King Under, and Over, the Mountain [AT, Conquest]

Testing against other fighters wasn't the only goal in her program. There were... Other places the good doctor could test the prototyping pads at. Because it didn't need to only hold up to physical ki pressure, but magic and environmental as well. There was one good spot for that nowadays, something that encompasses just about every aspect of danger in a world or that a person could throw your way. Mount Five Element. This would be done on her own.

Tomino didn't realize just how hard packing for both heat and cold would be. Luckily, just toting around her usual jacket and just doffing it when necessary was sufficient. The guardian principle of a new bubble shield technique she was working on also helps keep away some of the worst of the elements. As she traveled, it'd work against whipping flames and dampen the winds. And while she thought she could handle some tossed-about rocky debris being shot from geysers, there was a second there when non-geyser earthy debris entered the mix and completely threw it off. A massive clump tossed from what felt like the heavens.

"OH-"
Splat. The doctor feels her shield give away and the resulting hit flings the doctor to her back. A cracking sound was heard loudly under her as the impact left a slight depression in the ground beneath. Nothing felt broken though, as the palm pads were more than secure on her person. The assaulting rock in question continues rolling past her. Leaving her to contemplate on the now shaky ground. It was not like this moments ago. Or the roaring. Creatures weren't actually that common up here, seeing as most trained warriors had to caution the place.

How strange. Tomino eventually picks herself up and dusts her trench coat off, keeping her eyes and ears peeled for more of that piercing sound. The excavation and boisterous yelps of a creature she's never heard resemblance of before. If nothing else, she'd want to ee this for curiosity's sake. With her pads engaged, the doctor pointed them towards the ground and gave them the juice needed to blast her into the sky. Turning the propulsion into short bursts she can make great leaps. Hopping past a few other obstacles before reaching the epicenter of this noisy mess.

Looks like she wasn't the first on the scene either.

Aiming to land closer down below towards the creature and below this Konatsian, the earthling woman broke her jump with another quick burst of energy out of her palms. Gracefully touching down to surprising effect. She's been practicing, and hopefully, she'd find a better way to do all this moving. For now though, she'd look up at the creature trying to bore a hole into the side of the mountain.

Kuro called it a beast, but that mass and body shape was unmistakable. Most related to them nowadays were little pale imitations of the old myths that surrounded them from Earth's past. But this must have been the real deal.

"A dragon? Marvelous."
Of the stubbier, Western Legend variety. She's never seen anything like him in person. Could it talk? Or was it about to just turn on the two interlopers here?

---

Thread PL: 10 | 23,000 (Antisense ACTIVE for the Guardian)
Current PL: 10 | 115,000 (Prototype x5)
No Items
WC: 555

Slayg snarled when he heard Kuro's boasting and musing.  No, he never let thieves get away with stealing anything from him, not even ephemeral things like titles and names.  They were his, just as much as his loot was.  His and his alone.

"NO!  Those titles are mine, mine!  I earned them, not you!  I am Slayg, I am death!"

He stomped his stubby little legs as he screamed and shouted, making the ground shake in a long series of quick quakes.  THUMPH, THUMP, THUMPH!  The mountain shook and shuddered, loose rocks rolled down its sides, snow at the very peak flowed down in a grand avalanche.  Trees collapsed under their own weight, and animals began to flee their dens and run or fly as fast as they could in whatever direction took them away from the dragon and the mountain.

"I am tired of this new time!  TIRED OF THIEVES STEALING MY THINGS!  BURN!  BURN!  BURN AND DIE!"

He pointed his mouth at Kuro and opened wide, wide, wide, until it seemed as if a wet cave full of snaggle-tooth stalactites and stalagmites was open before her.  A light shined from somewhere deep inside.  A dim, distant light... which quickly got brighter.  Closer.  Brighter... Closer... BRIGHTER.

A gout of hot flame, empowered by Slayg's wicked ki, shot out at Kuro in a great spout.  It was hot.  Hot enough that trees nearby wilted.  Hot enough to melt stone.  Hot enough to turn a lesser beast to cinders and ash.

Only once he'd spat his flame, did Slayg look down at Tomino.  To his senses, she still seemed weak and small.  She seemed... pathetic.  So he didn't even laugh.  He just extended his forelimb, and attempted to flick her away with a clawed finger.



Slayg uses his Dragon's Breath at 40% PL (+10% due to Restrained Might).
50% PL = 12,500
-4 KP
0/6 KP

+1 MP for posting, +1 MP for using a technique.
4/6 MP

WC: 294

Total WC: 1,183

For a moment, a very brief moment, Slayg felt a smug sense of pride. The pointy-eared girl seemed to have disappeared after he shot fire at her.  She obviously had to have been burned to ashes, completely destroyed!  ...Or able to hide her power.  There were too many little things that were able to escape his senses that way.

Take, for example, the little human woman that he had been about to flick aside as casually as some lesser creature would flick away a beetle.  She, somehow, stopped his claw's forward movement with a single hand.  Then, instead of flying off or being sent away... she summoned up enough energy to make his whiskers twitch and the hair on his back stand up straight.  Without much thought, Slayg instinctively followed a strategy that had worked for him when he was small and only his outer scales were hard.  He curled up into a little ball and folded his wings so that the softer membranes were not open for damage.


Slayg has no energy left!  He takes the whole attack to his body.
23,000 PL = 92%
DAM = 92/250

Slayg did not know what plasma was.  He did not know what it was that empowered Tomino.  As far as he was concerned, blue fire that should not have been was flying from her hands and burning him in a way that only a few, powerful warriors had ever managed to accomplish.  And despite his best efforts, his hide took a pummeling...

Slowly... ever so slowly, he uncurled his body once more.  His neck extended out and up, his wings spread wide, his feet slammed into the ground with enough force to make a series of earthquakes.  And then he stood, glaring at the little human woman.  So, she had power that was hidden, eh?  Some form of magic, no doubt.  But even witches had weaknesses and limits.

"Perhaps you are right, little one.  Perhaps, if nobody remembers the Golden Horde, then it is pointless to claim the title of "Devourer of the Golden Horde".  I think I shall claim a few new titles.  So tell me, witch, what is your name and how widely is it known?"



Slayg uses no technique this round!
+2 KP
2/6 KP
+1 MP for posting, +1 MP for taking 92% damage
6/6 MP

WC: 347
Total WC: 1,530

"Ah, no witch.  A "natural philosopher", then..."

Slayg chuffed and chuckled, sending out a cloud of soot and ash towards Tomino as an extra insult.  It seemed that, despite the damage she had just done to him, he wasn't concerned.

"A natural philosopher who is, yet again, so certain that her knowledge of nature gives her an insight into the mind and society.  That the whole world shall be reborn if only her tools are perfected.  Tools that will inevitably become toys for the tyrants she opposes, like the crossbow and the formula for so-called "Dragon's Fire"."

He stomped, shaking the earth again.  Then he flapped his great wings and summoned up winds so violent and vicious that they would have befit a hurricane.  As he did this, as he blew ancient trees over like toothpicks and made furrows in the Earth itself, Slayg grew... bigger... bigger... bigger... bigger.... bigger...

Slayg transforms, activating Tremendous Terror!
His power is boosted 5 times over!
New PL: 125,000

Might as well not waste the Momentum!
6 MP is being used to heal up for 60% damage!
New DAM: 32/250
"Oh, if only the world would listen to her brilliance.  Oh, if only her words did not fall on deaf ears... LOOK AT ME!  I. AM. SLAYG!  I have seen a THOUSAND like you before, and they always fail!  Look around!  I have been lost to this world for millennia, and I have seen the WONDERS your natural philosophy brings to MILLIONS... and yet STILL I see petty warlords, tax-men that take off the top, and criminal kings that hide behind false titles and worthless pieces of parchment!"

His voice, already loud and mighty, boomed over and around Tomino like a deafening barrage of cannons.  Every word enough to make her bones rattle inside of her.

"You can ARM everyone if you like.  But someday, someone who has a silver tongue, or a mind more clever in scheming, or someone that is stronger than your toys, shall come along and give your weapon to his armies.  Then he'll use them to oppress the common people... And through it all, I, shall remain.  I shall grow mightier than your weapons, I shall continue to grow stronger and older, I shall PLUNDER the good and wicked kings alike, while you WITHER away and watch your creation be useless before me, and used for evil to boot!"

With that, he raised his forelimb and SLAMMED it down over Professor Nahn's body.  He did not infuse a lot of power into the blow, in fact it was equivalent to a light swat.  But if Tomino did not get out of the way, she'd be crunched down into the crater his fist made with a great THOOOOOOMPH!

Slayg laughed and laughed and laughed that great booming, mocking laughter of his.  Perhaps his long-winded speech would break the "grad student" who, if she had the power to, would have made the world cruel and unfair in a different way.

"Not that you are much different."


WC: 469
Total WC: 1,999

No technique used this round!
+2 KP
4/6 KP

No MP gain due to transformation and MP burn this round!
0/6 MP

Slayg had spent quite a bit of time being overconfident in his abilities.  Sure that he was the mightiest thing on Earth, and that nobody was able to defeat him without cheating.  He had through painful repetition, learned from this mistake.  Instead of allowing the strange, blue fire to wash over his paw and burn his foot, Slayg... dodged.  From Tomino's perspective, it would have seemed as if he ducked behind a corner where none existed, appearing far above her in the air moments later...



Slayg uses "Dark Departure" to create a free, evasive technique!
He dodges Tomino's attack with 50% of his PL, or 62,500 PL!
62,500 is greater than 46,000, so he escapes with PL to spare!
It took a moment, but a steady breeze emanated from the dragon's position high above as he began to flap his wings.  This breeze filtered down to Tomino, washing over her with just enough force to flap the collar of her coat some more.  Even though he was high up enough to look as small as a bird, Slayg's voice boomed out loud and clear to her ears.

"Ah, and there we are. You admitted that, if you had the power, you would deny others the chance to experience their full potential, so that you could feel safe.  And since you cannot do that, you will settle for stealing the rightful power of others and making sure they feel unsafe and lesser instead.  You tell such sweet, and pretty lies about "revolution" and "protecting the people", to cover such an ugly truth.  Are you certain you are a natural philosopher, and not a witch?"

Yes, despite learning his lesson, supposedly, Slayg was still full of smugness and superiority.  He didn't even sound particularly threatened... the big threat was gone.  This human had a fancy toy, but it was a machine.  And machines, despite their strength, were more brittle than meat and bone.  They did not heal or scar.  They simply broke when overwhelmed.  Still, the processes behind them were fascinating.  And if they were not made of magic or enchantments... then perhaps it would do for Slayg to pillage a library, and avail himself of this modern age's greater knowledge of the natural world.

But first, the human.  Slayg swooped low towards her, and opened his maw wide.  Rather than get into melee range, he stayed high above and shot a great spout of flame at her, enhanced by his ki.



Slayg uses "Dragon's Breath" on Doctor Nahn at 40% PL, or 50,000 power!
-4 KP
0/6

+1 MP for posting, +1 MP for using a technique
2/6 MP

WC: 376

Total WC: 2,373