Autumnal Melee

Lí flinches and looses a yelp as Mark's shot grazes his left upper arm, reflexively shifting a short distance away, also out of the way of Ashland's fire. He returns Fenghuang to a standard grip, resting the hilt against his forearm once more, this time pointed toward Ashland. Carefully holding the injured appendage away from his opponent, Lí begins funneling his Aura into the wound to begin healing it. Lí quickly realizes that he doesn't have enough time to heal fully, and so shifts away from the charging guard, leaving orbs of ice primed to detonate in his wake. Once he feels he's a safe enough distance away, Lí quickly resumes work on healing his arm.

"Ahh... Little lickin' son of a... Mmfph!" Mark grunted, now in a kneeling position, the corner of his mouth leaking a small line of blood. He yanked his bladed arm from the ground, mecha-shifting it back into a hand, before clutching at his abdomen. Barely able to stand, Mark pushed himself, getting back to his feet fully. With his memory of where Li was, Mark raised his right arm, still in Gatling form, and fired off a volley of rounds; about 5 or 6, unaware that Li had shifted, and that his rounds were now aimed toward Ashland.

Ashland narrowed his eyes at seeing Li dodge his shots but let it go as he was now where Li had once stood. He just now noticed that Li had gotten injured, probably by one of Mark's bullets, he wouldn't know. However, he wasn't able to let anything go through his mind when he saw Li shift to a defensive position and then hearing shots going off behind him.

Ashland quickly turned on his feet to look behind him, seeing Mark shoot off his gattling gun. Ashland swiftly tapped into his semblance, letting himself see where the bullets were to land. Without time to sprint to either side to get out of the way, he took the next course of action that his vision showed him. He jumped down and laid on the ground, hands over his head to protect it from any stray shot. He felt a few skim his bare arms and heard another bounch off his gauntlet armor.

Seeing an opportunity, Lí adjusts the ice orbs to encircle Ashland before detonating them, a wave of cold approaching the guard from all sides. Adjusting priorities once more, Lí faces Mark, still working on knitting the wound in his arm closed with his Aura. Lí slowly flexes his left arm, suppressing a wince at the pain and weak feeling that shoots through in favor of remaining focused on Mark. Externally his arm appears fine, but a small amount of muscle damage remains beneath the skin.

Heavy, almost gasping breaths escape Mark as he takes on a ready, defensive stance. His diaphragm was still spasming, and the blood vessels with it still damaged. What needed healing first? Mark didn't think of it much, immediately using a few pulses of aura to numb the ache and pain in his body, helping to sooth his breaths. The blood vessels would be repaired later; the ability to breath over a single, large bruise.

Looking up, Mark caught Li's line of sight... At him. He looked focused, but at the same time pained. Mark also spared Ashland a quick glance, and seeing that he was being surrounded by ice, looked back to Li. Dropping his left hand from his midsection, Mark rose his right arm, in Gatling form, and aimed at Li. No shots were fired however, as Mark's arm mecha-shifted again, going from gun, to arm. Hand closed into a fist, the appendage split open down the middle, and a blade similar to the one on the left sprang out. Bladed arm pointed at him, Mark began taking steps toward Li, at the same time beginning to round his shorter opponent, waiting for the attack.

(random thought, how tall are Li an Mark?)

When Ashland was sure that the shots were finished, he looked up from under his arms to see an orb of ice front of his face. "Oh shi-" he muttered but was unable to finish for the orb went off, as did the others he hadn't noticed around him. He felt a sudden rush of cold evelop him and his body gained a thin coat for frosty ice, which broke apart and fell as he got to feet. He brushed off the remaining ice, suppressing a shiver that pulsed through his body.

If there was one the he hated worse than the Grimm, it was the cold. As he glanced up, he noticed Mark and Li facing off once more. He decided to take this chance to change his magazine and took a few steps back, pulling a black magazine with a wavy red stripe along it from his leg pack. After switching out the magazines, placing the lightning one back in the pack, he turned his attention back to Li. He was really starting to dislike the kid a little, though, he wasn't all that bothered, it was a sparing match after all. He loaded his gun once more and decided he had had enough of playing nice.  "Time to get serious" he growled under his breath.

(Li's 5'10" and 145lbs. Skinny guy.)

Ashland's motions draw Lí's attention, so he splits his focus again, warily watching Mark circle him. Not wanting to be caught in between his opponents, Lí begins counter-circling Mark, an itch developing under his skin as the last of the damaged muscle tissue knits itself back together.

Lí rolls his shoulder, frowning slightly in irritation at the itch in his arm. A few moments later, Lí shifts, creating more distance between himself and Mark as well as putting his classmate in between himself and Ashland. Finally taking offensive initiative, he then conjures a couple ice orbs before sending them at Mark, ready to detonate.

(Mark's 6'1, 255 lbs, most of it being muscle.)

On instinct, Mark shouted an aura fueled "RAH!", his semblance working its way into play, firing another concussive, tidalwave blast of force and energy at Li; two down, three more uses to go. Hoping for the best, with the best being the wave of energy stopped the ice orbs and sent them back at Li, Mark pulled a sudden 180 turn, and took off sprinting at Ashland; right bladed arm held back and low, ready to cleave the elder man from his waist, up.

For now, Mark was quiet. The moment called for it. But once he had the chance, Ooh, would he let his mouth fly.

Ashland shifts his attention to Mark rushing towards him. He quickly raised his gauntlet on his right arm and had is palm facing Mark. He also shifted his feet into a better stance for quicker moment, making it easier for him to dodge. He stood his ground as he pressed his thumb against the power pad upon the palm of his hand, which started to charge up. As soon as he was sure Mark was at least 5 feet from his, he closed his hand into a fist and once more opened it to release a sudden pulse of air pressure that pushed towards Mark.

Seeing his ice orbs be reflected, Lí braces himself, then shifts to remain in place when the pressure wave hits, coming out with a brief sag at having overcome the assault. Deciding to take the opportunity to recuperate, he simply watches as Mark charges Ashland, and the guard responds with an attack similar to Mark's shout. Having been pushed rather forcefully by Mark's shout, the ice orbs begin bouncing around the arena haphazardly.

When the sudden push of air hit, Mark was nearly thrown for a flip, only bringing up his left arm to slightly buffet the incoming wind. When that didn't work, Mark fell. He pulled a voluntary fall, using the extra weight from his arms to help pull and weigh him down, under the torrent of wind. With a muffled "OOF!", Mark hit the arena floor, then, just as fast, did a back-spring board jump to get to his feet. "Ha-Ha!" Mark shouted, an almost mad grin on his face as he swung an uppercut slash at Ashland.

Ashland blocks the uppercut strike with his gauntlet just in time, however, the force behind the attack had caught him off guard and caused him to take a couple unsteady steps back. It was a good thing that he had done so for an orb of ice bounched off the ground in which he had once stood upon. He glanced to Mark, taking a quick large step back and raising his gun to fire off a fire round at the shoulder of Mark's right arm. After he had let loose 4 shots, he quickly jumped back a foot or two before pressing his thumb against the power pad once more.

After he was sure it was charging, he took the oppertunity to focus once more upon his semblance, calling upon the fore-sight he possessed. Looking ahead a few seconds, he could see what could happen to keep himself safe, his eyes having once more started to glow almost reddish white. He took a quick glance in Li's direction before turning his attention one more on Mark, ready for whatever may come from the taller male.

Lí keeps his distance from his opponents for the time being, and tests his left arm again, satisfied that fully mobility has now returned, free of pain. Rather than seizing control over his ice orbs, he instead keeps an eye on them, watching for another opportunity similar to how one had passed close to Ashland to detonate them.

While maintaining awareness of his rogue ice orbs, Lí shifts into the air, funneling Aura into Fenghuang's Dust chamber until he begins descending towards the guard and his fellow student. Once past the apex of his short flight, Lí thrusts Fenghuang down toward Mark and Ashland, unleashing a hail of spectral-looking blades of ice upon his opponents.

Mark, just about ready to fight back, and attack Ashland with another stabbing slash, was thrown off guard by a sudden, loud pinging noise, a pin-point bit of force, and some slight burning. Mark looked down at his right shoulder, and saw that the armor plating there was marred by a round, half-inch indent, as well as some burn marks and small embers. The other bullets came in so fast. 2 hit and grazed Mark's chest plate, adding to the many scars that resided there already. One hit Mark's left palm, which was raised in time to block the bullet, and the last bulls-eyed Mack's left elbow, damaging the joint slightly. Pissed off to a point, Mark mecha-shifted his left arm into its Gatling mode, and was just about to fire at Ashland, when a whistling noise filled the air.

Letting out a few curses, Mark looked up, and spotted Li. He was up in the air, firing ice shards down at him and Ashland. Mark fired a few rounds, explosive, at Ashland, before pulling his arm up, firing as he did so, at Li. More concentrated on Li, Mark nearly emptied his clip firing at his fellow student, meanwhile, a few ice shards came down fast and hard, hitting and shattering on impact with Mark's arms and armor, while a few lucky shards cut and damaged his leather vest, as well as his cheeks, neck, and fore head. While firing, Mark hadn't noticed one of the ice orbs flying through the space above him, between Li and him, straight into his line of fire.

(Wow...the fact that Li took this chance to attack AFTER I had Ashland call upon his semblance, I also find it interesting that I had Ashland glance at Li like he KNEW he was going to attack...Kinda cool)

Even though Ashland has seen most of this coming with his foresight and he took the chance to jump to the side, using the momentum to roll out of danger. However, he had not been able to dodge all of Mark's bullets nor Li's ice shards, a few of each skimmed him and one or two actually got their mark. After he had finished rolling, he hissed in pain as he pushed himself to a crouched position, looking to his exposed left arm, see two bullets had sunk into it as well as a small, yet freezing ice shard sticking out of his shoulder, close to his chest.

He took a few breaths before reaching up with his right hand and pulled out the ice shard, grunting at the pain that came. And he couldn't heal his arm just yet, not with the bullets still inside. He instead channeled his aura towards his left arm to numb the pain as best he could but he could still feel it as a dull ache. He got to his feet and tried to raise his left arm to shoot at the two students but found his arm was not responding. He growled in annoyance as he took a few steps back to hopefully get out of range from the two.

(I was tempted to have an ice orb hit him in the back...but I decided against it)

Seeing Mark catch sight of him, Lí cuts off the storm of ice blades and shifts to the floor as his classmate sweeps his shots up toward him. Lí performs another shift just above the ground to cushion his descent and bring himself closer to Ashland, avoiding the wave of cold from the ice orb Mark inadvertently strikes and bringing himself within range to use Fenghuang's blade. However, Lí forgoes a standard slash, twisting himself closer to Ashland and flicking his wrist to bring Fenghuang's pommel into a powerful strike aimed at the guard's chest, hoping to stagger the man.

The remaining ice orb drifts along, away from the combatants.

(That is pretty cool, looking at it now, Moon.)

True to his actions, Mark indeed emptied his ammo clip while firing at Li, but to no avail, as Li had shifted from his airborne position in favor of a more down to earth spot. "Aw-haw, nobody wants to play with me!" Mark whined; not complaining, but in more of a crazed, almost playful tone. Popping the magazine built into his left arm, Mark ejected the spent clip, and reloaded a fresh one, spinning around to aim at Li, and because of direction, Ashland as well. Slightly aware of the cold breeze emanating from the detonated flying ice orb, Mark is just about ready to fire his Gatling arm when a small sight catches his attention. The remaining ice orb, drifting away.

A madman's grin formed on Mark's face as he looked at the stray orb, his mind already forming possible plans for its use. Mecha-shifting his left arm back into its default hand form, Mark gave his two opponents a passing glance, before taking off to retrieve the orb. "Come on, you little ice ball of pain... Come to papa..." He muttered, going to make a grab for it.

When Ashland saw Li come after him, he continued to take a few steps back but remembered that they were on a stage, if he backed up too much, he was sure to fall off it. So he stopped his back pacing and stood his ground, watching Li come towards him. He glanced to his right arm, noticing that his gauntlet still had a charge in the power pad. Finding this as good fortune, he smiled lightly and raises his right hand but didn't notice how fast Li had gotten so close to him.

He wasn't able to dodge the strike to his chest but thankfully, he was able to to shift his gauntlet's position to in front of his chest, palm directed towards Li. After his arm had taken the strike, earning a loud ringing sound, he closed his hand into a fist and then opened it, releasing a burst of power air to push Li back. However, Ashland being unsteady on his seat stumbled back a few steps from the force of the power he had released.

Lí stumbles away from Ashland, turning around so he can catch himself before falling to the ground. Standing up, he spies Mark reaching for his remaining rogue orb, and so Lí detonates the Dust mine before turning around again to face Ashland. Deciding to keep pressing the offensive, Lí lunges forward, Fenghuang's point leading the charge towards the guard.

"Almost got'cha, you little..." When the Orb exploded, to say it caught Mark off guard would be an understatement. The initial explosion sent Mark sprawling backwards onto the arena floor. The frigid cold that spread seconds afterwords only added to the surprise. A harsh string of curses and expletives flew from Mark's mouth like a military air craft hanger, with the ice like an invading virus, spreading over and freezing Mark's mechanical arms. "Damn, damn, damn it! ARG!" Mark growled as the ice sped past his hands and up his arms, finally stopping just a few inches from his shoulders.

In an attempt to break the ice, Mark tried a quick mecha-shift. Some of his arms internal parts spun and flipped, external plates jittered and twitched, the pistons giving off a few spurts, but other than that nothing happened. Moving wasn't a problem, his legs could still carry him; however, Mark's arms were limited to back and forth swings. So, it looks like until Mark gets the ice off of his arms, he'll be out of this fight for just a bit.

(Or the next few posts.... Heh-heh...)

Ashland narrowed his eyes when he saw Li turned to come at him again after glacing at Mark to see the dust orb go off in his face. He found himself chuckle just a little at feeling that the two of them shared an experience. He then turned his attention back to Li and took a breath as he took his gun from his left hand, holding it with his right. He then focused upon his semblance to access that bit of sight in the future to assist in proventing himself anymore harm. His left arm may be a little unresponsive at the moment, but he could still fight back.

He couldn't help but think that this little spar was becoming a little intense as he thinks back to all the blows the three of them taken, Li the least of them all. It was some talented kid, that was for sure. He took a few steps to the side before quickly jumping back and raising his right hand with the gun, shooting off a few rounds at Li. He then took off in Mark's direction, hoping somehow get Li's attention once more fixed on the larger male so to give him some time to hopefully remove the bullets from his arm.

Seeing Ashland dodge out of the way, Lí decides to shift back, glad he did so upon seeing Ashland's shots flash in front of him. Lí hears the guard's footsteps quickly heading away, and turns to see him running towards Mark, whose arms had frozen as a result of Lí detonating his ice orb. Gently sweeping Fenghuang through the air, Lí summons a few more of his ethereal ice blades above him, before thrusting Fenghuang to launch them at his opponents.

Mark's heartbeat ran shallow, and his breath caught in his throat at the sound of the same, light whistling from before. Snapping his head in the direction of both Ashland and Li, Mark saw the school guard heading his way, and when he looked up, he saw flying, frozen blades of pure NOPE heading in his direction. "Ooh, shit on a barbed-wire stick...." Mark muttered at the sight of the ice blades. Swapping glances at the blades, his arms, then at the blades gain, Mark looked back to his arms and began a string of desperate attempts to break the ice grip on his mechanized arms, with each attempt garnering more and more aggravation from Mark.

Looking back up at the incoming blades, Mark did the only thing that came to his mind. He raised both his frozen arms, and used what field of movement he had left to cross them in front of his head, hoping that the speed and force of the blades would break the ice, or at least weaken it somewhat. "Lord, if this doesn't work, I'm breaking the ice over Li's head!" Mark growled through gritted teeth, knowing full well that the ice damage Li's caused will take some time to fix.

(I apologize for the extremely late reply, could not think of anything until now)

Ashland heard the same sound behind him as when he had been stuck by an ice spike, with Li behind him, he was not surprised that the student might have sent some his way. But he continued his dash towards Mark, however, he could not use his power pad to push the other man away. For his hand was currently occupided by his gun and his left was still out of commission.

But, when he saw Mark raise his ice coated arms, Ashland came to the reluctent conclusion to let him take the force from Li. And so, when he was a few feet from Mark, he quickly pushed against the ground and launched himself to the side, landing on his right shoulder and rolled a little, getting just out of the way of the attack from Li. He had heard a single ringing sound, making him notice that his right arm had been hit by at least one ice spike.

The ice coating Mark's arms begins to fracture under the sustained impacts, and Lí closes in on his fellow student. Once in range, Fenghuang's blade is brought low to the ground, before Lí guards Fenghuang's edges with his Aura and heaves with his shoulders, hoping to propel Mark into the air.

Feeling the ice weaken around his appendages, Mark sends a single mental command, making the shift-plates move ever so slightly, to help crack the ice. Not much help, seeing as Fenghuang's blade had somehow found itself a nice little spot in Mark's abdomen. Not IN though, no. Mark guessed Li's aura way guarding the blade; knowing that relieved him, somewhat. That relief was short lived, seeing as Li, smaller than Mark, had somehow managed to fling the Biker through the air, like a finished pancake onto a plate, with the plate being the arena floor.

Landing hard a good few feet away, Mark could only do a minor recovery role, since his arms were still frozen over. laying on his back, he rolled over onto his front, breathing heavily, with amounts of pain coursing through his body. Mark got to his knees, and stayed there, kneeling. Bringing his arms up high, Mark let out an angry grunt, flinging his arms down, double fist punching the arena floor. On impact, the ice shattered, with his arms' mecha-shift plates popping out and transforming. A few sparks flew, gears grinded, steam even seemed to spew from some damaged ports. When his arms where done transforming, in their place, where two triple barreled Gatling guns. Getting back to his feet, Mark turned to his two combatants, arms fully loaded, and let loose a hail of lead on both Ashland and Li.

Ashland stopped his roll into a knelling position, looking back towards Mark to see Li strike into him with his sword, somehow causing the larger man to be thrown into the air like a frisbee. He blinked at the sight and got to his feet. He popped his magazine out of his gun into his left hand, feeling a small ping of pain from the impact. He glanced at how many bullets he had left in it, half was left. He sighed and pushed it back into his gun, feeling yet another ping of pain go through his arm, showing up on his face.

He loaded the gun with his injured arm, pushing though the pain and then looked up to see the ice being shattered from Mark's arms. After the shifting was over, his eyes widened at seeing two gatling guns taking the place of his hand. He shifted his position just in time when Mark began to shoot off towards him and Li. He sprinted to the left and went about to going around and behind Mark. He then raised the gun and shot off a few rounds at Mark, hoping to get a small break in the rain of bullets.

(Remember, Ashland is using his red magazine, fire dust bullets.)

Lí shifts to get into the air, and once more to propel himself over Mark, eyes wide at the volume of fire that had been sent his way. He keeps his breathing under control, however, and comes down to form a triangular formation between himself, Mark and Ashland. Pouring Aura into his blade, Lí closes in on Mark, making sure to stay out of Ashland's firing line, and makes a leap into the air to plunge Fenghuang into the ground, unleashing a dome of icy energy that he lets wash over himself with a shiver in the hopes to slow Mark down.

With smoke and steam seeping through the cracks in his arms' metal plating, Mark continues his ravenous fire-arm assault, the gears spinning the tri-barrels on both arms going into over-drive at the rate the rounds were leaving their chambers. It actually got to the point that with each gear crank, a pang of pain ricocheted up into Mark's shoulders. Nothing too bad, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. At seeing Ashland begin to move, Mark angled his right arm to match his movements. The guard went completely around and behind him, forcing Mark to shift his position slightly, in order to get a better bead on him.

Before Mark could resume his rapid fire attack, a few rounds struck his arm; some along his elbow, and two more against his fore arm. The armor plating held against the assault, but bore the marks of the incendiary bullets; black scorch marks and charred spots running along the length of the mechanical appendage. Some flames and sparks made it past the arm, as well, spreading and scorching Mark's shirt, chest armor, and smattering some soot on his face. Knowing that Ashland had made a move, Mark looked over towards Li, just in time to see him go airborne, again, and land a bit of a ways off, making a triangle out of the three of them.

Just a bit frustrated, Mark tucked in both of his arms, still hot, and did a reverse-evade roll. As he rolled, one of his arms gave off a "Shlack-Ping!" noise. Coming back to his feet, Mark crossed his arms, left aimed at Ashland, right at Li. Both arms fired simultaneously, the left one throwing regular rounds down range at Ashland, while the right fired it's rounds a bit slower. The reason why? They were high-explosive bullets, three of them, fired at Li just as his ice dome began to form around him.