1443/Flames and Shields

Flames and Shields
Date of Scene:	23 April 2024
Location:	Obsidian Tower
Synopsis:	Sunbreaker decides to train with Aloisia. To her surprise? She finds the girl... competent. Huh. Now she has to meet this Otto, surely such a great warrior will have a leader who... damnit.
Cast of Characters:	Hinoiri Kirara, Aloisia Stauss

---

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker had agreed to meet with Aloisia, one of the companies new recruits, for a simple training session. Find out what the girl could do, basically. She might be competent, who knew?

She was a shielder of sorts, though. And Sunbreaker knew just how effective 'Not being punched' could be. Lots of people had punched her at times, making her wish she'd had some kind of defense or another at said time. If this girl could be such a solution... well... best to find out now.

She was sitting in one of the larger arenas, arms crossed, fire surrounding her body. It was a big, simple, empty area.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
Aloisia Stauss was still a relative unknown, she'd actually been going out of her way to mainly take the small jobs, the odd jobs nobody seemed to care for, for the most part. Things that flew under the radar but still got her a reasonable amount of pay, even if it didn't tend to get her much respect.

Of course, basically every time she was offered any sort of training or sparring, or otherwise people got in her face? Yeah she was more than happy to take them up on it, so when she received the invite/made the agreement with Sunbreaker, well.

She accepted.

And thus Knight Aloisia stepped through the door of the training arena, already in her full henshin, twin massive shields held in her grasp. 'Defensive Mage' was possibly somewhat of an understatement, really. And not necessarily accurate, but it's easier when people assume that's all she is. "So." She says, as she steps into casual talking range. "Any rules to the fight you want to impose, or just 'don't kill each other and otherwise have fun'?"

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a small nod. "I suppose don't try to kill or maim each other. If you feel you can't take too much more, let me know. I use fire, but I'm generally controlled enough to not burn people unless I want them to burn." Pause. "And I don't dislike you that much yet," she said in a teasing tone. She then stepped back from her. Holding her hands up, fire blazed in them for a moment before she leaped back.

"Hope you don't mind, but I want to see what you can do." The fire shifted from red, to blue, to finally a blazing white. "Shield this!" she yelled before hurtling at her. It was like a very, very tiny white ball of fire...

Until it connected with her shield. Then it erupted, the small sphere that was only about an inch or so wide instantly expanding to nearly a yard in diameter, the heat a blazing inferno of destruction and vicious searing magic.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
"I see, I see. I'll make sure to let you know if I feel like I'm starting to bake in my armor." Aloisia says with a bemused smile. It's the kind of smile that looks like she doesn't believe she'll need to. The tease about not disliking her gets a soft chuckle, "Well! I hope to not change that any time soon, frankly. Making enemies among my allies just sounds like far more trouble than it's worth." Though, it might be fun to fight some of them more often. Hm. The leap backwards is watched calmly by Aloisia, who ... doesn't immediately move.

Red. Blue. White. High temperature flame. Best not to let it even get close. As Sunbreaker yells 'SHIELD THIS'

<REFLEKTIEREN.>
<WAND.>

A pair of distinct, yet similar voices rang out. And two overlaid triangles appear on the ground underneath Aloisia, and a solid sphere of magic surrounds her just before that flame struck.

And it was only moments after that fire struck that an azure glow sparks into life.

<STREUSSCHUSS.>

Through the fire, a scattered burst of magic is sent towards where Sunbreaker had launched the attack from. Through the sounds of magic and fire a low whistle breaks through the air. "Changing to a pure white fire, that's impressive in and of itself. And the heat doesn't disappoint either." She was keeping calm, but once that fire dissipated, it was pretty obvious she was already sweating, even if she managed to avoid the worst of the fire itself.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker gave a small smile when she saw the other girl was, well.... still standing. "Heh. You know, they used to call me 'Dragon Slayer' back home. Not that I ever did, mind. Dragons were our allies. But I had a spell for that. Raw destruction. Could even pierce a dragon's hide. I've only gotten stronger since then. So it seems your shielding is pretty good. A battle can't be won by defending alone, though. So let's see what else you can do."

She disappeared in a burst of flame, appearing high in the air over the arena and sending out three, what could only be called, bolts of flame. While they were destructive, they weren't quite as eruptive as the first blast had been. But they still had quite a bit of heat, kinetic force and, frankly, there were more of them.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
Well. That confirmed something Aloisia suspected; Sunbreaker was an armor breaking specialist. She couldn't help herself.

Aloisia grins.

Even as Sunbreaker disappeared in a burst of flame only to reappear. Teleportation. Fancy. Three bolts of fire sent flying towards her. One of her shields put forward as her other shield is shifted behind her, the central crystal of the back shield glowing ... as she simply LAUNCHES herself through the air, aiming to avoid two of the fire bolts by simply going TOWARDS the most central one to blast through it, tanking the kinetic force and heat as she flies towards Sunbreaker. "I'm the one they send first."

<FREYJA'S>
<Kuss.>

Her shield glows with energy as she attempts to simply BASH straight into Sunbreaker, a burst of energy accompanying the sheer force of the impact alone. "To protect the back line, and break through the opponent's front line. My defenses aren't for me."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker had expected an energy blast or the like... she hadn't expected the girl to do, well... pegasus tactics.

She could appreciate that, though. At least she knew what kind of fighter this girl was.

Unfortunately, Sunbreaker knew how to deal with pegasi fighters. They hit harder and faster than she could, physically. But leverage meant so much more than force. She held out both hands, forming her own barrier, dark energy gathering in front of her.

Aloisia pushed through it in half a second, but it was just enough. Redirecting the girl towards the wall, as Sunbreaker teleported out of the way.

Advantage Sunbreaker. Yup. Please, as if it would be that easy. Sunbreaker's right arm had a big bruise across it now, the blow glancing her side as it passed. Even with her shield, redirecting a lot of the force and teleporting away, it hadn't been enough for her to escape unscathed. She eyed the dark mark on her arm before glancing back up at Aloisia. "Impressive. You can shield and strike with quite a bit of force. But can you hit a moving target?" More orbs of fire formed around her and began to pelt the other girl. Small, frequent blasts. Lots of smoke and light, but not a lot of destruction... Trying to disorient her.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
Calling her faster than Sunbreaker MIGHT be being too kind to her, except for bursts like the launching her own movements were actually pretty muted in general. Floating relatively calmly and moving at ... not quite a leisurely pace, but it was pretty clear that she is, well, not exactly the fastest of fighters.

Still, being redirected into a wall was ... not what she'd expected of Sunbreaker, she'd expected a proper evasion instead. To the point where as she recovers from the impact with the wall, Aloisia is ... clapping. "My, my! And here I expected you to be the flighty, teleporty, dodgy sort, to take the force and weight of the Freyja's Kuss head-on... impressive!"

Her tone wasn't condescending, no, it was a very honest, friendly tone. The tone of someone who was clearly enjoying each moment of this. The question of if she could hit a moving target gets a semi-crossed arm pose from Aloisia, the twin shields floating around her as she taps her chin with one hand.

<FOKUSWAND.>

A shield-shaped 'wall' of force appears between herself and Sunbreaker to absorb the worst of the pelting attacks as Aloisia responds. The others... not quite being 'allowed' through, but just defended by the shields themselves. "Hm. A moving target, it depends on the sort, really. If it's just something moving around, I have the Streuschuss I used before, widespread attacks to capture them."

As Sunbreaker flies around, the devices ping again.

<FALLENWAND>

In front of Sunbreaker's trajectory, one of those magic circles appears, if she doesn't redirect fast enough, once she touched the edges of that magic circle, a four-walled pyramid of force would attempt to enclose around her momentarily.

<MAUEREINSTURZ.>

Said magic circle immediatel began to compress on itself, as the magic of the wall began to overload, before finally BURSTING. "...Or I intercept their trajectory, either with traps. Or myself." She explains cheerfully.

Don't mind the fact her dress was starting to burn at the edges, and her hair was pretty singed. It's fine. This is fine. She reaches a hand up to put out a part of her hair that had actively caught on fire. "This is a really bad matchup though. YOUR attacks are fast, and if I don't intercept them further away from myself, I'm still feeling the worst of the heat. Frankly, unless you prove to be a lot more fragile than you seem, this is going to be a rough fight for me if we draw it out."

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker was, admittedly... being pushed more than she'd like to admit. The girl was strong. Tough. She wasn't a rookie push over. She knew how to fight. Her magic was different, too. Now that she knew how the girl fought, though, she was confident she'd be fine. She could--

Or not.

Suddenly she found herself under a weird four point pyramid. Worse, it was compressing around her and--

As the walls closed in on her, getting smaller and smaller, they'd then begin to expand. All that could be seen inside the pyramid was fire... finally... It exploded. It would be hard to say if it had overloaded and exploded on its own, or if Sunbreaker's fire had been the cause. She was a smidge tinged herself, though. The fires around her were black now. Rolling off her in waves so strong that even across the battlefield the heat could be felt.

"I'm afraid I am *far* from fragile. If there's one thing I've learned, it never matters if you're knocked down... it only matters that you get back up."

She held out her left hand, a small whirling ball of black flame forming... Before expanding and shooting out. A black flaming cyclone of fury and fire twisting through the air at Aloisia. Sunbreaker didn't want to admit it, but... well, there was a reason she was using her left arm now. And while she hid the burns and marks better due to her control of fire, she was already aching all over. The girl had quite a bit of power to her. As shields went, she would be useful. As cannonballs, especially.

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
Once again, one of those almost admiring-sounding low whistles rings out as the shield expands. "It really is different fighting against people than creatures. Though, most people and creatures would probably have a similar response of panic as they felt those walls close in." Black fire, waves of heat reaching her even across the battlefield. Slow steps even as she talked and watched Sunbreaker, always on a slow, calm approach.

"Far from fragile. Ah, that's good."

<TREIBER>
<MODE.>

The bottoms of the twin shields split open, spikes sliding out of the bottom of them as energy arcs between the edges of the shields and that crystal spike. Those twin shields were tracking Sunbreaker with each movement.

A whirling ball of black fire, and in response, again.

<REFLEKTIEREN>
<WAND>

A sphere of magical defense erects around Aloisia, though it's perceptively... thinner? Weaker? Enough to buy her time, most likely, but not enough to stop the black fire outright.

The audible sound of charging energy though... it seems time is exactly all she was trying to buy.

<LADEVORGANG VOLLENDET.>
<PLASMASTOSS.>

From the top of both of those shields, a sphere of charged plasma is launched towards Sunbreaker. Upon impact with her, or a wall, or any sort of barrier, they would explode.

Regardless of the outcome, as the black fire dissipates... Aloisia was now on one knee, breathing heavily.

Look she tanked a lot of hits directly and indirectly, and Sunbreaker wasn't exactly known to be weak. She still had her shields aimed towards Sunbreaker in spite of this, and she didn't look ready to give up yet, but that last attack clearly took a lot out of her.

"I'm willing to call it a draw--" Huff, huff, "...if you are!" She offers, somewhat jokingly.

Hinoiri Kirara has posed:
Sunbreaker hovered in the wait, watching the other girl as she protected herself with small shields. Charging an attack. Heh. The girl had potential. But... Well...

She was new. And in Obsidian there were... tiers, as it were. There were people who Sunbreaker couldn't topple... yet. But there was nobody who could truly match her without dark energy of their own.

Still, the girl had potential. She had power. Skill. Application. Timing.

She'd be useful. So long... as she knew where she stood.

Her eyes glowed red for a moment as the blast came at her... And then it was enveloped in a red shield, surrounding it. It flew through the air... then twirled in the air before being launched RIGHT back at Aloisia, the red barrier slamming into her shields, hard.... then letting the explosion it was holding out.

Sunbreaker then lowered herself to the ground, a cocky, arrogant smirk on her face. She flipped her hair back and started walking towards her. "Yeah. I think we can call it a 'tie'. I don't want to hurt you too much. Come on, kid. You're new here, right? How about I go get you an ice cream. Help you cool off."

Aloisia Stauss has posed:
With her devices aimed out, Aloisia was ready for a counter attack if it continued. What she /wasn't/ expecting, because it's not really A Thing in device magic.

Was her own attack to be redirected at her.

The novelty of the situation was... frankly... pretty distracting. On the other hand, she was pretty sure if those bolts hit her, she'd lose conscious. Luckily, she already had weapons aiming forward. Several quickly charged, small bolts of plasma are launched towards those two incoming charged bolts to strip out some of their power...

Before a quick change from 'TREIBER MODE' to 'WAND MODE' to go on full defense and block her OWN attack, in spite of this still being sent back a good five to ten feet of her devices dragging along the floor, leaving gouges in it.

"Hahaha, man... I've had my attacks turned against me, but never so literally." She says, breathing heavily as she forces herself to standing again, wiping her brow with the back of her arm.

"Yeah, pretty new. Ice cream sounds good. I'm gonna have to learn something to deal with extreme temperatures like that... like... some of the animals I fought were fire breathing but they could do that once or twice, not constantly like that." In spite of the 'tie' that... was probably pretty clearly a loss on her part, she seemed to be keeping good spirits. For the moment.

She can examine the fight in detail and criticize herself later.

"That was a /satisfying/ fight, too... mm. Yep. I'll have to fight you again later. But first, ice cream!" She's leading the way.

Look after subsisting on tasteless energy bars, you learn where to get good food.