GT2008 Round 1: #15 Darion Ragnar versus #30 Jessica Tell

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First post: Jessica Tell
Restrictions: None.

Please remember to be mindful of the Official Tournament Rules.

• There will be a 30 day time limit on all matches.
• There will be a 3 day response time limit on all matches.
• If an opponent does not show within the first 7 days, they will be replaced.
• Actions will be voided if the poster can not accurately explain them within the post.
• All participants will display sportsmanlike conduct.

All matches will take place in a nondescript (and mostly destructible) ring 30 meters in diameter, made of the same flat white marble as the rest of the GT Dimension's buildings. An additional 10 meters of grass extends outward from the edge of the raised ring, finally meeting a 10 meter wall which rises into the stands surrounding the ring. The descent to the ground from the ring is a mere meter, and serves as a clearly defined boundary between the out-of-bounds area and the actual combat arena.

At no point in time are the competitors permitted to touch the ground at any point outside of the ring, or the match will end in a ring-out, declaring the remaining party the winner. Transversal outside of normal four-dimensional timespace (or, at least as normal as the GT Dimension can be) as well as backwards transit on the plane of time will result in the offending party being disqualified.

The stands surrounding the ring are filled with spectators that will have arrived just prior to the start of the tournament (by just a few days). At no point during a match should harm come to the audience, else the immediate disqualification and forceful removal of the offending party will become the primary focus of the GT League staff.

“Christ.” Jessie breathed.

It was impossible to hear herself over the roar of the crowd; it was the first time a fight that she had been in had had a roaring crowd. Even if she had tried there was no way that she could say something loud enough for her to hear short of yelling at the top of her own lungs. There certainly was a pressure in the air that she could feel pressing on her person, a unidentifiable excitability that reverberated through the air. To say it was unsettling to the assassin was a bit of an understatement, Jessie’s stomach turned while she climbed onto the flat surface of the ring. Being the object of interest for a crowd of people had never been something that she ranked very highly on things to be prepared for, and as she looked around she could only think with a sinking realization that the rest of the tournament was going to be much the same.

The announcer who had called the two competitors to the ring stood between the two, dressed in a fine suit as one would expect from an announcer. “This is a no holds barred tournament, remember that no harm can come to the audience, and if you step out of the ring its considered a ring out.”

Admittedly Jessie was only half listening to the rules; while the announcer was talking between the two competitors her own gaze had moved past him to the man who was to be her opponent. It wasn’t necessarily a stare off, she didn’t really care much about the psychology of battle, it wasn’t something that she readily understood having spent most of her life killing from the shadows rather than existing on the battlefield. Rather she was assessing her situation, a flat arena offered no support of any kind and beyond her stealth suit she had no protection to speak of. Unfortunately for both the fighters, they seemed to be gun men, which meant that it would come down to whichever fighter had the best straightforward skill.

Jessie breathed again, hand moving to the grip of her gun. “I say I want to hone my skills in battle and the first fight turns out to be a coin toss. Typical.”

“Start when I say begin.” The announcer orated, lifting his hand up to the air for a moment before dropping it suddenly. “Begin!”

Reacting immediately Jessie drew God from its holster with her gun hand and reached into a pouch behind her back to draw a clip for the gun. God, Jessie’s aptly named gun, had undergone quite a few modifications over the years mostly around the aim and handling of the gun. Paired with Jessie’s natural affinity for placing the gun where it needed to be, factoring in kickback, and a multitude of other finite observations that she could never consciously list; God was as much an extension of Jessie’s body as any professional warrior’s sword. It had never been necessary as a trained assassin to learn to use a weapon to such a degree, but Jessie had never been normal in any respect.

“Twelve shots.” Jessie reminded herself while sprinting around the edge of the ring.

If she had any chance of winning, Jessie needed to rely on her tactical experiences throughout her life. Since the ring had no cover for her to duck behind she needed to either be faster than a bullet or to create her own cover. It wasn’t necessarily impossible for Jessie to dodge a bullet, but it required her to watch her opponents shots with such focus that it was nearly impossible for her to do for long periods of time.

Early on after seeing the guns on her opponents person she had decided that she was going to make her own cover. Aiming her gun at the ground as she traveled quickly around the edge of the arena, Jessie started firing shots into the clay surface of the ring, causing dirt and debris to kick up in a cloud around her body. The day was just temperate enough that the subtle breeze of the area wasn’t enough to immediately carry away the dirt, a fortunate development for Jessie as she emptied her clip. Dropping the old clip she brought up the other, once again glad she had modified the slide for easy clip changing.

Without a moment’s reprieve she stopped her sprint and vaulted out of the cloud of dust and debris that she had created, keeping her body low to the ground and scanning for her opponent. Upon finding him she lifted her hand gun and waited to make her shot, Jessie might not have been the fastest gun in the west, but she had the advantage of being accurate even when moving at high speeds and awkward positions. She was much like a machine in that respect, able to calculate her own shots without realizing that she was calculating them and make them with fairly good accuracy. Unfortunately she also had to worry about the audience; a stray shot could easily lead to a murder that she didn’t intend to commit.

Just as she was about to hit the ground Jessie made her shot, a bank shot toward the competitors right hip, just low enough that she wouldn’t have to worry about hitting the audience. Taking her attention of the shot, Jessie turned to making sure that she wasn’t prone when hitting the ground. Age had put a bit of a damper in her acrobatic prowess, however her fitness regimen kept her limber enough to roll as she hit the ground, quickly raising back to her feet and training her gun back to her opponent.

Replacement: Darion Ragnar
Fight Completion Deadline: August 7th

Asurai did not show up, and as a result his position in the Grand Tournament is to be filled by the above.

Silence: utter, total, complete, it consumed the warrior’s mind. The stillness came from within, the quiet like an ethereal eruption, forcing its way outward and filling his helmet. It was deafening him, focusing him. Honor, Discipline, and Word - the three tenants of the Warrior’s Code. Over and over they flashed in his mind, each repetition narrowing his thoughts, honing his vision, clearing his soul. They were his father’s words, and his memory gave Darion strength; strength beyond that of men, beyond that of mortality, beyond that of swords and spells. The memory of Aaron Ragnar made the dragonslayer who he was at the very core of things, and at the very core of things, Darion was a man.

Finality came in the form of thunder, a tidal wave of vocalized bloodlust falling upon the blacksmith with enough force to nearly make him stagger. It was the crowd, and their roar only intensified as the fully-armored swordsman appeared from the far side of the coliseum. Whatever had been pressing upon Darion’s mind until that point had been crushed, unquestionably dominated by his self discipline. He had left it all in the corridor behind him. Now, as each step brought him ever closer to the place of contest, everything in the warrior’s world was confined to a circle of marble roughly a hundred feet across. It was time to be a gladiator once more.

A single step lifted Darion up and onto the stone plateau. The opponent – Jessica was her name – stood there, directly opposite of him. Truth be told, she was beautiful, albeit strangely dressed and looking sparsely-armed; if experience teaches anything, though, it is that appearances are nearly always deceptive. The behemoth of a man shifted his weight and a gauntlet wound its way around a hilt wrapped in dragonhide. Metal that could have been forged in the furnaces of gods glistened in the relentless sunlight. There were three: the lithe woman, the well-dressed announcer, and the sword-toting blacksmith. Soon there would be only two, and after a time, one. It was the way of things.

“Start when I say begin,” cried the man in the tie. His hand rose like a wave, hesitating at its crest, then falling dramatically, bursting against every wall with a resounding “Begin!”

In perfect coherence with the fall of the man’s hand the woman bolted, drawing some sort of tool from the sheath at her side. Instead of charging the warrior, however, she moved around the arena’s edge, using something akin to magic to rend the earthen plate they stood upon. Plume after plume of ruddy dust leapt into the air, choking the visibility within the ring until it coughed, sputtered, and died away. It had happened in a moment, and suddenly Darion’s expectations were realized – his opponent had been a fast one, to the point of being stunning. Her speed promised to make this fight a challenge. The concealment she had crafted, though, would not.

Darion lunged, a single kick of his back leg sending him toward the dust cloud with remarkable velocity. In nothing short of a heartbeat the warrior landed, feet planted; and, still using his built momentum, wretched his torso to the side, slinging the gargantuan blade from its scabbard. Reddish-brown smog ruptured as if some great clay-colored beast had been gut from the inside-out, the gleaming sword dispelling the storm in a single, fell swing. Jessica, however, had escaped: the cloud alone was slain.

Instantly the swordsman spun, peridot eyes keen, experienced – there! Jessica sailed through the air, something in her grasp, her eyes locked upon Darion like a hawk before its dive. The dragonslayer moved, instinct driving him. Explosive he was, his strength giving him speed and his speed giving him strength, carrying him across the gap like a thrown javelin. Jessie’s tool barked, a flash of white-hot winking at the blacksmith – and, just as abruptly as he had begun to move, Darion slowed to a halt. It took a moment, realization hindered by recognition, like a familiar smell that’s hard to place: pain. The warrior looked down to his right side. Scarlet oozed from betwixt the armor of his torso and his thigh, a strange, tingling heat crawling from his hip out and to the surrounding area.

… the Hell?

One more time the combatants’ eyes met, darker green against a lighter hue of the same. What triumph or hesitations Jessica Tell’s gaze held within were past the swordsman across from her. Those twin rings of viridian looked to her with a grin, a smile that mimicked the one hidden beneath a helm of dragonsteel. He had underestimated her, and he had paid for it – none too dearly, his hipbone unscathed to the best of his knowledge – but he had still paid for it. For a brief pause the opponents shared a moment, a second that the slayer took to give much-earned respect. And then, as is the habit of time, it passed.

Darion lifted the seven foot blade, moving to grip the sturdy hilt with both hands. The leather wrappings creaked, whining against the swordsman’s grip. An armored foot slid forward, balance changing, weight shifting. The Redblade flashed once, the sun’s rays beaming down its ludicrous length – a single, long breath crept its way from his lungs. The crowd was hushed, anticipation stretching the air so thin that a single word threatened to break reality. Honor, Discipline, and Word.

It was with the suddenness of the apocalypse that Darion leapt, sword reared back, fight in his eyes. The aether could not restrain him, and as such seemed to spur him on, his heavy frame clearing yards in the breadth of a blink. A lightning flash of sunlight and dragonsteel, that’s all the crowd could have seen of the massive upswing that arced through the air, more than two hundred pounds of raw weight heaved with a might greater than Samson’s. The blade reached the extent of the cut as the warrior landed; and yet with a twist of his body he wrenched the Redblade around as if he paid no heed to the laws of inertia or gravity – the sword carved through what few wisps of clay-dust remained, ensuring the woman an unpleasant surprise if she had managed to avoid the previous blow.

Honestly, Darion hoped the girl hadn’t underestimated him the way he had her. If that was the case, this battle was going to be brief.

Perhaps it had been too much to hope that when she got to fighting the crowd would be drowned out by the same kind of focus that she used when sniping from a rooftop or sneaking about a dark room. As Jessie rolled and skidded on the ground however she realized that sneaking and sniping required a different kind of focus entirely. She could hear it all, like a tide rolling in and out with every apex and dip of their moves. Jessie could feel the people in the stands on the edge of their seats, anxiety coursing through them and by extension the air around them, ready to burst out in standing applause as one or the other fighter met their defeat.

It was the thought of defeat that kept Jessica focused despite the cocktail of pressure, noise and motions going on around her. Even though she could feel it all, the assassin had her opponent in focus, more out of fear than her actual ability to overcome her surroundings. It was almost funny to her, she had lived a life where being hyper aware of her surroundings just meant surviving the job. Coming into an arena where she needed to focus her attention away from her surroundings to survive was just another thing she hadn’t counted on when entering the tournament.

At least there was him, she could only call him statuesque, an image straight out of a dark fantasy novel. He was a big man, not only taller than her by quite a bit, but heavily built into a sort of grizzled perfection that she expected many armor wearing knights looked like when they had to wear steel plated armor as part of their job. There was a difference between armor and the heavy suit of metal that the man who had been selected as her opponent was wearing however. His armor seemed thicker, more exaggerated as though he wore it to intimidate his opponents more than protect himself from harm.

Intimidation worked exceedingly well, Jessie was pointedly aware that Darion Ragnar could probably rip her in half with his bare hands. Unfortunately for her however he wasn’t working with just his bare hands, instead the armored man carried an impressively long and thick blade that dwarfed even Ragnar in height. The very fact that the man had carried such an extreme blade into the arena was proof enough to the assassin that he knew how to use it with enough precision to kill another man. Whether or not he was actually good with the sword was a different matter entirely, one that Jessie didn’t much care about. It didn’t matter if he was a professional swordsman, that blade wasn’t going to leave Jessie any chance to survive if she let herself get hit by it.

Getting to a crouching position with her gun, still trained on the warrior she noted that he stopped and looked at his hip than back to Jessie. The transgender assassin wasn’t exactly certain what his face looked like behind his helmet, she wasn’t even certain if she had actually done any damage to the man at all. Jessie was in fact a sharp shooter, but being able to shoot into the nooks and crannies of someone’s armor while moving was impossible even for Jessie. The unfortunate truth however was that Jessie was going to have to find the weaknesses in the man’s armor in order to hinder him enough to make the sharp shots that would eventually defeat him.

“Either that or I can just get cut in half.” Jessie perked up as the man started to move again. “Alright then, let’s go gigantor.”

Not counting on the speed at which the man could swing his sword, Jessie panicked as the man lunged forward bringing his sword forward in a large overhead arch. The most dangerous thing an assassin could do was base their reactions on instinct alone, however something about staring down a heavy blade seemed to send Jessie’s IQ down into single digits as her body reacted on its own. Leaping out of the way of the blade as it crashed down against the stage Jessie seemed to regain her facilities just in time to see the man seem to ignore the forces on his body and swing the blade in a horizontal arch toward Jessie with the same inhuman speed that he had swung it with when he had used his body to increase his force.

A single thought rang out in Jessie’s head as she watched the man swing his blade for a second time. ‘Oh shit!’

There probably wasn’t another phrase that could have been thought in the whole English dictionary that would properly match the terror of having a large blade careening toward ones body at high speeds. Jumping back along the blades, Jessie used her own momentum to drop just under the blades path, closing her eyes as a sudden gust of wind carrying debris rushed past her just after the blade. Despite her effort to dodge the blade, Jessie wasn’t able to dodge the pelting of clay against her body, and while most of it just pelted her body armor a few struck her in the face causing a few cuts and bruises to swell up to the surface of her skin. Between that and being rent in half by a large sword however, Jessie was somewhat glad she had chosen the latter. It was to her credit that she had gymnastic training to tumble and drop safely under the blade, what had saved her life however was being able to think on her abilities.

Tumbling back onto her haunches, Jessie quickly reached into her side pouch pulling out three smoke capsules between her fingers before vaulting toward the warrior. Unfortunately for Jessie there were only two places in the battle that she deemed reasonably safe. Out of reach of his blade, where he would have to move in order to put her in reach was probably the safest bet. There Jessie could take a couple of seconds at least to line up her shots, however with the way the man moved he would constantly force her into places where she had to move away from the blade putting her into a consistent defensive. The other safe spot in the battle was just inside his reach, though that put her in a position where she would have too react much quicker to punches and kicks from the man. However in that position he wouldn’t be able to use his blade to any effect, the fatal flaw of its design was that while it had a huge reach, it didn’t necessarily have much maneuverability even if he could swing it at high speeds.

Fortunately for Jessie the man had already extended himself with the second swing which gave her a window of opportunity to get close. Moving quickly she darted in to closer to the man throwing one smoke capsule down hard causing it to plume outward further than her dirt cover from earlier had. When Jessie had moved into the cloud she altered her path so that she came out of her smoke cover to the side of Ragnar, this time throwing her second and third capsule toward the man’s helmet.

The capsules weren’t small enough to actually be thrown into the eye slot of the helmet, even so there was no guarantee that they would break once they hit his face. In order to cut down his reaction to her getting close to him however, she needed to create some sort of cover. All she really wanted inside the helmet was the smoke that the capsules created. In order to do that she needed to make sure that both the capsules broke.

Stopping her sprint toward him momentarily, Jessie lifted her gun and aimed toward the center point of the two capsules, which just so happened to be the large warriors forehead. Taking no time to savor the beauty of the shot, Jessie let her God sing her praises before focusing her mind on the bullet. In the multiverse it wasn’t uncommon for people to have paranormal abilities that helped them in strange ways. Those who were prone to violence in particular were known to have a wide array of different abilities, most of which were cultured by the destruction of their own home worlds and the need for survival. Jessie wasn’t any different, once her world had been destroyed and she was left behind she somehow gained the ability to affect multiverse, to create small fluctuations in dimension.

By focusing on her shot she was able to not only able to splice the bullet into two traveling at the same velocity, but alter both their trajectories toward the smoke capsules as well. As expected, her trick shot caused the capsules the break and the smoke to plume outward, however whether it did what it intended to the warrior was up the next few moments. Jessie continued onward, now darting inside the reach of her opponent and immediately aiming for the underarm of his sword carrying arm. Jessie was faintly aware that if he could see what she was doing Jessie would probably end up tossed bodily away or worse as she quickly lined up the shot. It was the reason that she wasted no time making the shot, the danger that she put herself in by placing herself that close to Ragnar was enough to put Jessie Tell on edge.

Of all the titles a man can bear, there are none that equate to “dragonslayer”. A king may rule a nation, having conquered it with no other wit than his own; a lord, prince, duke, or earl can possess treasures and wealth from the world over. A master craftsman may make things gilded and covered in gems, items so precious that eyes and hearts from every culture covet them. Magicians wield the very fabric of space and time, able to bend reality to their will, able to create and destroy with the same fickle nature as the gods. Even priests and their clergy demand the respect of both the mortal worlds, as well as those beyond our comprehension, far and deep into the realm of faith.

To all of these, only one man lifts his chin, refusing to accept an inferior status. No one bows to him; no one places a crown upon his head. There is no silver scepter that he carries to make his might known, no signet ring or velvet cloak draped across his shoulders. With his hands he can make nothing so well as he makes war. Archmages respect him and fear him, unable to do what he does with the same level of valor. The High Priest gives to him his blessing freely, placing a greater faith into him at times than he does to his own god.

When the village burns, they come to him. When the waters boil and the castle falls, they call upon him. When blood stains the fields crimson and ash chokes out the sky, they search him out and him alone. Of all the creatures of land, sea, and sky, he chooses to hunt the greatest. He does not battle with man, beast, monster, or god; but challenges the single creation that induces terror in all things of heaven and earth – and for the wyrm he is the one and only source of fear. No one can claim to be his kindred. His body is covered in the scars of his labor; but with lost flesh he has bought strength incomparable and legendary status. He is the hero, the champion, the mythological man. He is the dragonslayer.



An eruption of black and gray consumed Darion’s vision, a haze of smoke veiling his eyes to the world around him; and, in that instant, the warrior suddenly found himself in his element. It was as if he had stepped back in time, had placed himself into the den of a dragon, the smog that consumed the place thick enough to strangle, acrid enough to force tears. Without sight and without smell one could only rely on instinct, trusting wholly in the ability to react – and that reaction would have to keep you from the maw of the wyrm, to place the tip of the sword precisely where it should go. In that instant, Darion let his ears attune to the movement of his opponent, his reflex explosive in their workings.

Jessie’s strategic distraction backfired. The fog her smoke bombs created would end up obscuring the instinctual attack – that is, if it could even be seen in the first place, the sword arm thrown backwards at a speed incomparable. Lead rang against dragonsteel, in no way a match for the mythical armor and thus rejected, but the sound would be drowned out completely by the roar of the crowd. Their eyes couldn’t see it coming, but instead they simply knew the metal-encased elbow was hurling backwards, the power behind it not the sort to toss the lithe assassin through the air but to cave her chest in completely.

Darion’s reverse swing brought him fully around, facing opposite he had been not a second before. He kicked outward and dropped, marble cracking and clay spouting dust as his weight hit the arena floor. It was a roll, backwards and over his right shoulder, that distanced him from the gunslinging woman; the fact that he could be so maneuverable in so much armor a testament to his surreal strength. Returning to his feet, the behemoth warrior stood, taking his place: the direct center of the stone circle.

His chest heaved, the diamond-hard breastplate rising and dropping with every breath. Smoke as black as midnight curled up into the sky, pouring out of his helm; and at that moment Darion looked more like something risen from the very darkest pits of Hell, a figment of the darker parts of the imagination. With renewed sight he gazed across the battleground, eyes falling upon the woman that showed no fear, no relent, that crystal-green stare piercing the last bit of haze and completing the nightmarish picture. Aside from crimson now drying upon his hip the warrior was entirely unphased.

Only enough to catch his breath – that is how much time was taken before the Redblade was twirled in the air, all seven feet gleaming as the razor tip came to face the ground. Both hands wound their way about the lengthy handle, solidifying their grip with an audible leather squeal. Briefly the dragonslayer looked to be a knight saluting his lord – but only until he reared back, lifting the sword aloft. Then, with the same blow that had snuffed out the lives of countless foes, the sword was brought down, half the blade buried clean in the marble.

The crowd fell silent, stunned. Bewilderment reigned within the coliseum, faces contorted in every sort of confused expression. Was he quitting? Was he giving up, showing his submission by tossing down his weapon? Perhaps it was some ceremony, some mantra that would summon forth a power to overwhelm Jessica? Before any conclusions could be made, however, the answer fell upon them – like thunder.

A lightning-crash split the auditorium, cracks creeping out from the buried blade and across the clay. The Redblade had gone from tool of death to a point of leverage, and with all the might within him he pulled back on the sword’s handle. To say that Darion was superhuman would be ludicrous, an irreparable injustice – Darion was a legend, larger than life, something truly epic; and with the strength that was the stuff of myths he heaved upon that hilt, the stone circle before him unable to resist his power. White and brown shot up from the nearly instantaneous fissure in the battle pad, dust spitting into the sky from the rapidly splitting arena. One half of the floor, crudely-edged, lifted clear of its sister side, bits and fragments falling haplessly away. And then, with a deafening roar and a violent jerk upon the handle, the entire half-moon of marble flipped upside down, the impact busting it into innumerable chunks.

As if the thunderous reshaping of the battlefield was not enough, the screams of every onlooker soon joined the crescendo. Every man, woman, and child rose to their feet, pumping their fists, stomping their feet, their trill whistles screeching through the aether. Now they understood, and in that understanding they found a new hero.

Stepping back and spreading his feet, Darion took a ready stance once again. The Redblade was unscathed, its craftsmanship unquestionably masterful, magical. The greatsword was held away from the warrior, both hands upon the hilt, blade off to his right side. Jessica Tell would have to come to him now, the acrobat forced to leave the side she had stood upon – the side he had made a ruin – or face a ring-out. With emerald eyes darkened by expected bloodshed the dragonslayer searched for her, hastily honing in upon his foe. He stood prepared, muscles tensing for the swing to come; every ounce of him would be put into it, the strength of his father and the father before him coursing through his veins. Coiled like a spring, drawn taught as a bow, Darion waited for his opportunity.

So much for a ranged fight.

...James...

For whatever reason Jessie's distraction tactic failed completely, Ragnar in all his strength and glory seemed to be able to puzzle out where Jessie was with no problems. Whether or not he was a trained blind fighter was beyond Jessie's reasoning, however she recalled having gotten the drop on him before with her initial attack. It almost seemed like something inside him had triggered, the large warrior seeming to change into something primal as he let his armor take the brunt of her shot while turning in on Jessie to spike the woman with his elbow. It was a bone breaking attack, pain shooting through the entirety of her body as she hurtled backwards in a chaotic roll. It was only because of her quick reactions that Jessie was able to escape her ribs being shattered completely, her armor took the brunt of the damage with a gel layer in the chest area for just such occasions, but it would have been worse if she hadn't leapt back at the last moment. It wasn't meant to dodge the attack, rather Jessie had needed to leap in order to save herself from maximum damage. By moving with his momentum and offering up as little resistance to his attack as possible she had made it possible for her to roll with the attack, though she still maintained quite a bit of blunt damage from hitting the ring hard and rolling.

James, listen.

"Did anyone get the number on that semi that passed through?" Jessie breathed, coughing once.

Pushing herself shakily to her knees, Jessie clutched her chest breathing heavily as she scanned the ring for her target, for Ragnar. Much to the assassin's surprise, the armored fighter had moved quite a distance from where they once stood. The only evidence that they had ever been there were faint wisps of smoke dissipating slowly into nothingness. Meanwhile Ragnar had launched into his own set of actions, spinning his sword with such amazing velocity that Jessie could feel the pressure it created from her own position. Then without a moments respite his muscles flexed under his armor and he brought his massive blade down to the ring making the earth seem to shake under the power of the strike. However the shaking seemed to pass, mixing with the hushed silence that the crowd seemed to have fallen into. Jessie's thoughts seemed to mask the hushed whispers that floated in the air around her, had Ragnar given in, surely a couple impressive shots weren't enough to reduce such a massive specimen to shaking in his boots. Jessie had expected an attack of some kind, when none came she able to finally stand and attempt to plan another offensive, gripping her gun tightly she tried to search for a weakness, a chink in his armor as it were.

James, I'm a lie, I'm not really your sister. Your sister is dead. Father... Father killed her.

Jessie's plan wasn't far in the works when the crowd erupted from whispers into a full on gale of surprised cheering, Ragnar had stood, and from under where his blade had bin the ground began to rapidly fissure. Unsure of what was happening, Jessie just stood and watched ready to react at a moments notice, surely there was going to be some sort of attack but she couldn't figure out what it was. Running in blindly would only spell defeat, she needed to watch and wait until her moment to strike, she really didn't have any other choice against an opponent like Ragnar. He was the type that the crowd enjoyed, a rippling mass of muscles heightened to the peak of human perfection by years of experience in battle, the type that stood as a testament to what people perceived as strength. Jessie was strong, but not in the way that Ragnar was strong, she came from a different background where she had to use a different kind of strength completely. Emotional strength that began to grow from the first time her mother had been hit by her father, and kept getting stronger as she continued through her life. Jessie tell would never be the crowd favorite, she was a stranger to the way of warriors, a corporate assassin and former agent of a secret government organization. That was the reason that Jessie Tell was strong, she had overcome adversity before, and she was determined to do it again.

Fissures in the ring continued to branch rapidly out of the main fissure seeming to mark the advent of a second fissure, only seconds before it happened had Jessie realized that Ragnar hadn't been using an attack. Or rather, he had been attacking Jessie indirectly by destroying the ring, where he had the advantage in strength, she had the advantage in mobility. By taking away her ability to move by destroying the majority of the ring he could make sure that he had a definitive advantage over her in the battle. It wasn't the type of situation that Jessie had wanted to see, she had been clinging to the faint hope that because he was some sort of muscle bound fool who would just continue to swing his massive blade at her. However with the attack on the ring she had to give up that illusion and embrace the reality that under all that armor was a person with just as much experience and thoughtfulness as her, a grizzled warlord tried and tested by the flames of battle. As the ring began to shake and shudder under her feet Jessie had no choice but to move, plumes of dirt and dust shooting out from under her feet as she leapt and tumbled from buckling pieces of ring. Her mobility was going to be curtailed under her feet and she was powerless to stop it, her mind raced with ideas that all led to her own defeat and for the first time in the battle Jessie was truly unaware of what her possibilities for recovery were.

You wanted to protect me James, I wanted to protect you. We've been protecting each other for so long. But I can't protect you from beyond the grave, I can't beat death.

Jessie was strong, acrobatic and experienced in killing, however her fancy footwork wasn't proving enough to get to the side of the ring that wasn't sinking into the ground. All the plumes of dirt were hindering her, forcing her to backtrack and try to find another path across the buckling clay to get to the safe side. Even if she did get the safe side she would immediately be prone to an attack by Ragnar, Jessie wouldn't be able to easily dodge a strike from that blade with so little ground to move on. It was desperation, a faint hope that she could pull out of defeat that kept her moving toward the safe side of the ring, she still had her gun, she still had near full health. There was nothing keeping her from trying her best, and using all her available skills to pull out some sort of victory over the hero of the ring. Perhaps she could even bring herself to come in close and use her knife to get in some well placed stabs to some vital positions under his armor. Even if she didn't have all her mobility she could still move circles around him, Ragnar might have been fast, but there were just places where his armor wouldn't allow him to move like her own armor would allow her to move.

There had to be a way, there was always a way.

I can't protect you for real James. So wake up... Wake up and protect yourself.

Life had always been bad to James Tell, from the moment his father had thrown his sister's body into a wall and snapped her neck he had spiraled downward into a self loathing that even his high school therapist couldn't understand. It was no wonder to him that he had spent the better part of his life in a skirt and bra trying to hide his true identity from the world with his sisters identity, or rather what he had thought his sister would be like had she had the chance to grow up. Some might have called it sick and twisted, but no one had really understood the bond between James and Jessie Tell, the willingness to protect each other from everyday life was their guiding light, what had pushed them both through tough times as small children. James couldn't be physically protected by his sister anymore, but on an emotional level she offered safe harbor of sorts even while she was dead and buried. James had always been thankful for that, and receded within himself to become a strong willed woman.

Dust had covered his vision completely, the only information he was able to gather about his sudden situation was that the ground under his feet was slowly falling into some sort of man made fissure. Reacting immediately, the male half of the Tell siblings jumped up and out of the dust cover in a amazing show of strength and grace, with one leap he made it from the sinking half of the ring to the stable half, his cold gaze resting on the massive man in armor. Jessie had apparently tangled with something that was far out of her league, she was better at handling situations which required tact and finesse. When it came to pushing herself past her human limits she was stopped by what she thought her female body was capable of, instead of growing into a physical protector she had become a divine vassal, a source of inspiration. James however knew the body better than his sister did, he knew that long before it was a female form it had belonged to a man, a strong man who could protect his sister.

By the weight of the gun in his hand alone he could tell how many bullets were contained in the clip, necessary information if he was going to attempt to take out the behemoth that had caused the arena to crag under his strength. Reaching back behind him James pulled out the survival knife that his sister had hesitantly bought for tactical purposes, and dashed toward his opponent with nearly unfathomable speed. If the man had swung his sword he couldn't possibly swing it while James was covering the distance in a straight line, the he might have cut down the mobility and kept James from keeping himself at a range by taking out a bulk of the ground that he could stand on. However it was a double edged move, by taking out the factor of range he had shortened the distance between the two fighters, making it easier for James to get into that bubble where he would be safe from that large blade that the man had carried. Without a moments hesitation or some fancy move that his sister would have done, James thrust his knife hard toward the large man's inner leg, pushing himself close enough to the man that he could smell him. Being that close and using his knife with his off hand, James was attempting to create an opening, quickly moving his gun to aim once again toward the large man's under arm and squeezing off yet another shot.

You won't always need me James, my brother.