“This is some sick armor you put on us, Shade! You weren’t kidding when you said I didn’t need to hold back, I just let loose right there and you both are still breathing!” Blixtin cackled, arching electrical bolts slamming down around her, even slamming into her horn only for them to be ‘sucked in’ and her body to pulse an even brighter blue. The links of blackened magical metal shuddered slightly as the energy within her flared, and she continued to let it pour out of her brighter and brighter. Her hair seemed to start to glow and flash white, pulling out from her back like a wind was sweeping against her as the crystalline sword sat horizontally against her shoulders.

“I’m glad it meets with your approval! If only you’d take any of your actual quests this seriously, it would make you so much less of a liability whenever traps are involved.” Shade grinned, spinning the flame he was pulling from his tome into a nice large ball as one could almost HEAR the blush that came over the crystal-kirins features.

“I-It’s NOT my fault so many people fight dirty! I-I just, there’s no honor anymore d-dang it!” Blixtin HRMFED! The energy she was accumulating dissipated a good amount as Shade let his tail tap Freya’s foot lightly. She let out a low tone growl, but a small nod as well, her already prepared position ready at the slightest of triggers, which finally came as the ‘rogue’/Cryselia popped next to Blixtin within the fog.

“He’s trying to psych you out Blix, keep up the focus and power! He’s just as strong if not stronger than you remember, you need your best!” She quickly exclaimed, with Blix huffing again and stamping her hoof into the rocks, sending cracks throughout the entire arena as she whinnied.

“I KNOWWW Just get over here an- ohh shi-” Blixtin whined, but that soon fell to shock as Freya had launched herself at break neck speed toward the kirin, the moment of distraction between the two providing the perfect cover to let loose all the tension she’d been building up within her muscly form. Normally, Blix would have ‘sparked’ out of the way, but the ruse had worked, and now even Cryselia was left staring as Freya’s massive 9’ battle dragon frame slammed both its large paws around the crystal-kirin’s form, pinning her to her magically armored chest before whirling around and having Blix now be the one facing the fully prepared magician.

“END THIS!” Freya bellowed, using the cry to activate her ‘shrieking taunt’, Cryselia swearing profusely as she suddenly found herself unable to move away from the battle dragon, eyes forcibly locked onto her with even her neck muscle fibers fighting amongst themselves regardless of her orientation to keep herself staring at the dragon. She tried to quickly strafe away from the blast at least, but no amount of sideways movement would help her out of the blast radius now. Shade could be heard beaming through the black magic helmet as the blue flames grew to the size of a small sun above his head.

“OHHohohoho you are truly capable Freya, a truly worthy addition to our little crew. I deeply appreciate your helpful SACRIFICE FOR THE CAUSE! AAAHHHAAHAHA!” Shade cackled, his ‘villain energy’ on full display as he let the miniature blue sun fall upon the trio locked in skill-kept stand-off. Blixtin shook and struggled against Freya’s grip, but while her power was immense, Freya's strength impressively rivaled it, though both their bodies bulged trying to keep up with each other’s desperate strength. As the ball was about to impact however, Blixtin’s eyes flashed white, and even the blue magic energy within the arcane armor around her flashed a white gold glow, as she screamed.

“FUCK THISSSS THIS IS NOT HOW I GO OUT IN THIS DAM TOURNEYYY!”

And a lightning bolt slammed down from the growing storm above the whole event, an electrical field forming around her like a force field that shunted Freya off of her with almost magnetic force. As her ‘anchor’ was relieved, she ‘blinked’ just in time, becoming energy itself as she rocketed out from the blast zone, attempting to take Cryselia with her but only unfortunately succeeding in shooting a HEAVY numbing tingle through the small kobolds entire body as the thunderous bolt rocketed through her on its way out. Freya and Crys in turn were left taking the brunt of the blast, both of their magic armor flashing red in an instant as a flaming outburst jutted from the impact point, blue flame exploding into white phosphorus burning embers. Both of them ‘KO’d’ before they even hit the ground, sent flying and skidding over and over before finally rolling to a stop against rocky terrain. The area was fully coated in smoke and debris as they coughed and groaned, the magical armor still protecting them from the brunt of it, but the impact locked up their muscles and had even Freya let out a whine.

“Finnne.” She coughed. “You win, armor goood, owwwe.”

“Well, glad you now agree with that much at least.” Shade chuckled, having ported next to her to make sure she was still breathing, with Blix having done the same to Cryselia. “Time for you to hit the bench though, that just capped out your ‘physical aptitude’ quite a bit, especially if you felt that impact through the armor.” Shade smirked, Freya groaning before he continued. “Don’t think you didn’t prove yourself though. That was one of my strongest blasts I can produce in this world, outside of some ‘game breaking’ things at least, and from what I can tell if you hadn’t also taken Blix’s blast earlier you would have tanked it. You’re quite a marvel, very worthy of your place in my guild.”

“H-hrmf…t-thanks…” Freya muttered, her head turning away from him on the ground as she huffed, staring at Blix now as her eyes narrowed, pushing away the fuzzy feelings in favor of more recognizable annoyed ones. “She broke my cry…she’s very strong…”

“Hah, yeah.” Shade muttered, looking over at Blix now who was cradling Cryselia. Seems they where having a ‘moment’, Crys having fun saying ‘it’s all up to you now’, small hand brushing Blix’s cheek as the magic that encapsulated her slowly pulled her to the protected ‘bench’ area and away from the fighting, sparkles coming off her body as Blix ‘sobbed’ and ‘swore she’d avenge her!’, both truly leaning in to the bit for the sake of immersion. “She’s one of our ‘nukes’ you could say, it’s just a shame she’s so heavily into losing. She’d be capable if half her expeditions weren’t her trying to find the next ‘mana sucking thing’ to get leeched off of.”

“Into…losing?” Freya muttered, confusion throughout all of her features as Shade chuckled. He winked down at her as she too began to fade to the bench, a smirk still felt as he responded.

“Feel free to ask her about it some time, I’m sure you’ll get some truly colorful answers.” Shade laughed, with Freya only nodding as her form sparkled and poofed away. She then appeared within a wide multi-layered magic dome, finally free of the magical armor, as she drifted her eyes over the scene of the fights currently still on display.

Kachina and Kiyro where putting up a valiant fight against Ulvi and Lunea, neither side backing down while also not entirely succeeding either, though Ulvi seemed to be getting ‘annoyed’ that the pair against her were ‘trying to take out the healer’, and seemed she was about to pull out ‘the big guns’ if they didn’t ‘quit it!’. Karman seemed to be doing her best with her respective automations trying to free Cidari from being wrapped up by webs, Yilna having been pulled in as a ‘sixth fighting group’ to make matches even, but it seeming she was quite the match for them as she VERY much wanted to wrap up Cidari and take her back to her cave to ‘learn more about her’. Cryselia was now on the bench with her, groaning a bit but giving her a toothy smirk, extending a hand despite the partial bit of frustration within her features and saying ‘good match’, with her tiny hand dwarfed by the large battle dragons paw as she returned the gesture.

And finally, one could see Shade and Blix readying for round 2, the mage seeming to pull out a few runes to choose from from his tome while Blix properly readied her sword again. The two seemed to be enjoying themselves, now fully accepting the ‘rp’ role as Shade cackled at her, saying how he ‘removed one of his obstacles, a shame it took his own minion but soon she’d join the both of them!’ and Blix responded in kind with ‘I will defeat you’s’ and ‘you won’t get away with that!’s. The battle between both of them was going to be quite fierce…and Freya was now deeply intrigued by it.

A mage capable of actually downing her, and a crystal-kirin that could break out of her taunt effect…this guild truly had some powerful characters within it, to be a part of such suddenly felt rather daunting…But she sighed, and shook her head slightly, before narrowing her focus on the battle between the two powerful titans. She could stand with them, she could stand in front of them. She would do what it took to keep even them from falling, she would get strong enough to make sure she never felt fear at taking their battles. She would grow as much as she needed to to be their shield, nothing would stop her…

Not even the current show of force between them, as lightning and crystal erupted throughout the battlefield, their movements became so fast even she had trouble here and there tracking it, and little black spaces formed from the mages finger tips that seemed to consume all that they touched as they flew out from his form. S-she would be the wall they needed…for the sake of the warmth they gave her, she would grow to be everything they needed her to be. She had to...

---

And there we go, the 'big one' XD fheeh, where I 'close out the story and then start having fun so it gets super big'. This one was a good time though, been watching a lot of 'popcorn anime' recently (if the whole theme of this isn't any indication) so getting to utilize that scene structure 'felt nice'. This is also a kinda super nice image too, since I been throwing idea's at  Zeveth for so long (whenever she's not actively collapsing ; v ; ), it's almost a 'draw it again' of this idea so long ago. Completely different in terms of what's being asked for, but one can clearly see the improvement in her capabilities, and it's real nice to see ; v ; . Not to mention of course how FRIGGEN COOL THIS LOOKS! She's got arcing electrical veins pulsing into the armor, her flowing fur and hair looks so soft and yet full of electricity/energy, that sword is just so friggen COOL (all those crystal segments my lady please your wrist ; v ; ) and just, the plasma look also 'sparking' across the armor and having the full lighting cloud behind her, it's just so friggen cool ; v ; . It's the shared background between this and the other image that made me want to 'link' these two together, and having it be a 'tourney' / brawl just made everything fit into place. I'm REALLY happy with all of this, it made me so happy to see such awesome armor concepts translated onto my characters, and having them fit onto all the ones that it 'made the most sense on' is just, eeee ; v ; . I'm so happy, so appreciative, and just, AAA! Glad Zeveth 'experimented' by taking this on and so, so very satisfied with the result. It's just, so cool, Blix looks so cool, they all look SO FRIGGEN COOOOLAFEHAeahfeh.

is left frothing at the mouth at 'women in armor' + Shade as he's carted off to his room.

Original: [When Uploaded]

Art by  Zeveth

Blixtin is mine!