'," Iris responds, phonetically and automatically, which is more or less her only real ability to respond to the verbal onslaught that is Tanwen, blinking her now-glassy blue eyes for a moment or two. The Brit (legally distinct from the Welsh, they had two different Torchwoods and everything) had been preparing to answer Albert, but got swept along in the ripcurrent of the dragonling's rapid-fire questioning.

Careful observers may notice, as she's asked about 'spells to get us off the island,' however, that Iris's fingers on her right hand curl tensely inward, then relax outward again, over and over, for a beat or two.

"Material compon... quest? What?" For a moment, JUST a moment, she tries to parse this, turning between the earnest and eager young dragon who's talking like a JRPG manual, to her teammate, the cosplaying German proto-Arthur, reflecting on the latter's statement about how they might not get along, and draws her lips into a thin line of chagrin before turning back to Tanwen and saying, with what sounds like practiced patience, "There's no teleporting off the island. Not unless you'd like to be yanked out of extradimensional space and set on fire in the process, at least." What? She already used the 'toasted coconut' joke on Coco and Roxana.

At least Chevy appears to be... okay? Or at the very least okay enough to banter with her teammate and be polite to her opponents and/or embarassed at her lack of tan, which is probably enough. Putting a hand on Albert's shoulder for a second, Iris finally gets to respond to him: "Pretty sure she's not a ghost. You could always ask her to hit you and make sure, I suppose." A couple pats on the back plus a small chuckle show some of her typical humor on Iris's part, but truthfully, she does look a bit worn down in the same way Chevy does.

When the waterbender asks her directly, the Brit shrugs a little, giving a wan little smile. "I'm alright," she says, and suddenly self-consciously, she turns and glances at Albert at the end of that sentence too, aware that she's been ducking him -- intentionally or not -- for a bit. "Just... well, you know how it is. Being trapped on a tropical island by a malevolent supernatural entity isn't exactly great for the old mental health."

[TANWEN]
Tanwen got through her shift!

[ALBERT]
Albert, for his part... well. When Iris gives a look between Tanwen and him with some apparent meaning behind it, he just kind of looks on cluelessly. Clueless over both the things Tanwen is talking about, and the look Iris is giving, see. Clearly there's nothing similiar between the two as far as he is concerned! Nope. Nothing at all. Not even a little. Nevermind that the two are basically the only ones in the entire roster currently who are actively dressing up like RPG characters. And that their first meeting was basically competing over who gets to take on an imaginary quest (even if the quest was just finding another competitor).

That being said, he does eye the supposedly-mythical Dragon Sword suspiciously, but... he chooses not to say anything about the matter. Not like he is one to talk, obviously. His own sword is basically a garbage blunt implement bought for cheap at some dime store, afterall!

"...I'm not entirely convinced," he stage-whispers to Iris on the matter of Chevy's potential status as a ghost. "W-well, I guess we're about to find out..." Deciding that much, he now draws the longsword from his hip... the very much *beaten up* longsword. As mentioned before, the thing didn't really qualify as a sword in the first place, and the quality of it is starting to get evidenced by how well it has been handling the Stupid amount of physical strength Albert swings it around with. WHich is to say: Not Very Well At All. There's small signs of tiny pieces on the (functionally non-existent) edge having chipped off. It's honestly a miracle the thing hasn't just outright snapped off of it's hilt already.

Before he separates from Iris' side, though, he does give a firm squeeze to her shoulder with his free hand, though. He spares a sympathetic smile to her, at the very least -- but this might not be the time nor the place to have a proper heart-to-heart about Stuff.

Once past his mentor, his eyes flicker over the store shelves around them. Maybe actually trying to think about the environment he's about to have to fight in, for once. He's only fought outdoors up until now, and in fairly open areas at that!

"So...Should we just get started?"

[TANWEN]
Tanwen pulls back from Chevy at the protest against the poking from her (customer-friendly counterfeit of a) legendary sword with the faintest of 'eep's. "Oh, sorry! I forgot it might be a bit sharp, like! I suppose I should test it before I go using it on a real person."

She parks that thought for the moment, as she has answers to her inquiries of Iris to attend to first. "Oh, sorry. That's lovely. Is it a Viking name? I suppose most of the ones that aren't Welsh are sort of Viking names now. They married everyone, they did."

She frowns slightly at the threat of being yanked out of extradimensional space and set on fire, then quirks her lips, her expression waffling as if giving the idea some real consideration. "How 'on fire' are we talking, really?"

"You're not, Tan," Winn says with a warning look toward the dragon as he leans against the window frame on his elbows.

"Oh, okay," Tanwen assents, sulking as the decision of whether or not to get immolated (regardless of degree) is taken out of her hands.

The dragonette looks around the space, her amber eyes falling on a large, red heavy boxing bag hanging on a stand off to one side. "Perfect," she murmurs under her breath as she hops over, raising her weapon and adopting a sort of Greco-Roman gladiatorial stance before rearing back and slashing into it horizontally as hard as she can.

"Hu! Oh!" Tanwen frowns as the boxing bag bends inward slightly, the blade refusing to be pulled free with a tug or two. "Oh, dear. I might have got the Legendary Dragon Sword stuck in a boxing bag."

One more tug sends Tanwen tumbling onto her tail and tush, sword liberated in truly Arthurian style.

"Oh, nevermind! It's fine."

She picks herself up and examines the punching bag more closely. "There's not even any scratches in it. Are boxing bags softer than humans, or harder? I don't suppose it's going to be cutting anyone very much." She holds the blade up in the light, peering at it questioningly. "Maybe it just needs a bit of sharpening, it does. Or the enchantment might have gone a bit stale, like."

She turns to the others, smiling. "Anyways, I'm ready whenever everyone else is! And we don't have to use dice, since I've found out that everyone doesn't really do that." She adds the last bit with an especial sidelong look toward Albert, holding her arms behind her back and smiling apologetically.

[CHEVY]
Chevy feels a little bit sheepish for not catching the opportunity to correct Tanwen on Iris' behalf -- which she demonstrates with a bowed head and flushed cheeks. But she slinks backwards a few steps when it's made clear that she'd forgotten all about Iris' ability to teleport over short ranges. "Aheh... well, I'm sure there'll be plenty -more- opportunities to get set on fire a-fore we're done with this island..."

The chuckle that follows afterward seems uncharacteristically -dark- for the normally-upbeat hayseed -- though from the way she coughs into a balled fist afterwards, perhaps that wasn't intentional.

She glances back and forth between Albert and Chevy, her mood turning to one of incredulity over the continued doubt over her corporeality. "Well, I mean heck, if y'all are gonna act like I'm a ghost, I'm just gonna haunt y'all's dreams for the next few weeks!" She raises her arms over her head -- pinning the staff between one arm and her body, as she starts to make creepy sounds. "Ooooo~ooooh!"

She glances back to see Tanwen testing out her sword on a hapless punching bag. And she seems a -little- surprised it's still mostly intact.

"Well, they're s'posed to be a -little- softer 'cause they ain't got bones, but the ones made out of sand can be a bit stiffer inside..."

Chevy wipes her hand over her brow, breathing a sigh of relief that Tanwen hasn't damaged the punching bag in a more substantial fashion. "... Honestly, I think straw-filled dummies are better for the sword-slashin' kinda thing! You get a good hit on one of these and they'll fall right to pieces..."

And then, a reddish tinge returns to Chevy's face as Albert's innocent question brings about a suitable reply from Tanwen.

"Ahaha, I'd forget all about the fight if it warn't for y'all, haha! I was just havin' me a good ol' time chattin'..."

Wind whooshes around, as Chevy whips her heavily-weighted buckets through the air in a circular pattern. Widening her grip on the pole, she stops it dead in a horizontal, the buckets sloshing as inertia reasserts itself.

"Welp, ah guess we're ready to go, yeah! Unless y'all are too spooked to fight, o' course! Oooooooo~oooh~~~!"

Chevy swings her pole back -- and thrusts her left hand out into a readied gesture!

[IRIS]
The squeeze to the shoulder gets a sudden blink and widening of the eyes in surprise from Iris, but she at least attempts to give Albert as reassuring a facial expression in return as she can, given the situation. The conversation, however, demands that she turn back to Tanwen and Chevy in response before too long.

"I tried it with a coconut," Iris says to Tanwen, raising a single Spock-like eyebrow. "At the 100 meter mark past the shoreline it promptly exploded. So no, there will be no live testing of the results from me, thanks. I don't want that on my conscience."

Chevy, though... everything SOUNDS alright. The hayseed (self-described) seems to be making an effort to reassure everyone that she's okay. If anything, though, that's all the more fuel for Iris giving her a faint, quizzical look before the Carolinian launches into a disquisition on her putative ghost-hood. Obviously she doesn't believe that Chevy's a ghost, but some sixth sense is telling her there's something on Chevy's mind. But, that's a discussion for another time.

"Even if you are a ghost, there's not much I can do about it anyway," Iris ventures, maintaining a partial deadpan but the corner of her lips quirking somewhat into a smile. "I'm a wizard, not a priest."

"I am still a bit..." a pause, and Iris wiggles her hand a little back and forth, "...about us continuing to fight a tournament out here, but if we're going to, then let's do it, and good luck to all involved."

Shaking out her hands, and squaring off with Chevy, the Brit flexes her fingers in ready stance. "I expect you've learned some new tricks since Metro City," she offers. "At least I hope so, because I certainly have. En garde!"

Ducking forward in an almost boxing-like motion, Iris brings her right hand around and, at point-blank range, swings it forward before tracing a rune -- perhaps Tanwen will get her answer as to Iris's distant heritage, if she sees it -- in the air that glows green, before exploding into a localized burst of wind that would separate both fighters, propelling Iris slightly backwards herself in the process.

COMBATSYS: Iris has started a fight here on the left meter side.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Iris             0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Chevy has joined the fight here on the right meter side.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Iris             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Chevy

[TANWEN]
To be clear and fair, the boxing bag wasn't unaffected by the strike - it was more that the sword managed to get wedged between displaced layers of leather-wrapped sand by sheer force, straining the casing to its limit and visibly bending the bag a bit around the blade, despite being too blunt to cut. In other words, if the sword is to cause any bleeding, it should only be internal, and that's never a problem for fighters, right?

"Alright! That means it's you and me, Sir Albert!" Tanwen declares as she turns to face the knight with sword and board at the ready. Knowing that there's not to be any rolling of the dice, the hyperactive dragonette hops straight into action, spinning around as she prepares to cast her own spell, 'shield' arm extended. "Magic Miss -- oh! That's a rune, that is!"

Unfortunately, Tanwen's distraction by the green glow mid-'cast' results in the dartboard-come-shield being released a bit late and therefore not quite at the intended angle.

"Gahhhh!" Winn shouts as he's forced to duck out of the windowframe and allow the pub ornament to fly over his head. "Focus, Tan!" the guardian chastises her before withdrawing past the camera crew to a hopefully-safe distance along the platform leading to the shop.

"Oh, right! Sorry," Tanwen says as she turns her gaze to settle on Albert, focusing intently on him as she places both hands on the hilt of her katana (or is it more of a ninjatou?) and grips it in almost the actual right stance for the moment. "I got a bit excited, but you've got my attention now, Sir Albert!"

COMBATSYS: Tanwen has joined the fight here on the right meter side.

[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Iris             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  //////////////////////////////]
                                  |-------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Tanwen focuses on her next action.

[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Iris             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  //////////////////////////////]
                                  |-------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Chevy blocks Iris' Eihwaz - Storm and Stress.

[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Iris             0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  //////////////////////////////]
                                  |-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
Chevy's just happy to be able to talk about something -other- than the phoenix in the volcano. If it means her overcompensation lands her somewhere closer to Goofy Gulch, so be it!

"Well, I mean, fightin's in our blood now! We gotta fight! That's how you know I ain't really a ghost." She pauses, brow furrowing. "'Cause ghosts ain't got any blood."

Her blue eyes track over to Albert for a moment. Maybe she's trying a little... -Too- hard?

"Yeah -- good luck, y'all! Let's have some fun with this!"

Of course, she can't look away for -too- long, because Iris is starting to look a bit green. As is, well, everything around her, as the amorphous mass of air in front of her suddenly turns into a forceful gust of wind -- necessitating Chevy to swing her forearm in front of her as she hops backwards with the sudden gale! Water splashes about in her buckets as she lands a few feet away, pitching her shoulders forward with a determined look on her face. Red welts appear across her forearm -- showing just how much that wind stung the fair-skinned farm girl!

Of course, it's right about then that a dartboard goes flying towards Winn. "Gah!" At which point, oddly, Chevy finds herself echoing the same words he says: "... Focus, Tan!"

A guilty look flashes across her features. Does this mean she's... Growing up? Ew!

Hoping no one -really- questions her on that, Chevy lurches forward to close the gap to Iris once more. "Yeah, let's just set our best foot forward!" she chirps, while swinging her pole and buckets in a wide upward arc. If she was trying to clobber her, the buckets would fall short -- but the fact of the matter is, she's trying to unleash the -water- within those buckets, which takes on a life of its own as it tries to ensnare Iris' leading arm. And if the water manages to do so, Chevy will sharply whip the pole -- and the rapidly-freezing water -- in the opposite direction, twisting Iris around her center of mass like a corkscrew! If she lands this -- well, that'll be a nice (if indirect) answer as to whether or not she's learned some new tricks!

[ALBERT]
The dragon girl might be wielding a dartboard instead of a shield proper this time around, but the way she's handling it is familiar enough for Albert to remember how that ended up for him last time he fought her. So his eyes narrow on the incoming 'magic missile' while his knees bend slightly to brace himself in preparation for sudden motion, even positioning his sword at the ready--

Only for him to let out an awkward "Um," upon witnessing the 'shield' simply sail out through the window and damn near bean the dragon-girl's guardian in the face. There's a very good moment where he clearly has no idea how exactly he should respond to this particular turnn of events.

"Well..." He does spare a bit of a smile over Tanwen's declaration that he has her attention now. And while she's assuming that two-handed stance, he also shifts his own stance -- not quite mirroring her, but perhaps moving at the same time at least. THe end result being of him holding his one-handed sword up at a horizontal level above his shoulder with the tip pointed forward; knees slightly bent to lower his posture, and his free hand held forward while his eyes lock on to the dragon girl. "I'm glad for that." He does spare a quick glance towards the exchange between Iris and Chevy, before focusing fully on Tanwen again. "I'm all yours then."

COMBATSYS: Albert has joined the fight here on the left meter side.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Albert           0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0            Chevy
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Iris             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Albert focuses on his next action.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Albert           0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0            Chevy
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Iris             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Iris dodges Chevy's Strong Throw.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Albert           0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0            Chevy
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Iris             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[IRIS]
It's probably for the best that infrequent off-camera spars with Albert have helped Iris refine some of her 'fighting but not cheating with magic' technique, because a tiny part of her has felt a little anxious about using teleportation magic on this island. Ever since an attempt to grab something to defend herself with produced an upsetting cavalcade of Zack merchandise, the Brit is perhaps not unduly concerned that Isla Zaca es muchisima maldecida.

The idea of teleporting herself and coming out of it in Zack Cosplay made her lose an entire night's sleep.

Starting the fight wary about Chevy's state of mind translated well into being wary of Chevy's opening moves, but even then, Iris notices the movement of the *water* versus the buckets or pole far later than is comfortable for her; as the watery tendril snakes out for her hand, Iris opens her grip, summoning a spear -- point down -- with her usual rainbow sparkles, slamming the tip into the floor and yanking her hand back, so that the water whip will ideally grab the spear and not her, as the wizard lands in a crouch a foot or so back from that point.

"That IS new. Pretty impre--"

At this point a dartboard, playing the chakram flying sound effect from 'Xena: Warrior Princess', shears through the air in front of Iris's face as it continues to rebound around, expending the energy of Tanwen's throw.

"...impressive," Iris finishes, shaking her head slightly, like she's trying to forget a hallucination she thought she saw.

Kicking off the ground, the magus leaps forward for the spear she just used, yanking it out of the ground (and/or out of Chevy's watery grip, if she 'grabbed' it) and then uses the momentum of pulling out to swing it at Chevy's neck and shoulder like a quarterstaff!

[TANWEN]
Tanwen takes a moment to gawk at Chevy's logical leaps to prove her corporeality. "Wow! It's like listening to a real detective! I reckon you're as clever as I am, Chevy!" she declares without the slightest showing of irony (or humility) before shifting her eyes back to Albert and smiling apologetically. "Oh, right. I'm supposed to be focused, I am. Here, Sir Albert - shall we do a bit of sword fighting?"

As she starts to swing at Albert - aiming her weapon at his rather than at the knight himself, as is common of amateur stage actor choreography and children playing pretend with sticks - a bit of a whirring sound comes from the window. One might imagine that one of the camera drones is getting a bit too close - and one has, but that's not what's making the noise. The drone is knocked for a loop when a boomerang-arcing dartboard sideswipes it at high speed, clipping off to fly toward Albert instead of returning to its owner as intended (and immediately forgotten) upon its release!

Tanwen seems completely oblivious to the incoming projectile, intent as she is on trying to knock Albert's sword about with her own. It's far too late when she finally notices, shouting, "Oh, no! Look out, Albert!"

COMBATSYS: Iris successfully hits Chevy with Medium Strike.
-* WILD HIT! *-

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Albert           0/-------/-------|====---\-------\0            Chevy
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
"... Eh... you think so?" Second-guessing her own tenuous logic, Chevy lets out a small, self-deprecating laugh...

Of course, she's also got her own fight to worry about. Her move may have been called 'impressive,' but it didn't actually -work-, as her water whip is only enough to grab hold of the spear and shove it into the floor with a shower of prismatic sparkles.

Chevy steps around so that the spear isn't an obstacle blocking her path to Iris. Which is sound strategy -- right up until Chevy's short attention catches wind of the words 'look out!'

Chevy pivots sideways to look at Tanwen and Albert.

And that's when the haft of Iris' spear catches her right at the join between neck and shoulder. Her trapezius convulses reflexively upon contact, blunting the force and saving her precious spinal cord from injury. But, the sudden momentum imparted to her still sends the Carolinian spinning towards the floor, her eyelids falling to half-mast from the dizzying spiral.

Her shoulder slams into the floor like a bouncy-ball under duress. Water spills out of her buckets as she cartwheels for a full revolution, water droplets creating a gorgeous rainbow in the subdued light of Zack of All Trades!

Chevy -looked- unconscious as she whirled around, or pretty close to it -- but the waterbender's able to twist herself sideways to land safely(!) face-first(!) on the floor rather than in a more painful posture. Of course, with the spilled water, this also means her white blouse is -completely- soaked, doing next to nothing of its job in hiding the curves of its wearer as she handsprings back to her feet.

Even with an adrenaline rush racing through her system, her head tilts in favor of the reddening welt at the base of her neck.

Rolling her shoulders, the soaked Southerner nonetheless is quick to flash Iris a reassuring smile!

"Ow... well, she warn't -wrong-, I really -shoulda- been lookin' out for that..." Maybe she didn't hear the name 'Albert' get shouted out, just then?

But... it's clear where her focus lies, as she narrows her eyes at Iris. Not because she's angry. Just because she's -intense-. The waterbender twists her staff, then suddenly -drops- one of the half-full buckets into the puddles left behind. The splash that results sends water racing up to meet her hands -- and then wraps -around- her hands like watery mitts!

"Looks like I got some catchin' up to do here!"

Grinning like she's punch-drunk, Chevy dives forward at Iris! If the drenched grappler is able to get her water-gloved hands around Iris' shoulder and hip, she'd lift her up with a judo toss, swing her overhead, and slam her into the soaked floorboards! But then there'd be an additional surprise as the water thunders upwards into a waterspout, quite possibly sending Iris flying towards one of the display racks!

COMBATSYS: Albert blocks Tanwen's Magic Missile!.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Albert           0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Chevy
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
"Um... Tan?" Albert actually calls after Tanwen with a hint of uncertainty in the tone of his voice, what with the dragongirl evidently getting distracted by her mentor. It's enough for him to let out an uncharacteristically awkward chuckle when she does turn back to him with an apology. Why's he behaving so demure compared to his usual personality, anyway?

Well, whatever the case is, he does spring into motion to match her right away. It's almost instinctive -- the way he mirrors that very much larping-esque clashing of swords in the form of knocking swords against each other in a play-acting manner. "Ha! A knight's sword will not buckle!" He declares with a playful little laugh there. Nevermind that the knight's sword in question is very obviously pretty worn down...

"Eh?" Is the only thing he lets slip at the warning she provides, before instinctively turning his waist just enough to face himself slightly more towards the incoming projectile -- and jab his forearm into the path of it's trajectory while simultaneously knocking his sword into the legendary(?) Dragon Sword of Tanwen. The impact of the dartboard/shield against his arm does draw a bit of a hiss of pain from him, though, and actually pushes him to slide across the store floor by roughly two meters or so.

"Sheesh-- wait, how did--?" The faux-knight does spare a confused look at the pub ornament, trying to puzzle for two seconds the physics behind the object turning into a boomeranging motion like that. But after those two seconds... "Eh, whatever!"

And just like that, he's snapping back to not only facing Tanwen, but taking a swift step forward that continues to slide his foot forward -- and slip him to a surprisingly-forceful slide forward across the floor while his body is level with the floor itself, just slightly propped up by one armored elbow alone while his body goes all slide-car towards Tanwen, a human-shaped projectile aimed to knock into her legs.

COMBATSYS: Iris just-defends Chevy's Spout Toss!

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Albert           0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[IRIS]
The wince Iris gives as her arms pull back the spear (which promptly disappears) definitely suggests she did not intend to hit Chevy that hard, which might feel like a silly thing to say after swinging a spear at the woman's head, but is the truth. Chevy's somewhat elaborate process of collecting herself gives Iris time to get back into ready 'stance' (insofar as anything she does could be called a 'stance'), and to glance quickly over at Albert and Tanwen.

Thankfully, the young knight-aspirant is holding his own just fine. Tanwen is an unknown variable, here; considering what dragons ARE, it's obvious to a trained magic-user that Tan's human-ish form hides more than just a scaly form underneath it. But Albert seems to be doing okay? If anything, his 'eh whatever' makes Iris smile a little bit. Certainly it's a lesson she's had to learn, too; sometimes you just have to go 'sure, that happened' and move on.

Speaking of moving on, Chevy appears to be ready to do just that. Snapping her attention back to the hogbender, the Brit decides to play it safe, knowing full well what Chevy is capable of when she puts her mind to it. In a flicker of rainbow motes, a shield appears on her left arm, ready to interpose itself between whatever strike the Carolinian is about to send her way!

...which would be great, if Chevy weren't intent on grappling instead. "Oh, bloody hell," the Brit mutters in a not-quite-panic, looking at the shield, then at Chevy's watery gauntlets. Thinking as quickly as she can, there's a rustle of movement behind the shield, obscured by the shield itself, which only betrays that anything happened by wobbling a little bit rotationally.

What she DID was, in fact, to take her arm out of the straps, and instead start holding the shield in place by *gripping* the straps. It's not a good way to hold a shield; even a little bit of force will rip it right out of your hands, but as becomes apparent when Iris interposes it into the path of Chevy's aqueous grip, that was exactly the plan. Chevy's left 'holding' the shield, which Iris entirely divests herself of, looking relieved... until some sixth sense makes her look *down* and realize this complex technique isn't over!

Brain in whatever furious panic overdrive mode it is that fuels Iris in moments like this, she snatches the shield BACK and literally throws it on the floor at her feet, face side down, before *standing on it*; the result is that the waterspout sends shield and wizard sailing toward the ceiling, but with Iris thankfully not carried away by the current.

This means as she approaches one of those track lighting things they put over some store displays, she can grab and hang from it, rather than come crashing to the ground; hooking a toe into one of the straps of the shield, it sits there dangling from her in the same way Iris is dangling from the lighting track, looking down at her opponent with a strong expression of 'I have no idea what just happened.'

Also, how is she going to get DOWN from here, is an excellent question.

Swinging the leg with the shield hanging from it just a LITTLE bit, Iris suddenly yanks it upwards and pulls her foot back, slipping it from the strap and giving her JUST enough time, as the shield goes up and then starts falling, to aim a kick at it, sending the thing hurtling down toward Chevy. It is almost certainly the least aerodynamic and probably most USELESS improvised projectile imaginable, but it might buy her time to safely let go of the track lightning and drop to the ground!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen blocks Albert's Gutsy Slide!.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Albert           0/-------/------=|-------\-------\0            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////    ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|==-----\-------\0           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
It's still kind of hard for Tanwen not to get distracted by the fantastic dance of the elements happening immediately adjacent in the tiny shop as Chevy and Iris lock metaphysical horns. However, the dragon girl does have reasonably keen senses. Senses keen enough to detect a six-foot-tall German warrior aiming to football-slide into her delicate, bare human feet.

At least, when they're already being slid into.

"Albert!" she shouts in dismay as she's taken out at the ankles. Fortunately for her, she has reflexively adopted a loose enough posture to flip forward with the impact and land on a relatively safe part of her anatomy: her head. The part of her head, namely, that is supported by her ramming horns and explicitly intended for crashing into things as a battle tactic. She finishes her flip by crashing down on her bottom and whirling up to her feet and about face as her red tail knocks a barely-identifiable piece of tiny swimwear off of a display peg. "You ought to be more careful when you're running! You've nearly crushed my poor piggies just then!"

Perhaps unsurprisingly, she has been on the receiving end of this chastisement almost verbatim from Winn before - probably about two hundred times.

"I mean, I suppose it's okay if we're fighting, though," she decides as she takes her sword in a two-handed grip, using her tail to balance as she rears back with it, then thrusts forward - aiming a blow at his torso that might have been at risk of skewering Albert if it had involved a sharpened weapon and he weren't wearing a breastplate to protect himself. As is, it would be more likely to just hurt.

COMBATSYS: Iris successfully hits Chevy with Large Thrown Object.
- CRAZY Hit! -

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Albert           0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
Knight versus dragon. Magus versus elementalist. Epic battles are taking place here between forces that, on a typical day, might be pretty evenly matched.

Despite the calm start to the beginning of the battle, this is anything *but* typical for Chevelle Beaumont, who looks up to the crown of her waterspout and sees Iris' summoned shield getting larger and larger. The same shield she had gripped hold off with her watery hands just moments before.

"Wait, I thought you done toss--"

el-*KABONG!*

Too much time trying to make sense of the reality and not enough in actually -doing- something about it results in Chevy getting slammed in the face. The impact bowls her backwards off her feet, water splashing from her spinning buckets in a spray that's likely to get all three of the other fighters wet in some way, shape, or form.

Her backward tumble is halted by a rack of men's swimwear. The Carolinian's shoulder gets hung up in the rack, allowing her to slump forward -- but it might be hard to see her from a while, amidst the blizzard of swim trunks.

Chevy's lightly-freckled face contorts into a mix of weariness and pain, as she plants one hand on the floor in front of her. Already she feels as if she's ridden a bicycle through a robotic car wash -- minus the suds, anyway. But, after exhaling one sharp breath, she rises.

And grins.

That's when the water fallen upon the ground begins to gravitate back to her, collecting into long, spiralling arms.

Her hands sweep into wide, circling gestures, marshalling the waters around her in an orderly fashion. The hayseed smiles back at Iris -- clearly stressed, but just as clearly determined -not- to let that get her down.

"Alright -- takin' my own medicine. It's time for -me- to focus, now," she says -- though it's not clear if she's talking to Tanwen, who's trying to impale Albert, or Iris, who she's actually looking at. Maybe it's both! But it should be pretty clear from her hand gestures that her -attention- may be on the watery vortex swirling around her!

COMBATSYS: Chevy gets ready to turn the tide!

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Albert           0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Albert dodges Tanwen's Crushing Strike.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Albert           0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////   ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
There's a split second, after Albert's sliding body has knocked into Tanwen's legs, where the faux-knight is peering up at her mid-sail, all whilst he is continuing his slide along below her. Which is what might be what's causing the slightly awkward expression to twist at his face after the fact, when his continued slide comes to an end a meter or so further out, where he's kicking at the ground to flip himself around on the ground to facing her.

And just in time to see her slumping over from her... headstand. He might look just a little confused over how she soaked up the impact. Not that he would be one to talk, considering how one of his signature defensive measures also involves using his head!

"I assure you it wasn't some stumbling accident!" He protests with a huff even while the dragon-girl is rearing herself back with the help of her tail to wind up for a massive swing at him. Thankfully, from his post-slide posture, he's quick to spring himself into a sideward roll just in time to flip out of the way of the mythical(?) Dragon Sword's blade before it stabs into him.

"Brace yourself!!" He all but roars while he's springing up from that roll with surprisingly smooth, continued momentum. His body even revolves around one more time after he's fully up on his feet, in time with a forward-carrying step that sweeps him to chasing after Tanwen with his sword held up and behind his shoulder--

"ORA--!" And brought swinging down for her at a diagonal angle!

"--ORA!" And again, after rebounding from either Tanwen's shoulder, a guarding sword or even just empty air, at an alternate horizontal angle.

"--ORA!!" And again and again, a total of six times in a wild series of advancing, powerful swings he's putting his whole body into in a full burst of blind offense!

"ORARORAORA!!!"

[IRIS]
It would not be inaccurate to say that Iris Osterlund is often as baffled by how her fights seem to go, sometimes, as observers and opponents are. When the summoned shield rebounds off Chevy's... uh, face -- which happens just as Iris lands a little unsteadily on her feet on the wet floor, having dropped from the track lighting above into a brief crouch, the Brit winces sympathetically. This is a fight and all, and a degree of people tossing attacks back and forth is expected, but somehow this situation does seem to deserve the sheepish "...sorry," that Iris says aloud.

Glancing sidelong at the other part of the fight, the wizard observes as Albert is very clearly holding his own against a dragon, which -- youth of said dragon notwithstanding -- is no mean feat. She's about to say something to him, words of encouragement or approval, when the blue eyes blink as, in the space between the two of them, there's... well. There's water flying through the air, you know? At waist height.

Other fighters might be good at splitting their focus like this, but Iris doesn't appear to be one of them; to think about Albert and Tanwen's battle she has to momentarily memory hole the fact that Chevy is 1.) still here and 2.) still just as dangerous as a season 1 semifinalist implies. Turning to face the Carolinian, Iris hears Chevy talk about needing to focus and feels accidentally, but thoroughly, chastised for her own lack of it.

There is the additional concern that if your opponent has a big powerup sequence and supernatural powers you don't want to let them get to the end of it, a tactical maxim known as the Akira Toriyama Rule (look it up).

Bringing her closed fists a few feet apart at waist height, Iris summons a length of silvery chain between her hands, advancing definitively but cautiously on Chevy. When she gets close enough, the magus flicks out her wrist and attempts to snag Chevy's leg and pull her off balance. It's not the world's strongest attack, but anything that disrupts the waterbender's gathering of power seems like a worthwhile move!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen blocks Albert's Gutsy Swings! EX.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////////         ]
Albert           0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////      ]
Iris             0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
"Ahhhh!" Tanwen shouts in panicked response to Albert's roaring demand that she brace herself. "But I don't know how to brace meself!" she protests plaintively as she brings her own sword up and braces herself for the coming assault.

*CLACK*
*CLACK*
*CLACK*

The sound reverberates through the tiny shop as the two blades collide again and again, the dragon girl desperately turning her weapon to meet each attack, retreating backwards with each blow to avoid being overwhelmed.

'ORAORAORA!'

The final blow finally knocks Tanwen over into a pile of old vinyl records from Zack's disc jockey collection, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Excuse me, Sir Albert," Tanwen says as she squints an eye, using one hand to push herself up to her feet while holding her sword up defensively with the other hand, before taking the hilt back into a two-handed grip and holding her weapon at a low ready. "But what does oh-ora-oRAH-CHOOOO --"

Unfortunately, being stranded on Zack Island has meant a lack of access to the antihistamines that Winn has been supplying to his ward daily for the past few decades in order to prevent situations that might lead to their farmhouse - or any other building Tanwen happens to be occupying - from being burnt down by a stray sneezing fit. Fortunately, Tanwen's flamethrower-like expulsion brought on by the dust cloud is directed pretty much entirely at Albert. Well, less fortunately for Albert, but more so for any other flammable occupants of the bric-a-brac shop present.

"OOORRAAAH-CHOOO!!"

Of course, sneezes often come in pairs. At least she's paired with someone with instant access to water?

COMBATSYS: Chevy blocks Iris' Medium Throw.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Albert           0/-------/------=|=======\=------\1            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Iris             0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
"Sorry for what?" chirps Chevy in response to Iris' quietly-stated apology. "You're doin' great, girl! Ain't nothin' to be *sorry* for," she adds with a light chuckle.

Growing up, Chevy was often the one to console her friends. She finds herself most at home in helping lift other people out of their respective pitfalls -- and in doing so, she often finds that her own heart is lifted up in the process. Though her nose and cheeks are still flushed red from where the shield had struck just a moments ago, her plucky smile shows she isn't about to let a few missteps throw her off her game.

The sound of Tanwen struggling to follow the suggestions of her opponent does, however, put a fluctuating waver in her smile. Water swirls around her -- and that takes the utmost of her focus. As she doesn't want to -lose- that focus, she keeps her gaze locked upon Iris as she turns her head towards Tanwen's side. "You're already bracin', Tan -- it's just a saying!"

And when Iris closes in, Chevy is ready! One foot reaches forward towards the chain. For a moment, the chain catches -- but in the next, the rushing waters swirling around her thrum against the links. As Chevy twists her leg within the churning waves, she's able to free herself of the entanglement before it can fully unmoor her from her position.

"'At sorta thing used to happen when we was tryin' to get the hogs sorted..." she explains with an enigmatic grin. She probably -meant- to clarify that it happened with ropes, and not, well, -chains-, but this is a battle, not a debate!

And, to that end, the ring of water falls to the shop's floor all at once, with a loud *CLAP!*

Then the water begins to rush at Iris' feet, carrying Chevy along for the ride! The surfing Southerner thunders past, kicking sideways in what -looks- like a dropkick at first -- except for the fact that the kick would rocket way past Iris' left side. Her real aim would be to grab hold of Iris' right arm and use her own momentum to wrap her body around Iris, planting her knees against the magus' shoulder blades! If she manages to get her mid-air grapple on, the hydro-powered force of the movement would be enough to pluck Iris right off her feet -- and also spin her around in counter-clockwise fashion before thoroughly -drenching- her in the rushing waves as she falls!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen successfully hits Albert with Dragon Breath.

[        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Albert           0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0            Chevy
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Iris             0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
"Eh?"

In all fairness, Albert *was*, in fact, expecting to see Tanwen breathe fire at some point during this match. He just wasn't expecting it to manifest in such a seemingly... *accidental* manner! So the end result is, more or less, Albert yelping out in pain before he even fully realizes he is getting covered in flames. A bunch of flailing occurs, futile efforts to try to douse flames caught onto more flammable portions of his outfit and such.

...But even so, even *while* his clothes still remain set ablaze, he *still* stubbornly stomps himself forward, in spite of the burning pain. Simply roaring out, "Raaaah!!" as he swipes his (blunt) sword in a wide horizontal arc for the dragon youngling's midsection.

COMBATSYS: Chevy successfully hits Iris with Mudskipper EX.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Albert           0/-------/---====|=======\=------\1            Chevy
[    \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////       ]
Iris             0/-------/--=====|====---\-------\0           Tanwen

[IRIS]
"Not... FOR anything, just expressing sympathies," Iris says to Chevy, in response to being asked what she's sorry for. After all, it could be easy for people to forget that in the first round of the NFG, Iris's early fights were plagued with the same sort of ill luck that appears to be haunting her American opponent right now, and her memories of that time were not entirely pleasant; while Chevy isn't necessarily reacting the same way, Iris only has her own frame of reference to go on, and wouldn't wish that feeling on Chevy.

"Just because we're competing doesn't mean I WANT bad things to happen to you both," the wizard adds, with the ghost of a smile.

However, her attack on Chevy did not have the destabilizing effect Iris had hoped for, even as the chain she was using vanishes back into wherever those things go when their time is up, and the Carolinian's ill fortune hasn't dented her fighting spirit at all, meaning the Brit needs to be prepared for whatever's coming next. In her own way, Iris realizes, Chevy's control over water -- and how much of it there is in here, now -- gives her a very similar advantage in a fight that Iris's weapon conjuration does: having tools to make unpredictable or unexpected maneuvers without the need for extensive setup.

In the end, however, it's actually Tanwen who makes an unexpected difference. As Chevy comes for her, Iris starts making a hasty retreat, looking to avoid the sudden onrush entirely, and she might have succeeded by a mere hair's breadth... had the dragon's sudden explosion of flame not done exactly what bright lights and sounds do to the human eye: drawn their attention, however momentary... and with a fighter of Chevy's caliber, a momentary opening is all that's really required.

In a spot of quick thinking, however, as Iris is headed toward the ground, she makes as quick a rune tracing as she can manage, and in a burst of rainbow light, her descending body lands on a suddenly conjured, big fluffy beanbag chair. Is this enough to save the thrown (and thoroughly drenched) magus from being hurt? No, but it definitely softens the blow some and gives her time and energy to get to her feet that she might not have had otherwise.

Squaring off with Chevy and brushing damp locks of rainbow-streaked hair from her eyes, Iris grins a little at her opponent, glancing off to the side and seeing with relief that Albert is not that much worse for wear for taking fire breath to the proverbial face. "Well, at least if your young dragon friend there accidentally starts burning the place to the ground, you're well set to keep us from burning to death, eh?"

Bringing a hand up, there's a rainbow flicker, Iris's truesilver Joyeuse replica appearing in her hand. She traces a rune on it, quickly, and the thin blade crackles with purple-blue lightning. "Here's hoping if I manage to tag you I don't get myself electrocuted in the process," Iris jokes, before pushing off the ground at Chevy and administering a lunge-spin-thrust triple combination at the waterbender with that thundering blade, left hand held behind her for balance in a traditional fencing fashion.

COMBATSYS: Tanwen fails to interrupt Random Strike from Albert with Dragon Crown EX.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////          ]
Albert           0/-------/-======|=======\=------\1            Chevy
[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Iris             0/-------/--=====|>>>>>>-\-------\0           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
Chevy's shout of assurance serves to bolster Tanwen's confidence in the face of Albert's overwhelming ora. Perhaps more importantly, the ring of water falling to the shop's floor assuages the guilt that immediately sets in when Tanwen realises that her line of questioning ended up setting things on fire. 'Things' being mostly Albert, with whom she has had a largely amicable relationship up until this point. Her Strength Arcana is probably Rank 2 at least. "Oh, Albert! I'm sorry!" she apologises fervently as he approaches, quickly sheathing her sword. "Here, I'll help put the fire out!"

Of course, she doesn't intend to ignore the fact that the two of them are supposed to be fighting. As this is an emergency, she adopts a look of concentration that's accompanied by the rapid deployment of a pair of wings from her back, claws from her hands, and red scales around her shoulders and throat, as well as a smattering on her face.

In her head, the 'assistance' would go something like this:

Step 1: Stop - Headbutt Albert in the chest, knocking him over and fulfilling the first step of personal fire extinguishing on his behalf.

Step 2: Drop - Drop bottom-first onto Albert, using her less-flammable (to her own flames, at least) body to immediately smother the worst of the flames.

Step 3: Roll - Roll around with Albert on the floor, putting out the rest of the fire clinging to his clothes.

What actually happens is that she engages dragon mode, bends at the waist and lowers her head into ramming position just in time to get conked in the side of the head with a big blunt sword, knocking her to the ground instead. "Cachu hwch - you sussed out I was being a bit tricksy, I suppose," she says, rubbing her crown with a reddened palm.

COMBATSYS: Chevy counters Teiwaz - Prism Blade from Iris with Low Tide.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Albert           0/-------/-======|=======\=====--\1            Chevy
[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Iris             1/------=/=======|>>>>>>-\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
Sometimes, Chevy needs reminders that while water -can- act as a weapon-, its true strength comes from its ability to balance out extremes.

In a way, sure, magic does that too. Chevy finds herself a -bit- jealous that her powers don't give allow her to instantiate fluffy beanbag chairs at a moment's notice. Water -can- act as a cushion -- it just takes time to get it into position.

But, the good part of that exchange is that it gives her the opportunity to listen to the rest of the fight. Albert is shouting. And Tanwen is... oh. Uh oh. She's cursing.

Chevy reminds herself that Winn is there. He can yell at her if he wants to. Because for the moment, she's got her own problems: like the truesilver rapier's appearance! Her eyes widen not only at the surprise that it's a sharp weapon, but rather that she -recognizes- it as Iris' weapon of choice.

Luckily, Chevy has some experience in dealing with swords. Some swords slash -- this kind is better at poking. And that gives the waterbender an idea of how to make use of the miniature river frothing at her feet.

When Iris lunges in, Chevy swings herself to Iris' right, paralleling her shoulders with the rapier's forward motion. She smiles faintly at the thought of putting her memories of kung-fu flicks to good use -- though she can't gain too much solace in that thought due to the sizzling pops triggered by the electrified rapier a mere foot in front of her keeps her attention fixed within the moment of truth.

Iris then moves to twist -- and Chevy relies again upon her affine element for balance, as she leans backwards onto a horizontally-oriented pole. As she falls beneath the swung rapier, her pole supports her weight, buoyed upwards by the waterbender's buckets.

The burning scent of ozone assaults her senses as the rapier whistles past -- and Chevy backpedals two more steps to stabilize herself. However, the sound of waves crashing against a bookshelf display tell her she's only got about three feet more room to withdraw. So, she... changes tack, smoothly swinging the pole into her left hand.

The truesilver rapier thrusts in. And while there's a *CLACK* as Chevy connects the high end of her pole against that rapier, the farm girl also steps forward to her right -- to Iris' left -- keeping pace with the water sloshing forward from its bookshelf collision. The soaked Southerner sandwiches the pole diagonally between herself and Iris, wrapping her fingers around Iris' left hip as she presses close.

Under an adrenaline-soaked haze, some moments may appear to take longer than they truly do. And so Iris -might- be able to make note of Chevy's ribcage swelling, as she draws in breath for what's coming next.

Presented with such a unique opportunity, Chevy performs her own sort of magic: using Iris' forward momentum against her! With the confluence of her pole and Iris' rapier acting as a fulcrum, Chevy presses hard against Iris' hip with her right palm! In such a fashion, Chevy's able to pivot Ms Osterlund like a swinging door -- slamming the magus' back and shoulders against the broad side of the bookshelf display!

Splashing backwards into six-inch-deep waters, the freckled farm girl is still showing a faint smile. Her heart still pounding at the excitement, she answers -- perhaps a bit late, but she can be forgiven, right? -- "Yeah, I don't think fire'll be too much of an issue if it comes down to that."

Taking another two steps backwards, she swings her pole around in a quick turn, resetting herself for the next exchange of martial feats!

"Hang in there, Tan -- there ain't no rush...!"

[ALBERT]
For what it's worth, Albert does actually seem kind of surprised his sword-club ends up smacking into Tanwen's head instead of her middle section. But the next moment when the presence of her horns registers in his mind, it suddenly makes at least a little more sense, from what he remembers of his last tussle with her back in the Mediterranean.

But he does remember how much trouble he had with her last time she transformed into Dragon Mode, too. And with that in mind, he does stagger his way back a couple steps purposefully, eyes narrowing at her and sword at the ready.

"...Who knows," he mumbles, taking another step back slowly while watching her carefully -- but after one more step, he peeks over to Iris' way and his posture does straighten up a bit, and he's taking in a slow and steady but deep breath in, and then out. He needs to pace himself. That's what he kind of feels like Iris would tell him if she wasn't busy tussling with Chevy right now.

Even if that might mean playing more defensive for a change. Maybe a young, stubborn knight can learn some new tricks afterall?

COMBATSYS: Albert gains composure.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Albert           0/-------/--=====|=======\=====--\1            Chevy
[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Iris             1/------=/=======|>>>>>>-\-------\0           Tanwen

[IRIS]
Whatever ill luck plagued Chevy's early game appears to have worked its way out of her system; as Iris's rapier goes clattering loudly across the floor before landing with a splash somewhere off to the side, the loud exhalation Iris gives as she's slammed into a bookshelf makes it pretty clear that the Carolinian has evened the score and thensome in very short order.

Bringing a hand gingerly to her stomach, the Brit takes a few steadying breaths before looking up at Chevy with the faintest of grins. Well, she maneuvered her into a literal corner in the blink of an eye, which is to be respected. But, the amount of water that's starting to collect not just on the floor, but on the *contestants*, sends her thinking to a different place entirely.

"Just a little note to Tom and Lou," Iris says aloud, in a designed-to-be-heard voice. "It's unwise to make wet t-shirt contest jokes about someone with a strong functional knowledge of curses and a lot of time on her hands." Can wizards see the future?! If they have good pattern recognition skills, they sure can.

But there's still Chevy to deal with, and that's a much thornier problem. Leaping right back at her seems like a potentially bad time, for sure; whatever it is that's fueling Chevy right now appears to be putting her defensive skills to the forefront. But staying here pinned against a wall isn't a great plan either. And there are other considerations... notably that many of Iris's offensive energy spells involve lightning, which seems *unwise* in ankle-deep water, all things considered.

Giving the situation due thought, the magus decides to start crabwalking slightly to her right, moving in the direction of the weapon she was disarmed of, watching Chevy carefully... before vanishing in a burst of rainbow light and appearing on the other side of the store, with much more room to move and considerably more space to make some sort of response to whatever Chevy tries next. No attack, no offense... just careful repositioning.

COMBATSYS: Iris focuses on her next action.

[   \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Albert           0/-------/--=====|=======\=====--\1            Chevy
[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Iris             1/------=/=======|>>>>>>-\-------\0           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
"Language, Tan!" a concerned Winn calls from the (presumably) safe zone on the other side of the pier leading to the shack.

"Sorry!" Tanwen shouts as she wobbles up to her feet, removing the Dragon Sword from its sheath and taking it in both her hands again, raising it quickly into guard - but then finding that Albert is holding back, rather than attempting to pressure her any further. "Oh, cheers, Sir Albert," she says with an amicable smile. She then lets her eyes flit toward where Chevy is standing when her mentor admonishes her to hang in there and that there 'ain't no rush'. She turns them further to Iris, watching as she strafes to one side, then teleports.

"Dimension door," Tanwen murmurs under her breath in admiration, eyes going wide. She looks back at Albert, brows lowering. "Are we having a time-out? Oh! Are you waiting for me? Sorry!"

Flapping forward on her wings, she spins in the air, swinging the Dragon Sword in a horizontal arc at the knight-to-be's torso - with the intent of continuing her spin so that her tail incidentally whips across Albert's legs (after displacing a bunch of volleyball trophies from an adjacent shelf) as well, before her momentum might carry her back away from reach.

[CHEVY]
Chevy tries to put a positive spin on the issue Iris brings up: "Wet clothes ought to just be par for the course here at an island paradise! But, y'know -- fair!" The redhead gives a brief wink as she steps back. Her pipe and buckets are still primed and ready for the attack, even as she gives Iris wide berth for her withdrawal.

And in the next blink of an eye, that ceases to be a concern.

The call of 'Dimension Door' is a hint for her to turn around towards Iris' new location, drawing a hesitant chuckle from the Carolinian. It's then that she also notices that Albert is hanging back for a breather as well -- which turns her hesitance into a confident smile as she starts to close the gap towards Iris.

"I guess they're just eavesdroppin' on us, Tan..."

What starts as slow paces soon turns into longer strides, as Chevy uses the water to help boost her speed. She's... fully aware that she may be walking into a trap, but she's hoping that sweeping herself from side to side as she approaches may make it harder for the magus to read her own intentions. Splashes of water herald each step as the waterbender closes in -- and when she's just a few feet away, Chevy ducks down low! She swings her pole forward, hoping to catch Iris' ankle around the crook of one of her buckets. And if it catches hold, she'd use it to foil Iris' plans by tugging her leg out from under her!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen successfully hits Albert with Evasive Strike.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Albert           0/-------/=======|=======\====---\1            Chevy
[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Iris             1/------=/=======|>>>>>>-\-------\0           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
"...Dimension door?" Albert repeats with confusion, not quite able to put two and two together in the way Tanwen associates Iris' teleportation. He still somehow doesn't have much knowledge about Dungeons and Dragons at all, despite his fascination with knighthood!

"Ah... No time out, n-no," he tries to assure Tanwen, too, even though he's still keeping his distance more or less. But at least he snaps into motion quickly enough when the dragoness goes a-spin through the air with the assistance of her wings. Which is all well and good when he sways back just out of the way of the Dragon Sword's tip as it swings through, and then stomps forward to cahse after her, but... not so good when he clearly didn't take that tail of hers into account.

"WAGH?!" So as it stands, the Faux-Knight's feet feel the sting of a scaled tail smacking through them, first, and then his whole body feels getting sent airborne with the aforementioned feet swept out from underneath him. Involuntarily pivoting over his own horizontal axis, and flying through the air for roughly half a second to plummet face-first--

Right towards one of the several volleyball trophies Tanwen inadvertantly knocked off of the shelves.

There is actually a dull sound when Albert's forehead comes into contact with the corner of a trophy, before the rest of his body slumps onto the floor. Only for a second, though, before he regathers himself up to one knee -- but not without a rather audible groan of pain, and his free hand pressing against his forehead, right where the edge of the trophy had impacted with him. There's blood trickling between his fingers there, dousing into the brow over his left eye.

"Ghhh..."

THere's no smart comeback or anything. There is just a lingering sense of frustration at himself somewhere deep within. Rather than worrying about the gash formed over his forehead, he slaps his hand back off his forehead and to the floor to use as a leverage point for launching himself fully back onto his feet with a forward momentum that carries him after Tanwen's path of retreat.

Not directly forward, though. He actually pivots slightly to the left and, making a low jump, kicks one foot against the shelving to his side to carry his own aerial momentum further forward, in a trajectory that turns him mid-air along Tanwen's own perimeter while he sweeps his sword low in a vertical arc for one of the dragoness' shoulders, before the momentum would continue on to carry him past her, and sliding a bit further out across the storefloor.

COMBATSYS: Iris blocks Chevy's Corner Store EX.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Albert           0/-------/=======|=======\=====--\1            Chevy
[             \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Iris             1/-----==/=======|>>>>>>-\-------\0           Tanwen

[IRIS]
Because she has a moment to prepare and listen, there's a moment where Iris's brow knits and she murmurs, with obvious confusion, "Why is everyone saying 'dimension door'?" Apparently the Brit's knowledge of tabletop RPG conventions is sufficient to make jokes about wizards versus fighters, but not sophisticated enough to distinguish the various forms of teleportation open to arcane casters once they can use 4th level spells.

Of course, it's Tanwen and Albert who are in fact saying 'dimension door', meaning that the magus's attention is inevitably drawn to their fight once more; the entire thing appears to be slightly more slapstick than Iris was anticipating, but dragon and knight seem for the most part evenly matched... and considering what Albert had to say about his last fight with Tanwen, the wannabe knight is keeping his cool, too. "Just keep it steady, Albert," the Brit offers aloud. "You'll get there."

But Chevy's movement as a flicker at the corner of her vision means Iris needs to swing her attention back to her own fight. "Let's just say I don't trust those two to say things in the *proper manner*," Iris emphasizes, on the subject of the tournament casters' demonstrated ability to let hype and drama obscure things like 'facts'. It doesn't help that Iris is wearing a white top, which does not play well with water.

Thankfully, Chevy's latest assault leaves the water at home, technically speaking; when the pole attempts to snag her ankle, the wizard realizes she can't get out of the way and simply lets her body go limp, so that when the hooking motion sends her toward the floor, she can throw out both hands and turn her fall into a sort of backwards handstand-flip. Wincing in protest at both her ankle and having to hold herself up by her wrists again after hanging off the lights before, Iris nevertheless stands back up not that much worse for wear.

"I didn't... really want to do this, so I'm really sorry in advance if this goes massively wrong for all involved," Iris says, bringing a hand up in front of her and beginning to trace a rune in the air: the vague |> shape in purple-blue of Thurisaz, the rune of disruption and change. Normally, this spell brings a bolt of lightning dropping from the sky; for obvious reasons, that seems like a not great plan in the current environment. Twisting her wrist as she finishes drawing the rune, Iris instead turns the bolt into... well, something Tanwen would probably recognize as the D&D-ish form of Lightning Bolt: a streaking, horizontal blast of electricity and force streaking across the distance between the magus and Chevy. Perhaps a little easier to see and avoid than one coming from the sky, but no less dangerous!

COMBATSYS: Albert successfully hits Tanwen with Evasive Strike.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////           ]
Albert           1/------=/=======|=======\=====--\1            Chevy
[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Iris             1/-----==/=======|>>>>>>>\>------\1           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
Tanwen ends up facing toward Albert once more when she comes out of her twirl and lands a short distance across the shop floor. While the start of the tumble causes Tanwen's lips to turn upwards at the corners, even she flinches a little when the knight trips onto the trophy face-first. "Oh, no! Are you alright, Sir Albe-oh!"

There are to be no timeouts this time, judging by the way that the squire launches himself off of the floor and ricochets off of a shelf. She tries to twist again out of the way of the attack with a flap of her wings, but gets clipped in the shoulder anyway as she finds her path of egress limited by the confines of the cluttered shop. She ends up tumbling through a gramophone, smashing the wooden base to bits. She does manage to recognize - "A Lightning Bolt!" - as it passes over her (or she passes under it, depending on how you want to look at it) as she slides along the floor on her wings, although it takes a moment to recognize the real deal, being more accustomed to people shouting the word while throwing pieces of paper.

Flipping to her feet, she swishes her tail, discarding the golden gramophone cone that was stuck to the end of it.

"Is your armour very heavy, Sir Albert? You seem to be very good at jumping with it on," she says conversationally as she flaps into the air again, flicking away water from her wings as she flies forward to try and swing her sword diagonally into his shoulder region, spinning as she puts her full body weight into the blow!

COMBATSYS: Iris successfully hits Chevy with Thurisaz - Mjolnir's Echo ES.

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////                ]
Albert           1/------=/=======|=======\====---\1            Chevy
[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Iris             1/---====/=======|>>>>>>>\-------\1           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
Chevy doesn't know her Dimension Door apart from Turn Undead. She just assumes from past experience that when Tanwen glues two words together in a way that sounds funny, it's a safe bet that she's quoting the D&D Player's Handbook. Her response to Iris is a simple commisserating shrug!

For the moment, Chevy's keeping a laser focus upon Iris. Which ... means she's treated to the surprise of seeing Iris' acrobatic abilities as the wave-assisted grappler skids to a soggy halt on the other side of Iris, whipping her pole and buckets around with the intent to follow up. She doesn't really notice the wince -- it all looks to be just as planned to her! "Whoa, clean..."

When Miss Osterlund rises, Miss Beaumont is smiling back to her. And... the warning causes her to arch an eyebrow in surprise. With such a preface, it's... probably gonna hurt a lot! Chevy answers with a wry smile. "... Well, it was nice knowing you, Iris! Just tell my momma I love her."

The hayseed -does- seem to brace herself, doubling up her guard and backing away slightly. Despite making light of the caution, she -is- taking it seriously. And when the sparks start to appear, she steps away from the pooled water at her feet.

It only helps a little bit though -- for while she does turn sideways in an attempt to flip out of the way, it's tough to outrun a lightning bolt. The powerful electric charges strikes her through the ribs, muscles seizing up as she flops off to the side. She hits the ground with a light splash as the electricity starts to dissipate -- but the bulk of the damage had already been done, with the soggy Southerner feeling every -bit- of that electricity. Wisps of smoke begin to rise from her, as she babbles from the floor: "Gya-ya-ya-ya-ya..."

A moment later, though... Chevy shakes herself awake, sitting bolt upright (sorry) all of a sudden.

"AAAH! I'm... I'm awake!" she shouts, unconvincingly.

And in the next moment, the wide-eyed Miss Beaumont tips her pole sideways, using it to help herself to her feet. She suddenly tilts her shoulders forward into an all-out run at Iris, leveling the pole in front of her!

"That was a good hit, Iris! But I got somethin' for ya!"

The air gets cold. *Quickly*.

And in Chevy's next motion, she'll be trying to flash-freeze the water that comes splashing out of her buckets, freezing it into place around Iris' shoulders. If the unconventional grappler manages to lock that pole into place, just under her chin, Chevy would be seeking to launch herself into a forward flip, sailing right over top of Iris' head. The plan is -- to use her momentum to slingshot herself forward, and in doing so, bring Iris over her own head, slamming her through a quick revolution onto the floor before her!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen successfully hits Albert with Medium Strike.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////                  ]
Albert           1/---<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\==-----\1            Chevy
[              \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Iris             1/---====/=======|>>>>>>>\-------\1           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
"I'm fine!" Albert's answer to Tanwen's interrupted question came only after he's already finished with his slide across the floor -- but if nothing else, that at least serves to emphasize the answer itself, seeing as his quick maneuver of a counterattack is what made hime get delayed.

Nevermind that without his hand held against the wound formed on his forehead, a good bit more blood has dripped down and is now covering a good chunk of the left side of his face. Some of it even made it's way past his brow, forcing him to close his left eye.

"A true knight wouldn't let something like this stop him!"

His confidence in being able to simply walk off what could very well end up requiring stitches later is what becomes his undoing quickly after. See, while he is pretty quick to assume a defensive maneuver when Tanwen comes diving in for her again, her sword is coming swinging in from his left side. You know. The side where he is temporarily blinded.

"Guuuhh--!" So, yes. The diving, flipping swing drives hard into Albert's shoulder, hard enough for his leg to buckle from the weight of it in spite of the armor around his shoulder. He does shove his free palm out to try and blindly push Tanwen away in that exact moment too, if she happens to remain close by still.

"Hhh--!" He doesn't let himself stay down for long this time. He springs up from that bent leg, and stomps his foot forward-- Hard enough that the floor actually cracks underneath the weight and force of his foot. His sword's held far back, only to be plunged forward in a long, spear-like stabbing motion as his stomping step carries him forward, aimed for Tanwen's midsection. "Rrraaah!!"

COMBATSYS: Iris reflects Marsh Slam from Chevy with Sowilo - Guardian Light.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Albert           1/----<<</<<<<<<<|=======\=====--\1            Chevy
[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Iris             1/-----==/=======|>>>>>>>\-------\1           Tanwen

[IRIS]
Considering how many times it's been Iris on the delivering end of the 'freeze the water to ice' situation, she certainly has no room to complain when Chevy does it... but it does mean if the magus wants to get out of this situation in one piece, she'd best start thinking carefully about how to deal with whatever Chevy's about to do. After all, since she herself does this plenty, Iris is aware just how effective a good freezing ice trap can be!

Chevy's ability to control water comes from the Carolinian's own deep, innate connection to the element. Iris has no such ability, but ice in particular is familiar to her. While there are some exceptions -- the legendary Konoe Mercury, for example -- most magi have a particular affinity to their spellcasting; some excel at fire magic, for example, or healing spells, or any of a variety of things. Iris's affinity has always been for the Storm: thunder and lightning, hail and snow, howling wind. Somewhat chaotic forces for change, this affinity mirrors her personality (and her "fighting style," or what she does that passes for one) on a fundamental level.

That thought sleets through her brain and in the same slow time in which she observed Chevy's deep breath not a few exchanges past, the Brit's blue eyes widen with dawning realization.

It's easier to use magic that fits one's affinity, of course, but it's not the ONLY thing one can do. It is possible to branch out, with the right preparation: study, and a teacher... and at the end of the NFG's first season, Iris gained access to an unexpected tutor: her sister, who had been alive all this time after all. The two don't talk frequently, of course, for many reasons. But they HAVE had time to discuss certain things.

Celica Osterlund, compared to her sister, has no talent for combat magic. Her affinity, rather than storms, is the Sun and Moon: cyclical, ritualistic magic.

'I wish I knew some sort of... modifiable counter-curse,' Iris had said, offhandedly. 'So many fighters are able to throw out all kinds of... of *lightshows*. You'd think there'd be some sort of basic defensive magic, but...'

'Well,' Celica had said, 'Maybe you need to branch out. What is it that, after all of a storm's devastation, eventually wipes all that away?'

"Well, sis," Iris says, staring down the swiftly approaching Chevy and bringing her hands up in front of her, index fingers extended, one hand held at head height, the other near her stomach. "Time to find out if you're right or not."

The wave of frost that's solidifying the water races ahead of Chevy herself, but exhaling a breath, Iris makes two angles with each finger: diagonally toward her center, then diagonally the other way back toward the other hand. The result is... well, a high schooler would call it 'the cool S': Sowilo, the rune of the Sun. The rune glows gold-white-orange for a moment, before bursting into a haze of golden sparks that form a glittering cloud ahead of the Brit.

The frost wave finally makes Irisfall, but the protective solar ward suddenly sweeps the ice up, gathering it into itself, protecting Iris... and, as Chevy's actual BODY comes in, the ward dissipates... hurling the gathered ice right back at its originator.

Behind it, leaning forward slightly and breathing pretty heavily, is Iris... looking a combination of pleased, and genuinely surprised.

COMBATSYS: Tanwen blocks Albert's Gutsy Lunge!.

[            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////                     ]
Albert           1/---<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\=====--\1            Chevy
[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Iris             1/-----==/=======|>>>>>>>\>>-----\1           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
"You're right; he probably wouldn't," Tanwen concedes with regards to the Determinator power of knights, carrying on the conversation as Albert drops down on one leg. "But he might let somebody put a little bandage on it after he was - ooh!" Albert's hand does manage to blindly push against Tanwen with just the right amount of force and accuracy to both displace her slightly through the air and give her those funny feelings she sometimes gets now that she's almost fifty.

"Sir Albert - ! Oh, dear. I hope the shop doesn't break," she says as her knightly foe cracks the floor with the force of his foot. "Eep!"

Of more immediate concern, of course, is the knight's strength being directed at her midsection, sending his weapon lancing toward her midsection. She drops her own weapon in a panic, grasping hold of the (thankfully blunt) blade with her clawed hands as he drives her back into a wall. The tip presses into her belly button region, and her muscles strain with the effort of holding the weapon back from pushing any further and doing serious damage, pinning her to the side of the shop in a contest of strength.

There's those funny feelings again. Deciding that she would rather not be exploring them right now, she musters the draconic might to redirect the weapon into the wood next to her, wiggling out from the predicament.

Finding herself empty-handed, she rolls a Perception check, notices her dartboard-shield lying on the ground several feet away, and dives forward into a headlong slide across a patch of ice to snatch it up. She can spare only a moment's commentary on the regret her choice immediately engenders while looping her arm through the straps. "Ooh, that's cold, it is!" Then, spinning around as she rises, she'll try and smack her 'shield' straight into Albert's face in an attempt to daze him, and if she succeeds, she'll try and grab hold of his shoulders to force him over double - then, if she can, she'll position her freshly-frosted thighs on either side of his head, wiggling to get a proper grip before dropping down to drive him face-first into the floor under the weight of her hips!

[CHEVY]
There had been a fear, ever since the Rumble match, that her own elements could be used against her. It started, unsurprisingly, with Iris freezing her own pools around her feet. And Zarine had further demonstrated that it wasn't just *water* that could be used against her, but her very own *blood*.

She's had a few months to think on that. And when Iris is able to put a stop to her attack before it can even be deployed, Chevy greets her with enthusiasm, rather than disappointment. Ice crystals shower to the side as the conflicting wavefronts of energy collide. For one moment, the crystal shower is perpendicular to the waterbender's approach. But after that, it becomes obvious that Iris' powers win out, shoving her backwards.

Chevy sails backwards, her hands and fingers coated with ice as she's thrown a reverse tumble, taking out a rack of snorkels and snorkeling accessories!

As plastic accessories clatter to the floor, Chevy plucks herself back to her feet. She sways unsteadily to one side. Her skin shows a number of purplish bruises from the prior attacks. Her face is... still a bit red from the collision with that shield. And of course, her hands and forearms still bear the snowmelt sheen from the previous attack. But as she draws air through her teeth, it becomes clear the Carolinian's still got a bit of fight left in her!

"Yeah -- sorry for the chill factor, Tan! But, yeah... "

The snowy weather isn't going to stop. If anything, it seems like there's about to be -more- of it, as Zack of All Trades becomes the epicenter for a new localized weather system: a storm cloud, forming over Iris' head! And a moment later: rainfall!

Chevy flashes a toothy grin at Iris. "Stormy weather conditions may continue for the next few moments!"

Chevy starts to -run- towards Iris -- but her attack starts a bit early, as she throws her pole and buckets at the ground before her! Water gushes out from her buckets, splashing anew onto the floor and seeking to surround Iris' feet. But the true attack isn't any of that -- as Chevy barrels forward, aiming to take Iris right off her feet with a shoulder tackle as she wraps one arm about her waist! Should she manage to drag the Cambridge native off her feet, she'd then trigger a sudden geyser from the watery depths, blasting both fighters into the air -- allowing the freckled farmgirl to orient her opponent's back for an express trip into the shop's floor!

COMBATSYS: Albert interrupts Arch Dragon from Tanwen with Mighty GUTSY Headbutt!.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////                      ]
Albert           0/-------/---<<<<|====---\-------\0            Chevy
[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Iris             1/-----==/=======|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>-\1           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
"Rrh!"

The contest of strength between dragon and knight sees Albert's muscles straining and flexing underneath his clothes, visible through the gaps within his breastplate. She might have caught the sword, but there's a no small measure of brute physical strength hidden there in the farmboy-slash-knight that forces the both of htem right up to that wall. He might even have been able to keep pushing the sword up after some more effort -- if it weren't for her wisely redirecting the (thankfully STILL very blunt) blade off to the side to smack against the wall proper instead.

"Hey!" Albert actually calls after Tanwen while she's diving past him. He's off running to give chase after her too -- though on the way his feet do slip a bit more uncontrollably over the ice on the floor, helping give her well enough of a headstart before he can continue in his sprint again.

"Don't you--"

Whatever he was about to say is rudely interrupted by him... well. More or less ending up running straight into the shield bash. Dartboard bash? Either way. It hits him square in the forehead, and it seems to do the job of dazing him well enough. At least enough to make him recoil back, with his head knocked to leaning back and all. It leaves him well-exposed for her reaching hands...

"GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTS!!!!"

The sudden bellow comes the instant the dragoness' fingers so much as brush at his shoulders, and his entire body is swinging forward just as suddenly. Almost all the way to tumbling himself body-to-body against Tanwen, but stopping just short of that -- or, well, not quite. His lower body might halt in that instant, but his upper body continues -- and more importantly his *head*.

A dull noise echoes loudly through the store upon impact of forehead to forehead. It might not be considered very wise to headbutt a dragon, especially while her horns are still out, but... Albert is not one known to really consider the risk factor in his calculations terribly much. And the end result here is the immense, head-ringing headbutt against the dragoness with such force that his body actually continues its swinging stumble forward after the fact still. Enough to carry on after whatever stumble Tanwen might end up in from the hit, and for just a moment, keep his face *dangerously* close to hers before he finally manages to force himself into a recovery motion. Even if it might end up being done by virtue of his hand shoving at either wall or floor to push himself decidedly *away* again.

"Guhhhhh..." And either way, the thing about headbutts is that you *are* still using your own head to hit someone. And there's at least a couple seconds where Albert is still feeling the daze of it. The hit probably won't do any favors for the state of the gash cut into his forehead earlier, either. Poor Tanwen might have ended up with the collateral of some of the knight's blood getting smeared on her skin, too.

COMBATSYS: Chevy successfully hits Iris with Sound Side.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////                      ]
Albert           0/-------/---<<<<|====---\-------\0            Chevy
[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Iris             1/-======/=======|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>-\1           Tanwen

[IRIS]
Precautions are important at the best of times, and with the way this fight is going... Iris is holding her own, but that doesn't make this the best of times. It's a demonstrable fact that Chevy hits harder than she does; no surprise, since Chevy's had actual training and mentorship on levels that Iris hasn't, and more experience in the ring besides. Plus... you can tell. When someone's fighting spirit is particularly high, yet they don't throw out any really big moves, it's like a little alarm bell in your head constantly going off.

This is why, *right* as Chevy is about to make contact with the poised-to-flee Iris, the magus gives a little gesture with one hand in a burst of rainbow light. Nothing... appears to happen, actually, which to an onlooker might suggest Iris messed things up.

There's only a second or two to try and duck off to the side and avoid this entirely, but it doesn't seem like that's in the cards for Iris... but Chevy's shoulder hits the Brit's stomach, the waterbender will likely notice that whatever it was Iris did before, it *didn't* fail... that, or Iris has suddenly acquired literal abs of steel. The remainder of Chevy's pain train goes without a hitch, but even as Iris is breathlessly slammed into the shop floor, a corner of her shirt pulls up and her preparations are revealed: a summoned mail shirt under her clothes, which -- having done its job -- blinks out of existence as the magus groans and attempts to get to her feet.

"Rubbish against arrows and such because of all the holes," Iris bites out, sounding as tired and beat up as she looks... which is pretty tired and beat up. "But works a treat on blunt trauma. Spreads the impact out along the links, see." A faint grin, one eye closed, as she makes eye contact with Chevy. "You might not be able to say much else about me, but I'm *always* prepared for the worst."

Now, though... now she has to decide what the right call is. Throw everything she's got at Chevy and hope to take her down all in one go? Catch her breath and try to outmaneuver the Carolinian, now that she's fired the Big Guns? There's a moment where her blue eyes flicker over just in time to see Albert pretty literally dive headfirst into a Literal Dragon, a move that takes... well, GUTS.

Fingers flexing, Iris nods to herself. Albert listened to her advice on pacing, so maybe she owes it to him to learn from him, too. "You're not the only one who's got the storm on speed dial!" Iris says to Chevy, before summoning what little energy is left in her body to sprint forward, then leap up, a hand tracing a single rune -- the | of Isa, the rune of ice -- into a blue-white glow, before landing practically at Chevy's feet. The waterbender left all this lovely water here, so... why not use it?

Slamming her glowing hand palm-down on the floor, the water and air around Chevy suddenly become a roaring column of ice and snow, as if someone had compressed a blizzard into a tube and shot it out of the ground at Chevy's feet.

[TANWEN]
All of this is a bit of a confusing experience for our young mademoiselle draconique. First, there's the shock of cold from belly sliding across ice in a bikini like a Quebecois at the bain de neige. As previously established, Tanwen doesn't do well when exposed to cold temperatures. She was hoping to just ignore that (especially since she'd already got the sneezes out of her system), but then there's a follow-up shock of a muscular German lad yelling "GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTS!!!!" in her face as she's gone to put her hands on his shoulders. Startled, wondering if maybe Sir Albert is sunburnt like Winn always gets on holiday, and questioning what the word 'guts' means in context (is it German, like ora ora?), she then gets the third shock of Sir Albert's face coming toward hers at speed. Her hands are still on his shoulders. This wasn't part of the plan, and now those funny feelings are back. Is he going to...?

Tanwen's eyes go wide before closing tight, lips pressing together as she prepares for the meeting...

And then suddenly she's seeing stars, vision filled with white. Next thing she knows, she's sitting on the ground, dazed, her head hurting terribly. What just happened?

"Did we just kiss, Sir Albert?" she asks hazily, wiping the back of a hand across her head before a glassy-eyed epiphany dimly lights her face. "Was it a Glasgow kiss?"

She's barely able to sway up to her feet. The blood dripping from her brow isn't just Albert's. "It's too cold in here," the dragon girl announces with some detachment, wings flapping upward and pushing her crashing up through the straw-covered roof, effectively undoing construction work that's allowed the interior of the shop to stay relatively dry through years of tropical weather with the usual disregard dragons have for human architectural ingenuity. "I'm going to warm it up," the dizzy dragon declares as she flaps upward - then dives down toward the hole in the shop roof again. She's aiming to swoop down into Albert, supernatural heat building up around her as she descends. Then, if she manages to crash into him and knock him down to the floor underneath her, she'll bring her dartboard-shield arm up - the disc now having caught fire - and then smash it down at Albert, potentially unleashing a fiery blast that will send both flying!

COMBATSYS: Iris successfully hits Chevy with Isa - Fimbulwinter.

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///                           ]
Albert           0/-------/---<<<<|=======\-------\1            Chevy
[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Iris             0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
There's all sorts of chaos erupting in the shop today. It'd be a miracle if anything but the swimwear was in salable condition after the conclusion of the fight. Sounds like a problem for future Zack, doesn't it?

Chevy crouches down to retrieve her pole and buckets. She gives Iris a brief smile at the explanation of her summoned chain mail. It's an inventive solution -- and, just as when she'd seen Ichika using her chi as a defensive 'blanket' -- it's one she doesn't have a direct analog to. "Neat trick," she comments, water sloshing as she steps back a few feet.

A moment later, her partner acts on her stated intent of warming up the place. Chevy winces as her carefully-placed water begins to bubble in response. The volume begins to shrink; heatwaves ripple through the area. The warmth starts to make the slightly suntanned Southerner sleepy -- but she swallows back the urge to yawn in response.

Which is good, because Iris says something that makes her anxious in a completely different sense. Gritting her teeth and tightening the grip on her pole, she shows signs of trying to leap backwards in avoidance.

The rising column of gale-force wind and ice catches her in the midst of her withdrawal! Shards of ice slam into her bare shins and arms, ripping the pole and buckets right out of her hands! She's knocked backwards, and even though she's been wielding ice on her own... Well, let's be honest, a gauze-thin blouse isn't doing much to keep the swimsuited Chevy from the freezing cold!

The net effect is -- Chevy's showing her fatigue, as the blast not only knocks her backwards, it drops her to her knees. Frost crystals billow from her breath, only to wisp into nothingness a moment later by the heated air from Tanwen's attack. Miss Beaumont pants for breath, planting her hands in the midst of the water that -hadn't- been swept up in the blizz-nado...

Her tongue darts across her lips; a brief moment to acclimate herself to the current temperature and humidity levels. Her heavy eyelids part just enough to let twin slivers of blue regard Iris.

"Huh... Why do they even call it 'speed dial,' anyway? All you're doin' is mashin' a button with someone's name on it. It ain't even fast!"

The commentator Lou might be on to something about Chevy -- because even while she's rambling out a non-sequitur, she's still plotting something: the waves are starting to ripple in a completely -different- way. As soon as she finishes, water bursts up around Chevy, rolling around her left side. And once it crests to seven feet or so, it falls -- creating a 'barrel' of water around her.

Chevy rises to half her usual height, eyes widening as she draws in her breath. The invigorating rainstorm -- what drops fall from the encircling barrel -- seems to be giving her strength!

"Like, why do they even call it 'dialing?'" she asks... just before she leans forward to launch into a water-assisted *sprint* towards Iris!

Her approach is tricksy -- she's not trying to attack Iris in center mass, and not her leading right arm, but rather, her -left- arm. And if she manages to grab hold of Iris' arm, she'll use her momentum to wrench Iris right off her feet, twist about in mid air, and bounce the magus' shoulders against the floorboards once or twice for good measure!

COMBATSYS: Chevy keeps on fighting!

[               \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/---<<<<|=======\-------\1            Chevy
[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Iris             0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Albert blocks Tanwen's Dragon's Descent.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1            Chevy
[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Iris             0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
Albert did manage to push himself steadied on his feet just early enough for him to actually register just what Tanwen asks, too. And it actually leaves the usually-unflappable, perpetually cheerful wannabe-knight just standing there and giving an utterly dumbfounded stare back at the dragoness with the one eye he is able to open without getting blood into it widened to the size of a dinner plate.

"Did we WHAT?!"

He actually has to take a step back while he tries to process that... is it considered an accusation at this point?! What is he supposed to say to that?!

So caught up is he in trying to properly process... well ALL OF THAT, that he doesn't even properly register Tanwen has, in fact, managed to get up from the floor. And more importantly, taken flight. But he does, thank god, realize by the time she's soaring down. Trying to avoid the mistake from last time around, he steps and turns a bit over to the left so he can have a proper view of her within his open right eye.

"Come on then--!!" He calls out, and he shoves his sword out to brace upwards, with his other hand pressed against the blunt slant of it for further support as he forcefully directs it into Tanwen's shield arm in that instant she's diving into him. His legs nearly buckle underneath him from the weight of hte ensuing impact, and he's soon audibly groaning from the effort of the ensuing, renewed contest of strength that sends him sliding along the frosted (but rapidly melting!) floor. He could swear he damn near feels his arm getting dislocated from it, too!

Oh yeah, he can definitley feel the heat from the blaze of a firestorm that is following along with her. His clothes probably are set aflame all over again, too! But in the end, he manages to pivot his body in the middle of that clash, and forcefully separate from the dragoness by directing her momentum past him.

But with enough ice still present on the floor, the momentum still carries him along too afterwards, nearly right alongside her for a couple paces. A couple paces during which he lets his body keep spinning around once, twice, three times, and then his sword's finally sent arcing in a horizontal arc at the still-airborne dragoness' side, right at the same time as his other foot snaps up to kick against a nearby shelf in an attempt to redirect the trajectory of his sliding, and regrow some distancce between him and the redhead again.

COMBATSYS: Iris blocks Chevy's Mix-Up Throw.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1            Chevy
[                       \\\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Iris             0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[IRIS]
In any other situation, this might be a time for Iris to trot out stories of her mother's antique office phone, the kind one finds in old manors full of antiques and suchlike -- explaining the 'dial' part of the verb and so forth. But frankly, it's taken all the energy in her body to get this far, and Iris simply doesn't have any left for banter. This isn't the first time Chevy's appeared to be down and then wasn't, so at least Iris is slightly prepared for it.

And, luckily enough, prepared for the throw, too; Chevy can get the Brit up in the air and spin her, but on her way to be bounced off the floor, Iris shoves back, as hard as possible, snapping free of the Carolinian's grip. This doesn't stop her descent -- nothing would do that -- but it does mean Iris can control her descent so that she lands on bent knees in a near crouch, sliding somewhat across the floor in the process. A defense she likely won't be trying again any time soon; every bit of her is complaining, right now, especially the knees that were just sharply jarred.

Sadly, the situation is making her selfish; Albert, Tanwen, and the boiling meteor dragon fireball situation are all a distant country in the hills from the kingdom is Iristanzia right now. All her focus is on Chevy, and trying to make sure the magus puts her opponent down before the same happens to her. A hand flickers out, a length of silvery chain appearing in it, which whips out to try and snag Chevy in basically any way possible; even the pole works, if it can be used to drag the waterbender close enough for Iris's other hand, glowing green from a traced rune, to come forward, palm out, and detonate the burst of wind that will separate the two once more.

COMBATSYS: Tanwen dodges Albert's Gutsy Sweep! EX.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1            Chevy
[                        \\\\\\  < >  //////                        ]
Iris             0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
Tumbling tail-over-horns through the air from her own explosive outburst - one that seems to have blasted several trophies and a volleyball autographed by Ryu Hayabusa out to sea as well as putting a hole through the floor and starting to fill the chamber with steam - Tanwen has fortunately forgotten all about the split second of the fight that she missed because she was blinded by sparkles. At least for long enough to be paying attention when both of the Alberts she's seeing start what appears to be a windmill motion with their sword(s) in her direction. She appears to be a helpless target, for a moment - "Eep!" - but a burst of adrenaline brought on by fear gives her the energy she needs to execute a quick aerial recovery with a flap of her wings, spinning away to land on her hands and knees on one of the still-cold parts of the floor as Albert slides past.

"Eeeyah! It's bloody freezing!"

Really, it's probably averaging out to a moderate temperature in the shop generally, averaging out the fire and the ice and the tropical Isla Zaca climes, but as established, Tanwen is particularly sensitive to these things.

"What were we doing a moment ago, Sir Albert?" Tanwen questions as she clambers to her feet. She's not actually repeating the question, she's just forgotten that she asked in the first place. Her short-term memory seems to be slightly malfunctional for some reason. "Oh, right!"

She lurches toward Albert, picking up the Dragon Sword in her free hand as she does, though she holds that and her shield low at her side as she leans up toward him. Is she trying to get back to what she thought happened while she was out? Or the Glasgow version?

Actually, she's not trying for either - what she remembered that they were doing was fighting - but the way she pulls a face, lips and eyes closing, certainly looks like it. The reason for that is that with all this ice tickling her allergies, she's got another sneeze coming on.

"GUUUUUUU-CHOO!"

Luckily, it's not a full on fireball she's unleashing this time - she's in need of a bit of a reload - but it is a sooty smoke cloud, threatening to get in Albert's good eye! And maybe his bad one, too!

Which may make it hard to spot and successfully evade her sword arm and shield arm swinging up from both sides to cymbal crash against his ears, if he doesn't avoid them!

COMBATSYS: Chevy counters Uruz - Gandrekr from Iris with King Tide EX.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0            Chevy
[                                < >  ////                          ]
Iris             1/------=/=======|-------\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
It's still pretty chilly in the shop, it's true! There's no telling how all that heat, cold, wind and rain would affect the sensitive camera equipment... Luckily, the bracing cold and the raindrops are helping Chevy to keep her focus through it all.

Iris' unusual tactics are particularly difficult for Chevy to predict. As such, Chevy isn't able to spare any attention to the budding romance(?!) between Tanwen and Albert. Sure, she can feel the wind currents kicked up by Albert's spinning, and hear Tanwen's laments about freezing cold -- but they're distant voices on the horizon compared to the thumping of her heartbeat. The Carolinian's got goosebumps -- both due to the chilled water and to her anxiety for the fight's progress!

She is glad to have gotten a hold on Iris, however brief it may have been -- and she seems to be just as glad that the Brit had managed to wriggle out of her grasp before too much damage could be wrought. But once she snaps free, Chevy hops back a step, sucking her breath through her teeth.

The situation is grim. She smiles, squeegeeing water and thoroughly drenched auburn locks from her forehead. She may not have gotten an answer about the dialing -- but she didn't really expect one. With that momentary lapse in attack, she scoops water into her buckets as a preparation.

Light glints upon the length of silver chain. And Chevy shuts her mouth, as inspiration strikes...

She suddenly kicks the bucket.
One of them, in particular.
Roughly, to the side.
The whole pipe-and-buckets system blurs into a dizzying circle.
But most importantly, there's a *clink* sound.
As the chain is caught within the spiral!

Chevy acts completely on instinct at this point, sharply dashing to her left in avoidance of a direct attack -- which ends up being a good thing -- as the rune-summoned wind blasts a mist of water droplets free from her soaked blouse sleeve. But with Iris' chain pulled abruptly to the side, it's safer for Chevy to stride in, grab hold of Iris by her shoulders -- and torque her sideways, right off her feet!

The standing water has a say in the matter as well. As Chevy drags Iris sideways, she also triggers the water to piston upwards into her -- one, two, three, four times in sequence, before slinging her to the floor as a chaotic sort of indoor slip-and-slide!

The unheeded buckets and pole smack into a display case, sending another burst of water splashing every which way. After releasing Iris, Chevy cants forward and pants for breath. She knows Iris will... likely have words for her. And probably more than that! But for right now -- it looks like the fight is starting to catch up with her!

COMBATSYS: Tanwen successfully hits Albert with Dazzle!.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           1/------=/=======|-------\-------\0            Chevy
[                                < >  ////                          ]
Iris             1/------=/=======|=------\-------\0           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
The cloud of soot does get into Albert's eye! Not enough to blind in the long-term or anything, but enough to force him to shut his good eye in a squint. And close slong enough, asi t happens, for him to not properly get a chance to see the shield and sword pommel coming in.

"Ghuh--?!" The knight's head jostles while his eardrums get so violently rattled.

"G-get--" He manages to groan out, snapping one hand out to push for Tanwen's shoulder -- only for his feet to snap into a kick against the ground to hop up off the floor, only to try and stamp one foot into Tanwen in a kick meant to be used to simultaneously send him springing further away from her! "Get off--!!"

[IRIS]
There's an awful lot of sound effects at the end of the Iris/Chevy exchange; more than a couple drawn-out splashes, and definitely one loud *WHAM!* as the Brit's body slams into a display on the far end of the store after sliding across the standing water on the floor. She sits seemingly motionless there long enough that people may wonder if Chevy just took her out entirely, but there's a few more splashes as Iris unsteadily gets to her feet... well, 'feet'. She's hunched forward, breathing heavily, staring down her opponent.

It's a weird, pseudo-silent tableau for a couple moments long enough to make one wonder what's going on when... well. For reasons known only to her, Iris just *screams*. An inarticulate and ragged sound, but a scream nonetheless.

She pitches her hand forward, and a conjured dagger appears, rimed with frost, flying out over the distance toward Chevy. Then a sword wreathed in lightning. A hammer swirling with wind. Enchanted weapons, thrown one after another with reasonable speed, but accuracy that is obviously suffering from fatigue and injury on the caster's part... not that she seems to care.

Her arm comes forward one last time, a windy handaxe's haft held in it... but it never gets thrown. Eyes rolling up a bit, Iris merely pitches forward onto the floor, unconscious, the axe winking out of existence a moment later.

COMBATSYS: Iris can no longer fight.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |=------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Tanwen dodges Albert's Gutsy Springkick!.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |=------\-------\0           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
The situation in Zack-of-All-Trades is getting a bit intense for, well... probably everyone involved at this point. Even the camera crew have had to withdraw to a safe distance on the beach to avoid the threat of wind, rain, fire, and earth as all of the classical elements compete for supremacy in what amounts to little more than a cluttered wooden box.

For Tanwen's part, being somewhere between overstimulated and mildly concussed, the chaos is getting to be a bit much. Especially when Albert starts shouting at her to get off.

"What am I supposed to be getting off of?!" she shouts as she flails off-balance, tail whipping wildly. "Eeep!"

The knightly fighter's foot comes stamping down at her, and she narrowly manages to hop up off of the ground, letting his foot pass between her legs as they split to balance, trembling, on two sections of the wooden sales counter. She loses her grip on the dartboard as she wobbles, taking hold of her sword in both hands as much for reassurance as with any plan of action. Even the wooden platform beneath is starting to feel like it could collapse into the ocean at any moment - or is that just Tanwen's stun meter talking? Regardless, she feels she has no choice but to jump.

"I'm sorryyy!" she yells as she hops forward at Albert, legs apart, blunt Dragon Blade descending in a leaping power slash supplemented by the dragon girl's own body aiming to crash down on him in direct contravention of his request!

COMBATSYS: Chevy parries Iris' Laguz - Rain of Blades!!

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ///////                       ]
Albert           0/-------/--=====|===----\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |=------\-------\0           Tanwen

[CHEVY]
There's no doubt that Chevy really ought to be on the floor by now. She could easily just... stop, right? But, always present in the back of her mind is the idea that the mentor isn't just fighting for herself, but for her student to experience the same thrills of fighting as herself. The onus is on the mentors to keep doing their best as well. Iris has inarguably done a fantastic job of revving Chevy right up to the redline.

Though, the magus is down, and that gives Chevy some cause for concern. She leans against a propper-up pipe for balance, drawing in her breath. Her forehead creases in doubt: did she overdo it? Even though she seems to be in full control of her water abilities, there's still a lot of unknowns for her to figure out.

The sudden scream snaps her out of her moment of calm. Chevy's eyes widen in a mix of both fear and concern! A moment later, she draws her pipe up to parallel the floor, with its attendant sloshes of water. A dagger pierces the air, leaving a wake of frost crystals in its wake...

Sparks fly, an instant later, as Chevy lifts her pole at the precise moment to interpose a bucket into the dagger's path!

A moment later, a sword crackles with lightning as it's hurled towards Chevy. The waterbender swiftly steps to the side, momentarily throwing her pole into a quick spin across the sword's path so that when the lightning courses through it, it's not actually -touching- her.

An instant later, she catches hold of the pole again and prepares for the next thrown weapon. But now, she's able to listen to her student a bit more, making one particular observation.

What the heck is she talking about now?

Her brow furrows -- the relentless pace of weapons hurled by the opposing magus demanding its own attention. A polearm clatters as she strikes it with her pipe, a rapier slams into a bucket, spinning it around in place upon the staff. But with each step, Chevy steps a bit closer towards Albert, curious to hear just a bit more.

And then a windborne hammer thunders forth, at a moment where Chevy isn't -quite- ready. She lifts the pole to defend -- but it's parallel to the hammer's flight. The hammer hits her leading bucket dead-on -- and the bucket -itself- starts to fly at Chevy!

She lets go of the pole for a moment. The bucket continues hurtling past, slamming into her -other- bucket.

And as the waterlogged redhead clamps her hands back around the pole, her blue eyes light up with inspiration. She maneuvers the pole, both to keep her buckets from flying into the Tanwen/Albert fracas, and to harness their momentum! She steps towards Albert, keeping herself near the axis of rotation as she whips through one revolution...

But as soon as she can, she looks back to Iris -- drawing her breath through her teeth. Where is that handaxe? It -- oh. It's not coming. The thought flits through her mind, and a brief sigh of relief is let out, as she revolves through one more turn of the hammer-toss event^H^H^H bucket spinning...

The waterbender's bucket careens perilously close to Tanwen and Albert -- but they -might- be able to feel the wind as she brushes past!

But, with Miss Osterlund's energy reserves expended, Chevy's free to attack at will! And her volition directs her to grab at Albert's wrist. If she manages to grab hold, her spinning momentum is such that he'd be tugged right off his feet, and slung shoulder-first into the floor!

COMBATSYS: Albert dodges Tanwen's Power Strike.

[                        \\\\\\  < >  ////////                      ]
Albert           0/-------/--=====|===----\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |=------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Chevy successfully hits Albert with Riptide EX.
- CRAZY Hit! -

[                                < >  ////////                      ]
Albert           1/----===/=======|=====--\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |=------\-------\0           Tanwen

[ALBERT]
As it happens, Albert lands away from his attempt at a combined kick and retreating maneuver just in time to see--

"Iris--!!"

He winces in time with the sight of the magus faceplanting on the floor. For just a microsecond, there's a hint of despair in his one still-open eye, before squinting with focus up at the dragoness falling down upon him instead. One more burst of motion, a foot kicking on the overheated floor to send him into a sweeping and spinning step to the side, just narrowly out of the way of the blunt blade, leaving it to strike into the floor where he was standing just a quarter of a second earlier.

The knight's whirling turn continues on there, and his grip on his sword tightens as it's swung with the rest of his body's momentum in a sweeping horizontal arc towards Tanwen!

"Not done yeEEAUGH?!"

Well, that was the intent, anyway. He doesn't even have the chance to spot the hand snapping out from the third party into his other arm's wrist. The poor german boy's sent swirling through the air by the choice manipulation of his own motion just in time to direct his weapon swiping just over and past Tanwen's shoulder instead. Up over Chevy he goes, spinning along his own vertical axis enough times over to make his vision go all askew before his shoulder finds it's way to smacking into the ground with the kind of force that threatens to dislocate it. And even with that, the whiplash still leads his head to snapping down, and guiding his right temple to rebounding off the floor too. All in all, leaving him altogether shaken, with his sword sent clattering a couple centimeter ahead of him.

"Ghhhhh--"

Albert's body turns over from that landing onto his front, just barely braced on his left arm to be kept from completely faceplanting there. Pushed up, shakily. Not quite enough to get him up from all fours, though -- or, actually, no. From all three's. That right arm's definitely hanging and slumped to the floor uselessly. Yeah, definitely dislocated. Defiantly, stubbornly, with one limb useless, one eye forced to a close, and more or less the entirety of the rest of his body screaming at him over bruises, burns, and probably at least a minor fracture in a bone or two, he pushes himself a couple centimeters forward -- lunges almost, really. Over to where his sword slid, and he actaully clamps his *teeth* around the hilt in a play to bring the weapon up with him while his left arm's struggling to push him up off the floor.

Up to one knee. Up to lifting his bloodied face to staring up at Tanwen and Chevy. One more pitch forward--

"---hhhhh..."

A pitch his body can't quite manage to support him in. Instead all but leaving him to ragdoll right back down, jaws loosening upon the slump enough to send the weapon held between them to rolling back to the floor all over again, too.

COMBATSYS: Albert takes no action.

                                  >  ////////                      ]
                                  |=====--\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |=------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Albert can no longer fight.

                                  >  ////////                      ]
                                  |=====--\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |=------\-------\0           Tanwen

[TANWEN]
Splinters fly as even the blunted blade wielded by Tanwen takes a chunk out of the wooden flooring. "Oh, rats!" she murmurs as the German fighter proves elusive once more. She tries to yank it free, but it sticks in the wood for the moment. Her dazed face lights up when she sees Chevy managing to slam the squire down to the proverbial mat instead. "Oh! That was a tidy toss, Chevy!" she says as she lets go of her weapon and bounds over beside her partner, elbows bent and hands hovering at the ready above her waist level as she watches to see if Albert will get up. When he does push up - sword held in his mouth - Tanwen's eyes go wide, and she lets out a yelp before practically jumping into Chevy's arms, once again forgetting that, while she may be a relatively small human, she's not a tiny dragon.

"Oh, that was scary, it was!" Tanwen says as Albert goes slack. "It reminded me a bit of that Monty Python film! Like he was going to cut our legs off!"

While she's clearly energised, she doesn't seem particularly more lucid. Dropping down to the floor beside Albert, she rolls him onto his back with a grunt of effort before slumping her belly across his chest, her knees and elbows resting on the ground and her tail flicking languidly back and forth in the air behind her.

"Come on, Chevy! You sit on his legs! Who's going to count?"

"It's not the wrestling, Tan," Winn calls out helpfully. "You don't have to put him in a pin, like."

"Oh, right," Tanwen murmurs, before exhaling and going slack herself. "I'm too sleepy to get up now, though."

COMBATSYS: Tanwen takes no action.

                                  >  ////////                      ]
                                  |=====--\-------\0            Chevy
                                  >  ////                          ]
                                  |-------\-------\0           Tanwen

COMBATSYS: Tanwen has left the fight here.

                                  >  ////////                      ]
                                  |=====--\-------\0            Chevy

[CHEVY]
"Ooh... that didn't feel great," notes Chevy as she feels Albert's shoulder move in a way that, uh... didn't feel great.

She gives the young German fighter some breathing room in the aftermath of her strike. And her face turns a little pale as she considers the ramifications of her last attack. She's had to set joints before, that's not a big deal, as long as the patient can stay still after--

Scratch that -- all bets are off once Tanwen starts to roll him over. "Hey, easy there, Tan...!" chides Chevy, hurrying to set her staff and buckets down before racing over to Albert's side. "Albert's pretty hurt now, you could hurt him if you ain't..."

Chevy's horror lifts a -little- bit as Tanwen goes for a pin. The Southerner just sifts fingers through her soaked auburn hair -- wanting to look away, but concerned she might accidentally cause more injury. "Just... set still for a moment, would'ja?" she offers with a friendly tone, before turning over to wave a medic over.

"That was a dang close fight," she mentions to anyone still awake enough to listen. "One step either way woulda spelled our doom, honestly..."

She crouches down next to Albert. And after giving Tanwen a light pat on the shoulder, and Albert one of his own, she turns her attention over to Iris.

Her eyes start to well up with emotion. "... Yeah, that was a great fight, y'all. Thank you. After the medics take over..."

Miss Beaumont then finds herself fighting a new challenger: the mighty urge to yawn! "... ahh! I think we can -all- use a good long nap!"

COMBATSYS: Chevy lets the tide wash out.

                                  >  ////////                      ]
                                  |=====--\-------\0            Chevy

COMBATSYS: Chevy has ended the fight here.

Log created on 17:28:01 08/15/2024 by Chevy, and last modified on 16:25:25 09/08/2024.