2710/WMAT BQ1 Duke vs Mortimer Balman

WMAT BQ1 Duke vs Mortimer Balman
Date of Scene:	01 August 2015
Location:	WMAT Arena - Spinach Wastes
Synopsis:	The Digital Knight, Duke takes on the Fire Solider, Mortimer Balman!
Cast of Characters:	Mortimer Balman, Duke

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Duke has posed:
One of the WMAT qualifier events is about to take place in lovely, open lands of Spinach Wastes. The rolling hills span the lands with those strange birds flocking around here and there. The stands are a bit away from the actual main action, but the screens give a great view of what is about to go down!

On one side of the field designed for the battle is a knightly armored humanoid with a halberd lance in his hand and a red cape moving gently in the breeze that rustles across the grasslands. His gold eyes looking ahead to where Mortimer is, awaiting the signal to start.

He was also trying to relax himself a bit mentally. To remain calm in this battle and not get carried away. He wanted to make it far, at least to battle someone that was also in the ranks, but time would tell if he would even make it to that point-- or if that individual wouldn't be taken out.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     Opposite to the knightly figure is ol' Mortimer, standing firm and tall with his head angled down a bit to reduce the glare from the sun. He doesn't cut nearly as knightly a figure- primarily since he isn't wearing any sort of 'armor' or wielding any fancy knight-like weapons.

     That does not mean he is not dressed for the occasion, of course. His saltiest pair of medium blue field cammies- which are actually more of a mottled blue as old as they are- and his sturdiest pair of combat boots, the ones with a metal plate going over and under the arch of the foot. He isn't carrying any weapons that one can see, just rhythmically clenching and flexing his fists and arms. His head isn't even on fire, just a slight haze of heated air coming from around his skull.

     Almost time now. The fight will begin any minute. Sizing up his opponent, making notes of the armor's design and contours in his head, and trying to guess at how heavy and sturdy that lance is..

Duke has posed:
Duke gives a nod to Mortimer as he sees the other man. "Mortimer, I wish you best of luck." He says calmly as he then gets himself in more of a battle stance, as he can see the flicker of yellow in the distance.

Then the light flares green with the blare of the sirens go off for the match to start. He wasn't exactly expecting that loud of a frequency and it causes him to wince for a moment. Possible chance for Mortimer!

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     That brief moment's pause on Duke's pause was all the time Mortimer needed to spring into action. By the time the younger digimon looks up, the pokemorph has vanished from where he was.

     Well, not /actually/ vanished. But Mort's moving far faster than one might think someone his age and size could, launching himself so hard and with such force that he clears the distance between himself and Duke in only a moment's time. Indeed, he flies /past/ Duke, one may think he's overshot.

     But only a second's time past Duke's position, Mortimer's booted feet dug into the ground and stop him dead, knees bending until he's in a very low crouch, from which he springs up and spins his body around as hard as he can, sending one of those steel-coated feet out at Duke's armored back to try and knock him to the ground.

Duke has posed:
Duke's attention snaps back as soon as he picks up movement, even as fast as Mortimer is. The Digimon Knight quickly steps around as he watches the Pokemon humanoid leap by and then coming back in with a quick. With an easy spin of his halberd he brings up the staff to block the impact.

Mortimer's heavy boot slams into the staff and the force is enough to slide those armored boots back a bit across the grass. With a blaze of his gold eyes though, Duke goes to shove Mortimer back away and then swing his weapon around trying to catch the other humanoid with the tip of the blade before he can fully recover.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     Misjudged the weight, and how fast Duke is. That was going to cost him. Mortimer quickly drops his feet to the ground to regain his balance after the halberd catches him by the boot, but isn't quite able to scurry back far enough before the blade catches him good across the chest. "Rrgh!" A quick hop backward to clear the air, hand reflexively going to cover his now bleeding chest. That hurt.

     Can't let Duke use that halberd too much or he's gonna get whooped. Get in close. Mort's already rushing back in, trying to close the newly made gap so that he can deny Duke the use of his blade. His fists start lashing out in what seems like a wild and undisciplined fashion, trying to push Duke into a more defensive position while he reels his head back and tests the thickness of his skull against Duke's faceplate.

Duke has posed:
Duke side steps between the movements thrown by Mortimer, that was until he went to slam his head into his. The impact hits hard against the green section of his chrome armor and the Digimon staggers back, he shakes his head gently before his gold eyes narrow sharply.

Even as Mortimer stays in close, Duke side steps around, before using his lance butt to slam into the ground and actually spin himself away from Mortimer to get some distance, then releases his cape between the two of them.

As the cape starts to fall, Duke isn't seen anywhere behind it, instead a shadow moves over Motimer, as the seven foot six digimon comes to slam down on the ground behind the Badger and then spins around to give Mortimer a hard kick in the backside right for the still falling cape.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     His own head ringing a bit from using it to smash the armor, he doesn't notice that Duke has moved. The cape fools him right until the last moment, but by the time he realizes it he's flung forward and face down in the ground, /hard/, with a mouth full of dirt and green stuff.

     Swiftly flinging himself back upward onto his feet, he moves back from Duke slowly, keeping his guard up, spitting out the dirt, the grass, and at least two teeth. "Heh.. Got me there lad, clever! I used t'use that trick m'self back in the War, when I was a Lance Corporal.. Been so long I'd forgotten it.. Guess that means I ought to not be playin' 'round."

     His head quite suddenly bursts into flames, he keeps moving backwards to increase the distance between them. He opens his mouth again as though to continue speaking, but this time there are no words. Only flames, washing freely out across the area.

Duke has posed:
Duke spins the Halberd around and chuckles softly. "Lance general huh? Never heard you talk much about that... guess after this bout, we should have some drinks and you can tell me about that time." Though when Mortimer's lits himself up and his actions reflecting his words, the Digimon simply narrows his eyes.

Soon as the flames escape, Duke turns his shoulder and his slight back into it. The fire flicks around his chrome body and burns away the grass at his feet, once the flame ends Duke swings his arm around, even as some flames still linger against his chrome armor as they start to die out. Parts of the armor were eve still glowing a bit from the heat.

Those gold eyes stare him down, but only in a moment of defiance before they seem amused, he then flips himself up into the air, as he twirls his body around. The Halberd glows with light and as his feet touch the ground the remaining fires dance around his form, before he lets out a battle cry as he raises up his Halberd. The flames follow the blade as it glows brightly and when it slams into the ground the flames burst forward right for Mortimer with an explosive impact.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     The flames aren't a bother. Elemental properties and all- you need to bring serious heat to make him even notice. More than that is the concussive force of the blast and kinetic force of the halberd. He has only his arms to block with, and though he manages to catch the haft with his arms the rest of it comes crashing down upon him /hard/.

     The blade rests almost delicately against his forehead, right dead center of the broken sun that marks the curse of Annu and the Emperor. A trickle of blood begins to flow, only to start bubbling and evaporating. "Corporal, actually." Is all he manages to hiss out.

     And then comes even more heat- not from any direct source of flames but just.. Heat, intense, horrid, painful heat, welling up all around him, and conveniently all around Duke too. The grass immediately begins smoking and bursting into brief puffs of fire, spreading outwards as the temperature continues to climb at painfully high speed.

Duke has posed:
The attack was meant to be ranged, but Duke misjudged the distance of his own weapon and when he saw the blood from Mortimer's head once the flames cleared away his gold eyes were a bit wide with some surprise. It was an attack that could have done far worse and it was unlike him to misjudge something like that. Did Mortimer move in on him? Was his own background thoughts creeping to the surface to throw off his focus?

Even as Mortimer corrects him about his rank in the military, the Digimon's hand loosens slightly as his own motions were sluggish to pull back to the weapon. He doesn't have time to say sorry though as Mortimer heats up the area. Perhaps rightfully deserved really and reminder that play time was indeed over.

The heat rises and Duke do to his own surprise of what had happened doesn't give him time to run out of it. It is only when his body registers the heat at last does he cringe with his eyes in pain and try to step back. Then he roars out in pain as the heat engulfs him, parts of his armor seeming to burn like 'ash', like skin would showing the green digital grid lines behind the armor, and the edges of those burnt away areas showing digital damage with pixelization.

Duke staggers back a few steps and almost goes down to his knee, but he doesn't allow himself to falter, instead with a roar he goes to charge and swing the Halberd with a wide swing of a false swipe. As he slides around he uses the butt of the weapon to swing up the cape, before he swings the cape around to catch it with his hand. Then with a rush in, he throws the cape forward, before coming around with the butt of the staff as he gets down low to impact the back of Mortimer's knees.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     He wasn't expecting that to happen. Good, threw the younger fighter off balance, if only for a few moments. The false swipes are easily dodged, but they were false swipes- a technique he's intimately familiar with. Choosing again to block rather than try and dodge the attack, instead of letting the haft hit him where Duke /wants/ it to go, Mortimer straightens and stiffens his leg and shoves it backward to catch against the haft.

     Painful, but it won't throw him to the ground, as it otherwise would have. That will leave an ugly bruise under his fur, later.

     A twist of the torso to use both hands to shove away the halberd and the hands holding it, and Mortimer narrows his eyes and focuses /everything/ he can on Duke. Just for a moment, just long enough.. As the temperature drops back to normal, the digimon will feel an odd sensation of intense /cold/, this time. Threatening to freeze his joints and his armor. Perhaps a very painful sensation from all the heat he just experienced, if Mortimer's psychic powers can make the cold sudden enough to /hurt/..

Duke has posed:
Mortimer goes to chill the air and Duke keeps the Halberd firmly held. His gold eyes locked with the other solider, before he roars out and breaks his weapon free with a hard yank one way, then a twist another way, breaking the freezing trying to creep over him. "Nice try!" He barks out in response to Mortimer.

"But I don't do cold!" Then with whip around of the Halberd he swings it directly over Mortimer's head, before stepping in and actually reaching out with his hand with all the force he can, he goes to life Mortimer right into the air, before going to leap himself up after the man. Then with a rotation in the air he goes to use the flat of the Halberd blade to baseball slam the Pokemon humanoid right back down to the ground once more!

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     That did not go quite as according to plan. Lesson learned. Lesson learned by being used as a sports ball. The intense focus needed to cause that chill leaves Mortimer quite vulnerable to being lifted into the air and then hit.

     HE'S GOING, HE'S GOING, DEEP INTO RIGHT FIELD!

     And then there is his old friend, The Ground, there to catch him when he hits it. With an almost comedic *WHAM*. "Ow.." Few more teeth gone. Good thing teeth are easily replaced these days. Spitting those out, ol Mort is once again up on his feet, shaking off the dirt. Best to stick to the classics, and with such in mind his /fists/ burst into blue hot flames, and he charges headlong into Duke, looking to just /smash/ straight through that armor- is that even armor, or is that his /flesh/? He can't tell- before he gets too punch drunk to fight clearly.

Duke has posed:
Duke lands down on the ground and slides back a bit with the sheer force he exhibited. This only gives him enough time to see Mortimer get back up and come racing right in. He watches that fist and the Halberd can be seen vanishing into digital data as he readies for something...

Something being Mortimer's fist.

There is a nice *FWOOMP* as Mortimer's fist makes its impact, but not with the chest armor, but Duke's own hand. The blue flame engulfs around the black clawed armor hand and the force causes Duke to slide back a few feet, but he holds on, even as the armor cracks around his palm and up around the hand, with a slight gleam of digital light.

Duke's own hand clamps down as he holds Mortimer's hand, those claws trying to dig in. There was a low rumble, before a soft chuckle as he tries to cut his own nerve from not getting to serious; after all he doesn't really want to hurt the guy! At least not /to/ badly.

The Knight Digimon uses the hold to shove Mortimer around, trying to throw the man off balance. Then as Mortimer goes to recover, Duke comes in with his own fists igniting into flames. He goes to strike in with one punch, then follows up with another. Uppercut, swing, back hand, then another downward swing with a leap, followed with another uppercut. Duke showing off he is capable of more then just using his Halberd weapon for offense and using the flames he is generating to create a more solid explosive blow with each strike that may hit.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     Now /that/ was a surprise. He hadn't expected the halberd to just up and.. Vanish, otherwise he could have probably been prepared for his fist being caught, and bloodied from claws digging into it. That was painful enough.

     Then comes the beatings, and Mortimer- being all but completely unprepared for it- is quite /savagely/ smashed around. He tries to deflect as much of the force as he can, but only succeeds in reducing the impact for maybe half of those brutal strikes. The final series of explosive strikes throw him back hard.. Not quite to the ground but he is feeling that set of blows something fierce

     There's a brief pause as Mortimer recovers, quickly moving away from Duke. He just needs enough time to fix his dislocated jaw, snapping it back into place enough to work his mouth properly. Spitting out blood, flames quickly follow. But these flames are different, instead of simply engulfing the Digiknight they twist and snake and flow around him as though they have a life of their own, and reek of potent chemical fumes- sulfur chief amongst them, threatening not only to cook him alive but choke as well!

Duke has posed:
Duke attempts to get away from the snaking fire, but it loops around him and starts to heat up his already injured frame, but the fumes causing him gag, along with wheeze. His body shivers gently from the pain and the taxing nature of the damage coiling over him.

The Digimon does at last fall down to his knee, as he tries to gasp for air. His claw hands digging along the ground. Shredding into the dirt and grass, as he tries to get away and finds his body growing weaker from it. His gold eyes dimming gently as he almost collapses, but by sheer will alone he keeps himself from doing so.

He pulls himself further away, before he swings his cape around his face and form, rolling a bit down the hill and out of view from Mortimer. It was maybe enough time he needed, he needed to catch his breath and probably time for Mortimer as well to catch his own.

Yet as those on the screen can see, Duke was not done yet, oh no. Instead the Digimon was getting back up on his feet and was extending out his hands. A circle forming under his feet as fire starts to roll around his finger tips and frame. His hands twirling that fire around into a ball.

What Mortimer will see is a glow, before Duke's figure leaps out from above the hill fully back into sight, only with a twirl of his body as what seems like a wyvern has coiled around his body. Then as he reaches the apex of his jump he roars out as he throws his hands forward, "RAGE OF WYVERN!!" And with those words with the hands out, the flaming wyvern leaps directly outward and the flames consume into one large draconic maw.

That very draconic maw surging right for Mortimer, willing to give chase till its mighty form chomps down onto the Pokemon humanoid and explodes around him with flames galore lighting up into the sky.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     Duke isn't /retreating/ is he? No, certainly not. Mortimer briefly considers trying to make the flames chase him but he has to stop- only have so much oxygen to burn, after all. Sucking in more air so he can do it again, he's given quite a shock, and is consumed by a freaking DRAGON blast?! What the hell?!

     The strange energy grabs him, twists and stabs and bites and gnaws at him all the way into the skies, and he is helpless to defend himself against the explosion. "Nng.. A.. Dragon-type.. Attack..? Incredible.." And then he falls to the ground, limp and beaten. This limpness actually softens the impact significantly, fortunately.

     Slowly rising to his feet, bearily staring out at the figure of Duke- which, due to the savagery of that last attack, he is seeing several blurry images of simultaneously- he coughs a bit. "Good.. Good shot, son.. Danm good.. But I ain't.. Down yet.." Raggedly panting out a defiance to the Digimon as he sucks in air.. And then expels flames once more.

     It's not quite like the last deluge though; unfocused and crude. It's almost like a beam or pillar of a roiling inferno, aimed in Duke's general direction- something that it would hurt a great deal to be hit directly by, but even dodging it carries the risk of intense burns.

Duke has posed:
Duke lands down on the ground, almost taking a knee as he does so. The wear of the battle starting to take its toll on him, he does slowly look up at Mortimer as he gets back up on his feet. "Where there is will... there is a way." Duke admits as he forces himself to stand back up. "There is someone in the match... I have to face down. For my own honor... I'm sure you can understand that."

And Duke knew it was going to be a long match to that point. He wasn't even sure this early on if the one he was after wouldn't be taken out early and that fight may never happen, but for now-- he has to think it will. That knowledge, gives him the strength he needs and he knows this is the time to also make a point as well.

Yet Mortimer isn't done and makes that obvious as a massive pillar of fire comes roaring his way. "FU..!" Is all Duke gets out as he goes to summon his Halberd once more and tries to cut the beam in half. The heavy fire flies around him and while his weapon does give him some shield, it still swallows around him.

The intense heating tearing at his armor, slowly eating away at his weapon into bits of data, till at last the sheer force slams him right off his feet and he goes sailing back before he slams down hard into the ground. Duke rolls a bit before he forces himself up into a three prong stance. He stares at Mortimer and then tosses away what is left of the Dynas. "...Come on Mortimer..." He says softly. "...Show me what else you got!" He yells out as he shoves off his foot.

"Cause I'm far from DONE!!"Then using his own emotions, his refusal to be stopped, and general pain to fling him forward, Duke comes racing right in. His fist rears back and with a battle cry that rocks the sky he goes to leap into the air, before his fist in flaming rage comes streaking down with all the force he can give.

Mortimer Balman has posed:
     Well. No it wasn't going to be a long match, so Duke was very much wrong on that point. Mortimer is too exhausted to do much more than hold up a weak effort to absorb the impact of Duke's ferocious assault. The old man goes down hard, and it shouldn't take very long for Duke to realize that Mortimer does not seem inclined to get back up.

     One eye swollen shut, the other half-screwed open. "Okay.. ...We'll.. We'll call it a.. Draw.. Then.."

     Thud.

Duke has posed:
Mortimer goes down and with a few beeps, its then called. Duke is the winner of this match, who stands over Mortimer's down formed. The Digimon closes his gold eyes before he lets out a unsteady breath of air and then slams down on his own knees next to Mortimer.

He would just carrying the guy, but he is a bit to tired and that is obvious as his form starts to glow and reverts back to his child-like Guilmon X form. Which looks far /worse/ then his knightly form, given the red scaled flesh shows all the burns and bruises. Some of those burns are pretty deep and they do, like his armor, go down to the grid lines.

Duke will probably stay right there with Mortimer till the medic team gets out here and takes him, and probably himself back. What a ride...