LastLight

Meanwhile, in the ToA machine room that maintained the battlefield illusion, there was absolute chaos. Generators suddenly burst into wild streaks of magical tendrils and one of the engineers could have sworn he had just seen a dragon crawling out of the floor and then disappear. “What in Gaia’s name is happening?!” An explosion sent one of the engineers flying through a window while others rushed to contain the destruction that the Guardian was creating. In desperation, one engineer surrounded a magical construct that was starting to glow like an emerald sun in an earthen box crafted from the materials of the floor and closed both eyes very tightly to concentrate. When the explosion took place, he opened the roof of the box and channeled the force of the explosion up into the sky and through the ceiling, protecting the lives of those around him. “Everyone evacuate!” someone yelled. When the staff began to move for the exits, someone crawled out of a pile of rubble, blood trailing down the side of her face. Her eyes were intense as they peered through broken glasses at her blurry surroundings. “Anyone who abandons this project now will be blacklisted! You’ll all be working as prostitutes to pay off your education, you hear me?!” Stello’s eyes narrowed in response to Crystal’s epic spell penetration. The glow was furious, and so was the effect. He was actually able to see how it had to rip away the virtual reality set by the ToA machinery in order to manifest in the first place. “You crazy bitch!” he condemned. Stello’s second spirit surge manifested just in time and if Crystal hadn’t closed her eyes during the exchange, she would see he had no interest in falling behind. “Ma’am, Stello is going to override the system, too!” Without skipping a beat, the furious bespectacled woman answered, “Then lock BOTH of them down. I don’t care what happens to them!” From Stello’s and Crystal’s point of view, it was hard to tell what the hell happened. It looked like her fist was on track to collide with his diaphragm but at the same time, the spirit surge jettisoned onto her antimagic blade was beginning to work in tandem with the newly generated spirit surge to stop it from being effective. Before it could be seen which effect would overcome the other, both of them short circuited and were unraveled in a fantastic burst that not only would have sent both of them flying in opposite directions, but also caused the artificial environment of the underwater city to disappear. After Stello hit the floor, bouncing repeatedly on the ground before managing to roll in order to dissipate the momentum, the spectators of the match could see both of them on the original ToA arena. Every now and then, the whole area flickered, trying desperately to bring back the underwater city as an environment. For now, he was too dazed to keep himself entirely in control of his magic. Even the diospheric eye started to fizzle, something he noticed as he lifted his head to search for his opponent.

We might start the second round early to keep things going! I'll know by tomorrow.

@Haelstrom if you don't wanna see a tax hike on Gaian imported goods . . .

In the meantime, it'll also be good to mention that Haelstrom was in all likelihood joking. He even said in one of his posts that explicit sexual content is likely disallowed by the terms of use so again all the clues point towards this all being little more than playful banter. Sorry if the way I asked the questions made it sound like there was legit interest. I was just messing around, too.

Versus Female Titan ( Fitting, no?! ) At his most basest value, Stello was a simple minded brute. First order of business when going on about solving an issue was to gather each hand into tight fists. Second along would be use of his spiritual gifts, most likely blasting things until they were little more than pathetic heaps, but fate saw fit to wedge a wrench somewhere in his otherwise unimaginative mechanism in the form of a pair of special eyes. In the same way a wolf’s canines inescapably lead it to kill primarily with its bite, Stello’s eyes inescapably led him to scrutinize and analyze magic. Ultimately, that was the reason why dealing with his spiritual techniques wouldn’t be as easy as Crystal thought. So far, the only thing she had managed to pick up from his anti-magic was that she could funnel it out in another direction, away from its intended target, a happenstance that Stello himself didn’t fail to notice to the tune of a mischievous grin earlier on. A crafty woman like Crystal adapted, effectively so, but she was making the grave mistake of assuming that she was the only one who could bother with that sort of thing. The emerald thunderstorm crackling throughout his body appeared the same as before because there was no need for it to change color or anything similar in order to achieve a more effective form. Crystal’s parry was utterly exciting. In the split moment that it took for her hand to brush his jab off to the side, he felt a warm tingling start its manifestation in the center of his chest. His hand was already revolving back towards his person like a door that had been slammed open against a wall with a vicious kick when he saw her threatening to take it all away from him. Fortunately, he had already planned for it. The purpose of the current spirit surge was to hopefully buy some time for both of them, time they can use to punch and kick the shit out of each other. With the duration effect of his spirit bubble still in play, even that perceived weakness was suddenly taken away. The barrier rebuilt itself all of a sudden, all the holes that her anti-magic slugs from earlier had punched into it all closed up again. That was what she ended up cutting, but not before Stello unleashed the spirit surge into its structure as well. Crystal’s spell slicer cut clean through it but the second the tip of her anti-magic blade graced its surface, it served the purpose of a bridge, allowing Stello’s surge to board her all over again. This time, Stello applied a more finely tuned level of control over it, meaning that if there were countermeasures in her magic designed to lead it astray and towards an inane target, he wouldn’t let it. Thereafter, it’d sink bone deep and frazzle her spellslicer while Stello’s feet inched him back to maintain his reach advantage over her and keep himself outside of the range of her fist. Additionally, he suddenly tilted his body to the right, left side inching forward, again using a lesser but useful mechanic of his spirit bubble while a quick drawn barrier manifested below to keep Crystal's ball bearings at bay while he moved. It wrapped around his legs all around, barely offering enough room to pace back and forth or throw a punch. Meanwhile, the spirit bubble moved with his body, meaning that after her spell slicing knife cut through it, her fist would go right through and into the hole she had just created in it. In the moment it would take her to realize that her right fist was being parried towards her left at the wrist by the spirit bubble, Stello unleashed a powerful and fluid left hook aimed at her right ribs. Earlier, he threw a jab through one of the holes in his shield, but it should become clear to the Guardian now that he had done it out of deception. He could punch through it if he wanted, apparently. As that exchange ended, the spirit bubble would crumble away into nothingness, replaced by an equally intense spirit surge building over his body again. Fight me with fists and I’ll let all this shit go out the window.

We really haven't been enforcing time dqs. We haven't had anything ridiculous so far. I might prefer to keep it flexible for now. Aside from that, yeah, Red's in charge of my match now!

Might make sense and it might not because of how few fighters we got left. If it gets to take too long, some fights may begin before rd 1 is completely over but we'll have to see what's up.

Haven't decided yet! I'll let you know. Gotcha! Thanks for letting me know. Maybe she'll stick her nose in soon before the 2nd round begins though. Looking all the way forward! Don't break your computer moving or anything.

No problem man. Thanks a lot for at least giving it a whirl. Can't force you to like something you're just not good with. I came like | | this close to signing up in the GCL but I didn't think it was responsible of me so maybe I'll catch you in the VCL sometime, or maybe in just a GCL style recreational match some time. Anyway, how so? Neither Corban or myself have been citing speed or strength in any overt way that allows your statement to connect for me. Nothing like, "The attack would rip Stello in half" or "Crystal's head would get punched clean off her shoulders". I did describe pieces of furniture getting destroyed but that was just for effect on my part. There is counter evidence. Crystal channeled a spirit surge out of her body that was prepped once without using any preps of her own. Stello also struck Crystal with that spirit surge not because it was prepped once but because his foot already being in contact with the couch as she jumped on it provided a situational advantage outside of anything to do with preps so this also doesn't connect for me.

Alright, no more of this! Thanks for trying to clear it up nevertheless Pandorite. No changes have been made yet. In all actuality the character I'm playing wouldn't kill anybody either. Even if I were to implement the lethality rule where people come back to life or whatever that turns out to be, that character probably wouldn't be trying to disintegrate people or cut them in half. Reason why I'm interested in allowing death is because in implementing an end review phase, I feel I've taken another step closer to the VCL. In and of itself that's not a bad thing, the VCL is great, so my reason for feeling that way comes from something else, that being the idea that it wouldn't be good to have two overly similar ( although I'm not convinced they're all too similar just yet ) T1 styles on the forum.

Unfortunately, lotsa people have been dropping out. Mostly due to irl situations. A few people have had completed matches for a while now and are waiting for their next matches, some of which I'm guessing are or were in contact with the other judges other than me. So I can put things into perspective, I'm doing a little roll call. I need to know who is all still around because some may have been more in contact with the judges assigned to their matches than me. A few I already know are still around, like @Puranetto Ueivuzu @Corban @Haelstrom and @MelonHead so this isn't for them. This is for: @bigfatcat @Kasai Uchiha @Sigil Warden Ya'll still with me? Aside from that, one thought I'd like to float out is that after watching people drop like flies the way they have, it seems more and more like bracket tournaments like these are impractical. Heat style tournaments like what the VCL has going on or stuff like what OIC has seem like they might be better options. Not saying I'm ready to toss this tournament or anything, I'm going to stick by it to the end! In the meantime, maybe some of us can run shenanigans in the out of combat thread eventually.

Take care of business young bull. Valucre will still be here when you've got everything sorted out.

Gonna miss you man! Well, your brain mostly. The rest of you is useless to me. I feel this way about everyone I consider a friend so don't sweat it. Looking forward to whenever you come wandering back!