The Arena: Tehengu Vs. Rubble Rose

[PyroBlaze]

Well, this was an interesting turn of events. He had signed up for the arena to help keep his skills sharp, but he hadn't really expected to find teammates from EPIC here. When the griffon had found out though, he figured a friendly sparring match would be good, both for building skills and the bonds of working together. 

 

Tehengu rolled his shoulders as he walked into the fighting area of the arena, cracking his neck too. Just because they were on a team, he didn't plan to hold back on her. From what he'd heard about the unicorn, and what he'd seen first-hand during their last mission, Rose could handle herself. She was a good mare too, he was glad they got to work together.

 

That was a matter for another time though, as the large griffon stopped inside the ring, his weapons and armor all on as the former military griffon waited for his opponent to show up. He hoped she took this seriously to not show up with her headphones on, but really he wouldn't really complain if she did.

 

"Come on, Rose, let's get this thing started, shall we?" He called, not actually sure if she could hear him or not, wherever she was. While some might mistake his posture for relaxed, he was on high alert, watching for any signs of attack and his muscles tensed to spring into action at a moment's notice.

[Pretzelparty]

 

 

 

Rose shivered a bit as she stepped out into the cold air of the arena, in all honesty she wasn't feeling too good today. She never did work well with cold weather or snow, and the trip to arena in Whitescar contained quite a bit of both. Rose didn't enjoy being sick and normally anypony around her didn't enjoy her being sick either; mostly because she wasn't able to control her strength as much as she usually did. So far all she had was a headache and the occasional sniffle and cough. 

 

Despite her current condition, one thing she'd had impressed upon her since she was a filly was the importance of keeping one's appointments and this fight was no different. The scarlet maned unicorn slowly strode into the arena, her headphones blaring their loud music as she walked before she took off her coat and and trotmare and left at the arena's entrance for her to pick up when she was done.

 

In preparation for her work with EPIC, Rose had been taking some martial arts classes to she could better defend herself and her teammates, how surprising that in this scenario she may wind up doing some serious harm to one of her team-mates as she was not supposed to pull her punches... and given her current state that may be hard to do anyway. Will her physical prowess may have been out of whack today, her magical abilities were still working perfectly fine.

 

Once The mare was standing opposite tehengu on the other side of the ring, the griffin might notice her head still subtly bobbing; supposedly having the beat from her trotmare still in her head. The pony took a deep breath and looked around the arena and then to her opponent, "Alright then." she said in her usual, dull and un-enthused register, "But I should say I'm sorry in advance for what might happen." She lifted a hoof to brush a bit of her mane out of her face. The mare closed her eyes and soon her horn lit up, her body soon being engulfed by her magical aura that faded after a few seconds. "Okay, my magic works fine, I'll try not to damage to arena too much."

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu's eye focused on Rose as she entered the arena across from him. He gave a small sigh when he noticed the unicorn's head bobbing to a beat. She had probably brought her headphones with her. At least she had removed them before the fight started, that was good. He drew his bow, notching an arrow as he sighted on his opponent. He had made sure that his weapons wouldn't cut or pierce her by capping them, but they would definitely still hurt. 

 

"I know the dangers of battle, even in somewhat controlled conditions like this. Don't worry about me." He said, his eye locked on her as he stood with his bow drawn back, aiming for her chest.

 

"Now, let the battle begin." He stated simply, letting the arrow fly straight towards it's target. As soon as it left, he spread his wings, taking to the air to get a better vantage point. Before the first arrow even made it halfway to it's target, he had another arrow at the ready, watching where she would go to lead his next shot before releasing that arrow as well.

[Pretzelparty]

 

Rose blinked once and as the arrow flew toward her, she surrounded herself with that glow from before. Rose had been practicing this new ability for quite some time, and now the moment of truth had come! The arrow soon made contact with the mare's glowing coat and soon ... vaporized into dust, which Rose shooed away with a hoof. Already she could feel the after effects of her shield, it drained her magic in huge chunks if kept up for very long. Since she couldn't hold this shield up forever she initiated her second plan of action.

 

Rearing back on her hindlegs she summoned up some more magic and channeled it down into her hooves and slammed them down onto the arena floor. Multiple glowing cracks formed on the ground and then the earth beneath her feet collapsed as a cloud of dust and debris shrouded the mare. Whether Razor fired the next arrow or not, He could hear the sound of minor exertion and the shifting of mass and suddenly A gigantic boulder about four times Rose's size emerged from the cloud and arched on a path straight for Tehengu. Rose coughed a bit in the cloud she'd conjured up, Time for the defensive part of her move.

 

The mare summoned up another series of glowing cracks on the ground, this time in a perfect circle around her before hopping back and punching the cut she took from the ground, a dome shaped slab of stone emerging from the floor and soon another series of cracks were formed on it, which was followed by another blow and a series of pebbles and stones encircling the unicorn as she now stood with a shielf made of stone in front of her, nothign fancy, just a tower shaped shield that could be made out through the silhouette of her figure behind the now thinning smokescreen.

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu paused as the first arrow vaporized and Rose hid herself in a bunch of dust. His eye narrowed as he watched the cloud, his second arrow still at the ready. It didn't take long for something to happen, as a large rock was suddenly hurtling right towards him. His eye widened a bit as he gave a powerful flap, pushing himself to the side, out of the path of the boulder. He watched the cloud as it began to dissipate, revealing the rock shield Rose had made with her time.

 

The large griffon hovered in the air, letting out a hum as he looked at the shield, trying to determine any openings he may have to attack with. Unfortunately, he didn't see any at the moment. Still, he fired his arrow, letting it impact the shield to try and test it's strength. The arrow, of course, didn't do much besides bounce off the wall of stone and fall to the ground. He drew another arrow, slowly moving himself to the side to try and get a clear shot on Rose, while also waiting for any opportunities she may give him in the meantime.

 

As he moved, he periodically fired arrows into roughly the same area as the first, trying to make it seem like he wasn't moving. Once that became impossible, he stopped doing that and instead focused on getting around the rest of the shield. As soon as he came around the edge, he aimed quickly and fired towards Rose's head, notching another arrow as quickly as he could before firing that one at her chest area. He was moving through his arrows pretty fast, but as far as he'd seen, he'd only lost a few during this sparring session. One from his first firing and some others from impacting against the rock shield.

[Pretzelparty]

 

 

Well, the rock shield was working out decently. The only issue was that she couldn't remain on the defensive forever. If Rubble Rose was going to win this bout than she had to somehow bring Tehengu down from the skies. Slowly the wheels in her head began to click... yet she wasn't able to think of an idea yet until.

 

*BOP!*

 

"Ow." she said flatly as one of the arrows impacted on her head, that hurt... but hey she actually had an idea now. The mare let the rest of Tehengu's arrows land on various point on her body, She was thankful he'd capped those arrows otherwise she'd be doing quite a passable impression of a porcupine by the end of this fight. 

 

The Redheaded mare narrowed her eyes a moment as she watched the griffin circle around again, just as he was about to pass by the area in front of her shield, she reared back and channeled her magic into both her hooves before raining a flurry of punches upon the shield, cylinders of rock firing from the slab before her and soaring into tehengu's path. Each cylindrical stone was glowing with the unicorn's characteristic magical aura and as soon as the griffin grew close enough the would violently explode, raining bits of rock that would batter his body and wings, unbalancing him with the surprise tactic. While the griffin was distracted with that, Rose Hoisted up the hole-ridden slab and threw it in an arc and once it was behind razor it would detonate violently, the force of the blast sending the griffin back to the ground.

 

"I hope he's okay." She thought to herself as she galloped toward him and leapt up before slamming all her hooves down on the fallen griffin's side, focusing the majority of her strength on his wing and sending a magical jolt through her hooves as well. Once the hit connected Tehengu could feel one of his wing fractured in several places. "Sorry." she said, "But there's not gonna be anymore flying." She then threw another strong magic charged punch that would send the creature flying if it connected.

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu cursed quietly to himself as he passed out of the firing area. Well, he had scored multiple hits on her during that little strafing run, so that was good. Unfortunately, arrows seemed to be a lot less effective than he thought they would be against the mare. Sure, they would be more effective without the caps, but he didn't want to kill her, so they were staying on. Still, he needed a better plan than circling her and shooting her with ineffective arrows, especially since he didn't have enough left to take her down, by his estimate. Well, maybe if he hit her in the right place, but that would be difficult even for him while he was moving like that.

 

Unfortunately, getting lost in thought was not the best idea while in the middle of a battle, which Rose's barrage was all too happy to remind him of. He grunted at the rocks impacting him and distracting him from the bigger threat flying towards him. In fact, he saw the slab just before it flew over his head and exploded behind him, sending him to the ground with a grunt of pain. He groaned a bit as he recovered from the barrage, though he didn't get a chance before Rose was there and attacking him again. 

 

As she landed on his wing, he cried out in pain, feeling the bones break. He hadn't heard what she said over his cry, but he could see the incoming strike, and he knew he had to get out of the way of that. He pushed off of her with all his strength, sending them both sliding away from each other. As he got back to his feet, his broken wing tucked tightly against his side, he fired one last arrow at Rose before dropping the bow and launching himself at her, drawing his greatsword in mid-air as he arced himself towards her. He swung his weapon to utilize his momentum as added force as he gave a battlecry, the capped blade aimed for her. She tried to block with her forehooves, and was actually successful in her attempt, though it didn't help her much as the blow still damaged her and left her open for his next attack, a vicious punch right into her exposed stomach. Giving her no chance to recover, he pressed his attack by letting go of his sword and grabbing her with both talons, picking her up before throwing he back down onto her back. He followed her to the ground, landing on top of her and pressing his knife to her neck, the only weapon he didn't cap.

 

"Yield." He demanded simply, his gaze firm as he held her down with both the knife at her throat and the combined efforts of his other three limbs and his weight in general. "You fought well, but it's over now."

[Pretzelparty]

Rose brought herself back to her hooves as soon as she ceased sliding away, snorting as the dust kicked up form her and her opponent's scuffle irritated her sinuses. She paid it no mind however as she felt a capped arrow land in her chest with a great deal of force behind it. The impact sent her back an inch or two and knocked the wind out her, it was probably going to leave a bruise under her coat. Just as she looked up she saw the griffin's greatsword coming down upon her.

 

The weapon's edge may have been capped like the arrows but being hit by that would be more than a little painful. Conjuring up her spell and swiftly summoning it to her hooves she attempted a risky move she'd seen in movies alot. She clapped her hooves together and more or less caught the blade for a split second. With her magic charged once again into her hooves, her unique magical deconstruction immediately went to work and turned the majority of the length of the sword to dust and left Tehengu with only a hilt in his talons. 

 

"Sorry about your sword." She said with a cough and sniffle, in her usual monotonous register. This apology evidently wasn't received well as the griffin began to rain a series of hooks with outstretched talons, raking over her coat and hide. Tehengu was indeed angry about the loss of his sword but he still had the self control to not try and inflict any serious wounds on the mare. Eventualy, Rose managed to catch and hold one of Tehengu's talon's in her hooves and then the other, her horn still glowing as she held the griffin in place with her limited telekinesis. She could see her opponent about to kick her but soon something happened...

 

"Achiew!" A sneeze shook Rubble's body and sprayed into Tehengu's face. The griffin recoiled in sudden disgust as rubble sniffled and momentarily rubbed at her snout before the wheels in her head started clicking, "Oh... this is an opening." The mare narrowed her eyes at the griffin who was wiping his face off and slammed her hoof on the ground, another spell of hers tearing the ground asunder in a direction towards the griffin before the earth erupted beneath him in an explosion of raw magic sending him soaring backwards before Rose aimed her horn and summoned up a spell that suddenly increased Tehengu's weight and sent him slamming abruptly into the ground and knocking the wind out of him. The Mare galloped towards him as he mustered up the willpower to stand and took this opportunity to deliver a strong punch to his chin... that blow being the last thing Tehengu saw for a while.

 

----post battle----

 

Once Tehengu had regained his consciousness he would here somepony humming to a tune. When he opened his eyes he would see it was none other than the mare who had K.O.'d him previously. It took the slightly thickheaded mare a minute to notice him stirring and soon she helped him back up, "I'm sorry about your sword and... well all the punching and magic explosions." 

 

"And... also about you know sneezing in your face. I decided to stay to see if you were okay. We're teammates after all, right?"
 

[Bellosh]

After some overdue discussion, we declare Tehengu the winner of this match. Congrats!