WMAT C1 Material-L vs. Sarah

WMAT C1 Material-L vs. Sarah
Date of Scene:	23 June 2014
Location:	WMAT Arena - Spinach Wastes
Synopsis:	Sarah and Levi duke it out in Bracket C's first round.
Thanks to:	Sarah for being an awesome opponent!
Cast of Characters:	15, 37, 316
Tinyplot:	WMAT

---

Material-L (15) has posed:
WMAT, Bracket C, Round One!

Given the kind of firepower packed by the fighters, their starting location is actually a fair while away from the crowd's stands and safe viewing locations. Conveniently, it's by one of the many rivers that cross this area. The sparkling blue water and the grassy, almost endless green plains are only interrupted by the occasional remnants of a prior battle, mostly craters or patches of destroyed grass. It is bright and sunny out, with few clouds in the way of the action.

Standing in the middle of all that is a little girl, no older than nine, with dual-toned blue hair in large pigtails. She's not wearing her normal Barrier Jacket today-- the cape, the skirt, it's gone, leaving only a black and blue bodysuit that ends at her shoulders and thighs, with a big blue belt just kind of there. She's got armored bracers over black gloves, and armored boots.

Vulnificus, the girl's Intelligent Device, is idling in its default form, a mechanical halberd of dark purple and silver metal with a bright blue gem in the blade. It could easily be mistaken for an Abstractum. She's holding onto it at her side, and the gem is displaying what looks like a game of Tetris. She is apparently very bad at it.

But then she's Levi the Slasher, Material of Power, not of Tetris.
That's Seikou, really.

Sarah (316) has posed:
For once, the bearer of the True Water Rune does not teleport into the arena. She's been here before, so she could do that, but a simple entry on foot is much more dramatic.

The pale, pale woman makes her way in from the direction of the viewers' stands. Despite how ornate the rest of her outfit is, she's wearing fairly simple boots designed for comfort rather than appearances; the rest of her looks impractical for a fight. She looks like a strong breeze could shatter her like glass! That greatstaff, however, looks like it might be able to cause some damage -- ebonwood and silver, and very solid-looking.

One kinda wonders how she has the strength to lift it.

Sarah arrives with no fanfare, slowing to a halt a short distance away from the Tetris-playing Material. She inclines her head in a gesture of respect, jewelled sapphire earrings clinking softly. "Material-L." It is both an acknowledgement and a greeting.

"On your mark," she says simply, words so soft they're only a shade or two above a whisper -- but that's her usual speaking voice; so quiet and understated as to be overlooked.

Material-L (15) has posed:
"Hiiiiii~!" is Levi's answer, bright pink eyes looking away from the Tetris match, which disappears into the blue of the weapon's crystal. She gives an energetic wave-- with her halberd, forgetting she's even holding the thing-- and then grins.

"Say hi too Vulnificus!"
<IT GREETS THE OPPONENT.> chimes the crystal in the smoothest, most perfect british butler voice an AI can be programmed to have.

"Nyaya, put on a good show! I bet the King and Seikou are watching, if I let them down I won't hear the end of it!" She sadly does not really know Sarah, or she'd know she's about to get a good fight.

Bright cyan wings of light and mana appear by her ankles and wrists, extending out about a foot in length. She starts hovering off the ground a couple of inches, evidently due to the appearance of those little wings. Sprite Form'll be useless if she's not actually putting her energy into offense and speed, because she's exactly as defenseless as she looks in that mode.

Sarah (316) has posed:
The pale woman doesn't seem very energetic about this, but neither does she seem disinclined to fight. She's just not very showy, and there are others who are far better at showmanship than she is. Sarah is understated; even if she's come out of her shell over the past few years, there are some aspects of her that will probably never change.

Her head remains at that slightly awkward tilt, this time with an expression of very reserved puzzlement. While she has had reason to tangle with the Materials, she'd forgotten how very young they seem. She has no more enjoyment of fighting children than the next person; even if, in the case of the Materials, the appearance is probably pure deception.

She is very familiar with deception.

A good show? Sarah merely cocks her head slightly the other way, one brow lifting even more slightly. She seems to be somewhere between puzzlement and amusement at Levi's chiding statement.

"Is that so?"

Uh oh.

Sarah tilts her head up to regard Levi thoughtfully. The girl, or whatever she is, is now firmly on the Runebearer's radar. The pale woman says nothing, doesn't so much as make a move, but the sigil of three concentric circles on her right hand flare to live in a blaze of blue-white light.

And suddenly
there is a tidal wave crashing down on Levi.

Except it's not. If it manages to hit Levi, if she recovers from the noise, she'll find she's not actually wet.

"Are you paying attention, now?" Sarah's question is quiet. "Good. I will be certain to give you a show you'll not soon forget."

And then suddenly
there's ANOTHER tidal wave crashing down on Levi. And this time, it really is a tidal wave, shot through with broken and jagged pieces of ice. The thing comes roaring down on Levi with all the might of a storm surge, attempting to crush and tear at the same time.

Material-L (15) has posed:
"Yep! Gimme your all so we can blow everything up!"

ASKING FOR IT. Well, that's Material-L for you.

For what it's worth, though, the Material really is a kid. Much older than she looks, but not... really mentally so at all. She's kind of an eternal spoiled god-child. So Sarah will in fact be beating up a nine year old girl here today!

Or tossing tidal waves at her, take your pick.

The first one reveals she does pay attention to the fighting. With a swipe of her halberd, she cuts through the wave, without even moving. She's got a hell of a grin on, and then gives a nod in confirmation.

The second wave, she tries to cut it too. The surprise ice is NOT FUN, though, and while she can cut a line through the water, the jagged shards of ice still flow all around her, tracing bruises and lines of red across her exposed skin.

There's no magical barrier protecting her here.

She's as unarmored as she looks.

"My turn, my turn~!"

Lifting Vulnificus up, without moving towards Sarah yet, Levi produces about half a dozen small orbs of blue lightning. She points the weapon at the mage. "Vulnificus, shoot!"
<PHOTON LANCER.>

Pew pew. Balls of lightning attempt to pelt into Sarah, making a straight and predictable beeline for her. The electricity arcs between them, but it's less threatening than direct hits.

Sarah (316) has posed:
Lightning is not one of Sarah's favourite things. In fact, lightning is one of Sarah's least favourite things, rating right up there on the top of the list with giant insects (hello, Lebuque Village).

When there are suddenly half a dozen orbs of blue lightning lancing for her current position, Sarah does what comes naturally to mind. She throws a shield of water up in front of her.

This would be great, except water conducts electricity.

And electricity is damned painful.

Hastily, she freezes the water, using sheer density to stop the conductivity, manipulating the state of the water in the round, convex shield in front of her; it's too late to stop all of it, but it stops what is an unpleasant experience from becoming a near-mortal one. Even with the might of the rune, Sarah is still human. Something like that could, if she weren't careful, still stop her heart.

And given Levi's cheerfully destructive bent, she's not sure she wants to trust this girl's attacks to be non-lethal...

Once she's finished spasming, Sarah straightens, clutching her staff as support and clenching her jaw against the last few tremors and spasms. She does not like lightning at all. "W-well done," she murmurs.

Without further ado, she raises her staff, pointing it horizontally towards Levi. Light flares in the crystal at its head. More water is sent in Levi's direction -- this time it's not the gentle embrace of a half-frozen tidal wave, but a pressurised stream, the kind of pressurised stream that's used industrially to /cut metal/.

She is, at least, not aiming for anywhere lethal.

Material-L (15) has posed:
To clarify in pose, Levi's attacks are in fact completely nonlethal here today. Still destructive to the landscape and clothes, and the lightning will definitely ruin your day, but at the end of the match the worst Sarah will have is exhaustion, a few bruises, lingering pain and maybe less clothes on. Definitely no bleeding or missing limbs, no matter the severity of the attacks the Material uses. That's Mid-Childan magic for you, she could cut you in half with her scythe, go through like butter, and you'd still just have a bruise. And pain.

"Thank you, thank you~! Ah, that's right, you're the super water mage! I've never fought someone who uses water before! Nyahaha, let's go, let's go!"

Levi grips Vulnificus tighter.
<SLICER FORM.>
The halberd's blade shifts ninety degrees and opens up. A bright blue, wicked blade of mana gushes out of it, forming a scythe out of magic. Material-L does what she does best, and leaps in head first.

Straight into the current.

It tears some of her Barrier Jacket off, athough the clothes are sturdy and made to protect from magic. This is a painful, if incredibly fun, experience, and when Levi emerges from the stream, right in front of Sarah, she's bruised all over, and lifting the scythe up high above her head.

"NYA~HA!"

Down goes the scythe, trying to cut Sarah diagonally. Or, well, pass through her causing a lot of pain and cutting up her clothes only, really. Nonlethal magic is awkward to reference as 'cutting'.

Sarah (316) has posed:
The water mage staggers a bit, planting the spike-shod end of her staff into the earth, leaning against it as she recovers from that unpleasantness. She has her head cocked very slightly to watch Levi as she grips her Device and it does... something.

Sarah is not very familiar with Devices. She knows only in a cursory sense what they are and what they do, or more specifically, what their potential may be. So, she expects this thing to do anything, and tenses appropriately when it begins changing.

Super water mage? Well, that's something of a compliment. "I suppose the Confederacy is still somewhat sore over my role in Annu," she murmurs, a thin, wintry smile flickering briefly across her features. "I had hoped they had forgotten, but that is much to be forgotten and swept beneath a rug."

When she finds herself faced with a scythe-wielding maniac in her immediate personal space, Sarah's first reaction is to raise her staff and brace it, horizontally, to try and stop Levi's forward momentum. It's not enough to prevent Levi from getting a good slice in with that scythe; something that would have, in any other school of magic, been very nearly mortal.

It does hurt, even as the seams of her sleeve protest and split, shredding along one arm. The pain she can live with, at least for the moment, but that's going to slow her down later on.

Sarah does what comes naturally as soon as she has somebody unwanted in her personal space. She leans back and hauls off with that big frigging stick, right for Levi's head. It is a very big and heavy stick, and she swings it with surprising heft, being used to carrying it around pretty much everywhere.

Material-L (15) has posed:
Implying Levi really remembers much about Sarah is PROBABLY giving her a bit more credit than she deserves. She probably just remembers some time Loros must have talked about the True Water Rune (which has happened a few times!) and tried to warn people not to kill Sarah.

Admittedly if this wasn't a tournament match it's unlikely the Material would care about the warning at all anyway. But! Rules are rules. She doesn't want disqualified.

The mage's staff finds purchase, smacking the little girl right across the face and sending her hovering a few feet back. She pouts a bit, especially since she now has a big red staffhead shaped mark across one cheek. But then she just laughs.

"You're strong too! ... or I'm unarmored. AAAH! I'm unarmored! That's right I'm supposed to be dodging! Ohnononono I'm doing all the fighting wrong! I gotta step it up! Vulnificus!"

<LOAD CARTRIDGE.>
The head of the spear lifts up a bit, and then slams back down, as a loud clunky mechanical sound echoes from it, and then it lets out a burst of steam.

"KOYOKUZAN!"
<LIGHT WING SLASH.>

Though she's still out of melee range, even accounting for the reach of her weapon, Levi swings the scythe anyway, and its blade launches right off, towards Sarah. It forms a spinning crescent of blue light, more blunt force than cutting power this time; and on impact (whether with Sarah or a defensive spell), it would explode, several times, into less powerful but still nasty bursts of magic. It is slightly electrified too.

The wings on her wrists and ankles light up, meanwhile. She is obviously preparing to actually try to dodge if those things are what's making her hover.

Serori (37) has posed:
Serori is in the stands, a bucket of fried chicken and corn dogs in her lap. Naturally, she's here to be a jeering asshole toward Sarah. "That move /sucked/! You're predictable and boring! Booo!"
Unfortunately for Serori, her words only prompt the surrounding crowds to cheer /louder/ for the water-wielding Sarah, a fact that makes her next bite of chicken taste sour. "Tch," she grumbles. "Can't appreciate a real powerhouse when you see one, huh?"
Then Levi makes /her/ move, and Serori gets up on her feet, roaring support: "YEAH! KICK HER ASS!!"

Sarah (316) has posed:
"And you are strong as well." Sarah's a little short of breath by now, huffing and panting between words. Physical activity is not her strong suit, even if she does have the capacity to dodge and be evasive.

Such tactics are born of desperation, not ordinary technique... something she ought to fix, but just never has quite gotten around to. Physical training just isn't her forte. She's a bookish scholar, not a sword-slinging adventurer.

Sarah eyes Levi appraisingly, studying the girl's movement and tactics. More importantly, Sarah studies the Intelligent Device that Levi carries. "Not that I had intended to do anything but take you seriously. Any Elite winning their way into this tournament is not to be dismissed out of hand."

She does pull up short at the sudden verbal flailing about being unarmoured, staring flatly at the girl in what seems to be understated confusion. What? How could she have not known she wasn't armoured? Wasn't that immediately obvious?

Sarah blinks and starts to say something, opening her mouth. Sarah then closes her mouth, shaking her head, jewelled earrings clinking.

"You are a very strange young lady," she murmurs, instead of whatever else she'd been about to say.

Again, she blinks somewhat owlishly as Vulnificus hops to its mistress' instruction, loading a cartridge. Sarah can't quite say what that's supposed to do, but she can virtually guarantee it probably isn't going to be good for her.

Yeah no that's not good for her.

Sarah is too well-bred to curse, but the set of her jaw and the way she bares her teeth as she hunkers down under a barrier suggest she might, had she less restraint. While the barrier absorbs a good deal of the kinetic energy, it still sends her sliding, boots digging into the soft earth.

When she finally stops sliding, back hunched and staff raised to brace against the forward momentum, she finds herself not too far away from the riverbank -- she can feel the change in the earth, the softness and give of soil giving way to sediment.

Sarah smiles a wintry little smile.

Straightening, she raises her staff with a cry of something, some lost and ancient language that the Multiverse itself does not translate; a cry of ancient Sindar, the language of magic. The True Water Rune flares bright blue-white on her right hand, bright enough to cast stark shadows against her pale skin.

The river obeys, heaving against its banks -- and /rises up/, coiling over itself like a serpent, water sloshing as Sarah carefully manipulates it, casting a shadow over herself and Levi.

And then
Sarah throws a goddamn river at her opponent.

It may or may not specifically get Serori all wet, too. Not the stands she's sitting in -- /specifically Serori/.

Serori (37) has posed:
"E-eeeh...?!"
Serori blinks. Her wild hair is flattened to her scalp and dripping rivulets of water into her face. Her bucket of goodies gets so flooded that the bucket rips apart, scattering drumsticks and corndogs in all directions.
Serori tosses the remains of her meal over her shoulder and starts trying to wring out her t-shirt, grumbling to herself while the nearest spectators heckle.

Material-L (15) has posed:
"Of course I'm strong! I'm the Material of Power~!"

Of course, anyone who takes a look at Material-S would think SHE is power, and they'd be right to feel that way. But really, Seikou is more about control, and this is a magic style where superior control leads to superior spells. Levi is just raw, brutish power. There's no finesse or control to her actions-- when she goes all out, she can equal Seikou, on the sole basis of raw output.

The cheers from Serori don't go unnoticed, there's just a bit too much noise to react right now. Sarah throws AN ENTIRE RIVER at Levi. She huffs. "C'mon Vu! GOTTA GO FAST~!"
<SHIFTING CALCULATIONS TO FASTS PER HOUR.>
"Nyahahaha! Yes! SONIC MOVE!"
<SONIC MOVE.>

Levi's body turns into a bright blue lightning bolt.

She shoots into the river-- arcing, bending, slipping through cracks in the water. It can't be done perfectly, and it'd definitely take a trained eye to track her movement at that speed. She emerges by breaking through the final layer of water and flying above the battlefield, about a hundred feet up. She reforms, more bruised than she used to be-- and wet, very wet.

"That was fun! Again, again!"

'Fun' or not, she doesn't look like she got out of that unscathed. A few inches off and she'd have gotten sucked into the currents and then who knows what Sarah was going to do with that. Probably washing machine her. God that would suck.

"Pew pew! Vu, fill the sky!"
<STINGER BLADE. EXECUTION SHIFT.>

A sea of bright blue swords, most made of mana or lightning, appears all around the Material. She swings her scythe down, commanding them to rain on Sarah like lightning bolts. Not all of them do so though; it seems that a few dozen are going to stay up there and idle for now.

Sarah (316) has posed:
While it's always refreshing to test her skill, this isn't exactly what Sarah would call fun or enjoyable. She doesn't like fighting. The only reason she bothers to enroll in the tournament any more is because it's become something of a tradition. A strange one, but a tradition nonetheless. She doesn't like being sliced up and her pain tolerance is horrible and oh look that's a lot of swords--

Sarah reacts by throwing a barrier up over herself, popping it open much as one would pop open an umbrella. Made of pressurised water and ice. She cowers under the shield, curling in on herself and making herself and her shield as small a target as possible. It serves two purposes; aside from presenting a smaller profile, she's more readily able to maintain a shield when it's smaller.

And maintain she has to. Those swords are hitting hard enough to chip ice away, the whole thing cracking and ablating under the onslaught. The strain shows; Sarah seems paler even than usual (if that's even possible) and sweat beads on her forehead.

Somehow, she manages to cobble together an offensive even as she's being slammed by those swords. She staggers, falling to one knee as she draws power from the True Water Rune again, commanding what's left of the river to snap itself over to her like a whip. Instead of trying to simply overwhelm Levi, she attempts to coil it around the Material, binding and constricting like a serpent. Except the upper limit of its strength is not the muscle of a serpent's underbelly, but the primal forces of creation -- her creation, anyway -- themselves.

Material-L (15) has posed:
The sky is hers! Surely there is nothing Sarah can do with her water to reach Levi. Up here, surrounded by swords of lightning, she is absolutely untouchable to some silly river!

Her headcanon is great.

Reality is a bit harsher than that, though, because the little girl gets swallowed by the river before she has time to react. She's whipped around in the currents, and more importantly, crushed. It hurts! Fortunately Sarah is quite skilled and no doubt avoiding crushing so hard as to make everything that's inside go outside, but it is no less an awful experience.
One she is getting annoyed with quickly.

She screams some profanity or another but the water muffles it.
Vulnificus also chimes some sort of alert in there.

The runebearing water mage will find the temperature to suddenly be dropping, and her river to be slowing down. It then quickly becomes obvious what is happening. It is being frozen, from its core, i.e. Levi's position inside. The ice spreads slowly at first, but then a burst of magic sends the ice across the body of water in a quick ripple. It halts the water, forming an immense, spiral, serpent-coil structure of ice that shadows the battlefield a bit. Before it cracks!

And shatters, violently.

Pissed off little Levi is floating in the air, battered and with a bit of ice over some of her, and she directs with her free hand the biggest shards of ice towards Sarah.

It's raining car-sized chunks of ice!

"That wasn't fun! That hurt! THAT HURT HURT HURT YOU MEANY!"

Sarah (316) has posed:
Actually, the sky belongs to Sarah, too. Less directly, maybe. But unless you're standing in the middle of a desert, there's moisture there, too... which means that under normal circumstances, she can make some attempt to use it. At the very least, she can direct her water through a normal atmosphere.

The pale woman seems satisfied by the effect of the river's serpentine coils, observing as Levi is crushed and whipped about by the twists and turns.

Even as she feels the composition changing and the temperature dropping, she lets Levi get away with it, observing even as it turns to ice. That's alright; she had expected Levi to break free sooner or later.

Besides, shattering violently is what ice does, innit? So she expects that, too. What she doesn't expect is for Levi to direct it as accurately as she does. Once again Sarah finds herself cowering behind a barrier, teeth grit against the internal strain of maintaining such a strong shield. Getting cut up by that ice would be worse, though. She has no fancy regenerative tricks; nothing to buffer her from the pain of having her skin flayed by razor-sharp shards. Or being crushed by the bigger chunks. There's that too.

There is a thin trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth; she doesn't seem to notice it. The rune on her right hand is ablaze with light, casting a shadow behind Sarah.

"I am s-sorry..." Sarah grits her teeth, spits the coppery taste out of her mouth, and tries again. "S-sorry to have inconvenienced you."

And then she suddenly shoves against her shield, hurling the pressurised water out over the landscape. It seems like sloppy aim, until it becomes clear that she's summoning more water, and covering the immediate area in several feet of water (which conveniently flows around her, never getting her so much as damp).

At a command in Sindar, the whole of it abruptly freezes; with another command, the field buckles and shatters, sending jagged shards of ice flying every which way (though she has enough control to keep any of it from going near the spectator stands).

This includes /directly below/ Levi. Whoops.

Material-L (15) has posed:
"Muuuh, I bet you're not! Huff!"
She is calmer, now, at least. But then, Levi goes between calm and angry and back to calm and then angry again in a matter of seconds, so how long it'll last is a separate matter entirely.

Of course, Sarah isn't going to just stand there and apologize without doing nothing. This is still a fight! And one the Material would like to win, although she's more focused on having fun than anything else right this moment. The two tend to coincidence in courses of action admittedly.

<DEFENSER.> Vulnificus chimes.

A bright blue circle of magic traces itself between the little girl and Sarah. The ice slams into it-- at first it seems to be holding, but the autoprotection spell soon shatters like glass, and the Material is pelted by the jagged shards anyway. A few more bruises-- a few more missing scraps of clothing. Just tears and streaks, really, but the more they add up the less protected she is.

"Vulnificus, I'm getting bored! Let's upscale!"
<LOAD CARTRIDGES. BRAVER FORM.>
With the same mechanical KA-CHUNK from the scythe head, twice this time, and a burst of steam, the weapon changes completely, shifting into the base of a large two-handed sword. The blade forms out of blue light, constantly flickering.

"Let's go say hiiii!"

<BLITZ ACTION.>
Blink and you'll miss it-- Levi flash-steps to Sarah.

"SWOOOOOOORD!"
She attempts to cut Sarah in two at the waist. Well. "Cut". You know the deal. It'll probably just damage her clothes, hurt like hell, and send her flying back, even if it passes all the way through.

And yes she just shouted sword as if it were an attack name.

Sarah (316) has posed:
"Ah, I'm afraid you're right." Sarah allows herself a wintry, fleeting smile. "I am not."

She regards the other with some measure of satisfaction as her shattered ice does its work, slicing and dicing and battering in the same breath. She doesn't have any real desire to harm the girl too much, but maybe this will humble her a little. One can only hope, anyway.

Okay, yeah, probably not. It'll probably just piss her off. She seems kinda unstable that way. (Ha ha, 'kinda.')

Sarah's head raises in abrupt shock when her personal space is rudely violated, jewelled earrings jangling discordantly even as Sarah attempts to bodily throw herself sideways and away from the blade. Mid-Childan magic may be non-lethal, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like hell after tanking enough of the stuff.

In the end she can't angle her staff half as well as she might like for a proper defense, and the blue blade whiffs right past the greatstaff, burying itself in her shoulder. If it were a real blade, anyway. In reality, it simply passes right through it, shredding her sleeve and part of the tabard on the follow-through.

Sarah's arm goes limp, not because of any permanent damage, but because trying to hold her staff up while in the middle of that burning sensation is not really fun times. She quickly transfers her staff to her other hand.

She doesn't seem to retaliate visibly -- but the air seems to grow leaden around Levi, thickening; mist forming and then congealing into a kind of literal pea-soup consistency. The temperature then plummets, snap-freezing, which ought to prove both inconveniencing and painful if she can catch Levi in its area of effect.

The Runebearer isn't going to last much longer, though. The trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth hasn't stopped, and it looks like one side of her nose may be bleeding, too; her pallor is by this point noticeable as more than just her uncommonly pale complexion. She's doing as much damage to herself as to her opponent through all this.

Material-L (15) has posed:
"See, I knew it! I kneeeew it, you're a big meany!"

Levi does not sound mad, she sounds more like a child taunting an adult. As if there were any weight to her words. It might be funny, even, to someone with Sarah's composure. The Material's as immature as she looks.

Fortunately she's also as fast as she needs to be; despite heaving that huge sword around, she doesn't seem slowed down at all, possibly because it's made of magic, or maybe just because she's that physically sturdy. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

As she feels the air around her tingle and harden, she suddenly dives back, fast enough it might as well be flash-stepping again. She lets a burst of lightning lose out of one hand, forcing it to arc between the mist particles and break all of it. It's flashy! Blinding, even. But not dangerous on its own.

There's more danger from the follow-up.

"RAIJIN! ISSEN!"
<THUNDER GOD FLASH.>

Levi cleaves through the air with Vulnificus, the massive blade apparently capable of extending its length. Though she's no longer in melee range, that hardly seems to matter-- the cut transmits, horizontally, to most of the battlefield within Material-L's immediate vision, and that includes Sarah right up front.

The hills and plains behind her have it way worse, though. This is an area attack, not really meant to damage one person very well so much as a lot of people a little bit.

Sarah (316) has posed:
"Poor g-girl." Sarah stutters, but not because she's cold; she seems to be genuinely struggling to speak, because her body is in ruin. Such is the price of the True Water Rune. Barriers are hard to maintain, especially when they're being actively torn apart. "You r-really don't understand, do you...?"

Huffing and panting, she shudders, struggling under a flickering barrier she conjures up. It seems to be failing even before she's managed to raise it, but it doesn't protect her from the worst of the Thunder God Flash.

Sarah staggers, thrusting the spike-shod end of her staff into the broken earth, shuddering again as she leans against it, panting.

"Enough, child." Her admission is quiet and breathless; she pauses to spit blood from her mouth, grimacing at the coppery taste. "I yield."

Material-L (15) has posed:
"E-Eh?"

Levi suddenly stops. The swords still far up in the air flicker out of existence, dissipating into ambient mana. The little girl hops towards the runebearer, her sword shutting off its bright blade.

"What don't I get? I wanna know!"

No, wait, that's not how this works.
Social cues, social cues... RIGHT!

Material-L produces a Klondike Bar and offers it to Sarah. "I wanna know! So I'm trading you ice cream! This is fair, right?"

She hardly looks any better off than Sarah-- although she's capable of standing straight and on her own, at least. Bruised all over, huge chunks of her already minimal Barrier Jacket torn and shredded off. And wet! You have no idea how hard it is to dry her hair.

Sarah (316) has posed:
Sarah drops roughly to one knee, leaning against her staff just to stay upright. She does glance back at Levi, squinting at the Klondike Bar offered in her general direction. It takes her several seconds to recognise it as a candy bar; she isn't really the sweet tooth type. (That's Luc's purview.)

And then she laughs. It's a broken laugh, and it ends up dissolving into a wet cough, but she seems genuinely amused by Levi's inssitence and confusion.

"Nothing, young lady. Nothing. I was talking to myself." With effort, she raises herself up to stand again, wavering unsteadily. "You wouldn't understand, anyway. Ah. Best I go see the medics, myself. Would you like to go, too? I believe I have enough left in me to teleport us both there."

Material-L (15) has posed:
"O-Oh... okay!" Levi pouts a bit, but does not argue.
At the offer for a teleportation, she grins.
"I could teleport us if you want!"
<NO.>
"But I--"
<NO.>
"I can teleport too!"
<NO.>
"Aww. Vulnificus says I can't."
It's probably better that way. They might end up on the Moon, or somewhere else entirely, which was definitely NOT their destination. She is not very precise with it.

"Pleeeease!"