Push and Pull

[Chephros]

Chephros simply walked through the Academy towards the training grounds, not really caring if the girl was following him or not. If she did, wonderful, if she didn't, oh well. It was her choice. As he walked he kept his pale emerald eyes forward, simply continuously moving. If anyone got in front of him they would run into him. If they were to his side he would hit them with his shoulder. He wouldn't move for anyone, no matter what their status was, teacher, student, administrator of the school. Probably the only person to be able to stop him would be Millarca, and he doubted she would show up here.

As he walked he went over what he could do in his mind. Taking the extra year or two in the Demon Realm to completely understand his limitations helped when he went around to fight people. He knew inside and backward what his abilities were and what they could do. All but his Helix spell were mastered to him. The Helix Blast though was rapidly becoming easier to use and much more powerful. The first of his abilities was his Death Spikes. Small spikes made in patches on his body to block blows or stab into someone when he willed it. It drained a small amount of Chaos from his bloodline per spike, but it was still a heavy spell to use only in specific cases.

Second was his Chaos Blades. He really didn't use them much anymore, seeing as he had his wrist blades, but they would come in handy. They could be thrown for eight to ten feet, as he could dissolve them at any point within but would become incorporeal after 10 feet by themselves. Third was his shock wave. Depending on the power used in it, it could have varying strength. The girl had felt a very minor extent of it, barely using any of his power to hit her with it at all.

Last but not least his Helix Strike/Blast. A fun spell that focused Chaos along two spiraling lines against a target. The blast itself hit with a force, then the Chaotic explosion also hit right after. If the target moved forward into the line they would be hit with a steady stream of blasts that would simply impact and move them backward as well as hit them decently. If they were at the end and slightly behind the target lines, as was the normal effect, they would be hit by the end of the spheres when they collided then blasted by a Chaos explosion. It was all based on distance. The lines could be extended or shortened, as well as turned, but the power of the blasts would deteriorate depending on it.

After remembering his spells he found himself in front of a plains type training grounds. The training ground areas seemed to be like different terrain types, and thus this place was flat with some grass. An open ceiling, and grass below. The sun lit up the room and Chephros simply walked into the empty place, walking for twenty feet before turning around to face either no one or the person that should have been following him.

[Aiyon]

His follower had just kept on following after they'd left the library, though she had been considering asking where he was heading. They were now quite a distance from the acadamey, so she was a little releived when he stopped abruptly.

"Ok... i guess this is remote enough. Shall we try it?" she asks brightly. Tas raises her right hand in front of her, palm up, and she narrows her eyes at it. The demonic rune appears above her hand, traced in pinkish light. "Now just a little power... are you sure you don't know what it does?" she asks, a little nervous about feeding a rune of demonic origin.

[Chephros]

"If I knew, would we be here?"

Yes, they probably would be there anyway out of the demon challenging the magess. It was simply what he did.

"So, shall we try it?"

His hand went up as well. Perhaps he could push some of his own power into it to pull it's effect out. Still, he would make sure that if it did explode, he would cover his eyes. His eyes were probably the one thing that could melt in the case of an explosion, and he needed his vision, for now at least. He had heard of blindsight powers, but he didn't have them at all yet, or maybe not ever. He took a step back and his hand glowed. Should there be a need for Demonic energy present, he would supply it. His hand glowed in the shadowy purple mist present in his Chaotic power.

"If you need to draw the power from a source, you have it."

[Aiyon]

"Forgive me... but i'd rather not. The spell creating this draws power from me alone. To feed it demonic energy i'd have to absorb said energy first." She shudders, looking a little worried. "And i'd rather not. Let's try my power first."

She'd spoken truthfully, the idea of having demonic power in her was not pleasant. Maybe it was because of the cliche fear that the power made the demon, or maybe she was scared (or both) but it repelled her. The ghostly rune flickers slightly as she starts to ration it, giving a little her and a bit there. The rune remains stable as she does, showing no signs of breaking.

A look of suprise appears on her face as there is a sudden hissing sound and both feel air going past them to the rune. Then the air trembles, as if something had just taken off, and the rune fades. Tas looks a bit confused. "Ok... what was that? Should i have tried it as a full spell or something?"

[Chephros]

He knew what it was when it happened. His left sleeve pulled into the rune, then a few moments later it moved back outward. A vacuum burst in effect. With the right area, it could be useful, for instance if they had a bag of spikes, or a bunch of marbles. It would also be a good test if the spell was exactly that, the marbles that is not the spikes, and would clarify it.

"Hmm. Do you have a mass of small objects you could place on the ground that could easily move?"

Likely she would wonder why he even asked.

"I believe what you have is a 'pull and push' spell. Something that draws things in, then basically forces them back outwards. Imagine a group of marbles going toward a center point, then shooting out in a ring from that point."

He knew what marbles were because he had seen kids playing, joined in at one point, and thus learned the name of the game and how to play. He was quite bad at flicking a single marble into a group though.

[Aiyon]

Tas looked suprised, and then chewed her lip thoughtfully. Small objects... she didn't carry anything like that around, so testing that way was out. Or was it?
"No... i don't have any marbles or stuff..." she said slowly. There was something bothering her about small objects. A mental grab at the idea causes her to smile slightly. "Oh wait. Yes i do."

Without bothering to explain further Tas pulls out her gun. But rather than use it threateningly she turns it on its side and pulls out the clip, crouching down as she did. By upending the clip she dumps nine largeish bullets on the ground, then she slams the clip back into the gun and reholsters it. Some circles of runes appear around the weapon, glowing brightly for a moment, and then vanish again. She looks up at the demon, staying crouched by the bullets.
"Will these do?" she asks calmly, obviously not caring that she was about to loose the bullets... or that she now had an empty gun.

[Chephros]

"Yes, one moment." Looking at the bullets, he knew they could kill if they had enough force behind them, so he changed them. Forcefully.

He picked each one up and put it to his blade the slid it across and pushed it in. It cut the bullets into halves, separating the heads a bit. It would be more like a flak cannon than a circle of bullets. After a few moments of this, the sliced bullets were dropped.

"Albeit they are useless for their original purpose, now a smaller amount of energy should move them, thus they are no longer dangerous if it takes a higher amount to initially move them. I'm thinking that the outward force will be much greater than the inward."

He had his doubts though. It could be equal, who really knew. It was a test spell, that was all. Until it's limits were found and exact qualities realized, anything could happen.

[Aiyon]

Tas listened patiently as the demon did his work, then she nodded agreeably. "It felt that way to me as well... it pulled for longer, but when it pushed it was more forceful."
Tas straightened up, looking down at the vandalised bullets. "The test spell is not enough." she comments thoughtfully. "It didn't pull hard enough. So... i guess i get to test something else as well. Lucky me." Her eyes close as she concentrates, and then she raises one arm up in the air. Her hand shapes as if it it holding an unseen sphere as two pale rings form around the forearm. "Runes." she murmurs quietly, the rings flaring as she does, and then above her hand... the demon rune appears.

It is nearly three times larger than before, and now glows balefully in a deep crimson. With a low roaring sound it sucks at the air, pulling the bullet fragmants, dust and loose bits of dirt and grass into its center, both Tas and Chephros can feel the suction going on. Then, as it grows still Tas' eyes flash open and a loud crackling fills the air, the circles around her arm breaking apart. "Oh... bugger." is her startled comment the demon rune flares into life, the airburst kicking what it had gathered away at great speed while the sleeve on her top shreds itself. After a few moments silence returns to the plains.

Tas, who had been staggered slightly when the rune detonated, looks carefully at her arm. The sleeve was ruined, but her arm had got off lightly. Only dark streaks, a few patches of reddened skin and some small spots of blood had been left behind by her spell failing. "Yeah... pull, then push. Guess the rune worked ok, but my spell messed up." she admitted sheepishly. "'least we know what that rune does now, huh?"

[Chephros]

"Hmm."

He simply waited. As she charged her magic he crossed his arms in front of his chest, wary to keep the wrist blade from slashing his face or lower body open as he crossed them. His right arm being the one that bore the blade, it was on top, the blade resting on his left arm while the hand sunk under, thus keeping an odd grip on it.

"This should be interesting."

The spell went off and his clothes rustled forward, black flapping as the spell drew it in. The armor inside the clothes created complete shapes as their denser forms drew in more easily. They wouldn't break out of the clothes though, oh no they wouldn't. They were sown in nice and tight and magic was weaved into the thread just like the metal. It would keep the metal in place to defend the being behind it. Even so the metal pieces had small spaces, crevices enough to be exploited rather badly. Even so, the metal did help protect him and it worked rather well.

Then of course the push back. The bullet fragments, being closer to him, shot in his direction, albeit slowly. The spell was quite powerful though, and as it shredded the girl's sleeve, the bullets hopped at his pant legs, moving fast enough to cut into it a bit. Some rock pieces flew rather quickly, being incredibly small cut even more into the clothes but deflected rather harmlessly of the plates sown inside. A few pieces were stuck in, but they would be taken care of much later when it was all cleaned.

"That's an interesting spell, despite it having failed somehow. I do not see where it went wrong, besides your shredded sleeve there, but I do see where it went right. Everything did move, especially those fragments. That could be quite the useful spell really..."

Now came what he wanted to do. To tucked his head down as if thinking and took some steps forward to come within three feet of the girl.

"But how about a test of what you can already do? Things you have already mastered as of yet. Surely there is something you can do that will not fail you. Something that can compete with...Oh I don't know. This?"

His left arm came out of it's position, his right arm holding still, and he flicked his hand up. The palm pointed straight at Tas and a black spike shot from his hand, aimed directly at Tas. They were standing three feet apart roughly, or at least from where he stood they were, and so with his two and about four inch long arm pointed at Tas with his wrist up, all he needed was a seven inch spike. It came directly out of his hand with a spiral in it's creation, and stopped. The familiar drain out of his semi-existant bloodline born of magic was apparent as the spikes did take more than normal magic, but he had quite a good bit of energy left. He hadn't really used any at all yet, and thus he was feeling rather good about a small fight. After the quick thoughts the spike would come back into his hand.

"Well?"

[Aiyon]

The girl instinctively fell back a little as the spike came at her. She still didn't have instinctive dodging to the side... though it seems she won't need to develop that yet. Instead she gives the demon a calculating look.

"... the rune was fine. The spell feeding the rune is the one that went wrong. But that's neither here nor there anymore, is it?" she asks ruefully, a largeish circle appearing around her as she finishes. A reluctant shrug of her shoulders is her last action before the spell does its work, leaving her hulking armour form hovering silently where she had been. The area where her eye would normally be is merely impenetrable darkness, since she has it shut right now.

"This should do... did you plan to do this from the start?" she asks, her voice hinting at her building irritation. She'd come out here for some practice and research, not to fight... oh well. Tas opens her eye, the glowing orange light appearing buried in the darkness, though it is obvious that he is the current subject of her attention.

[Chephros]

Chephros simply looked at the armored form and whistled a low whistle that dragged on for only a few seconds.

"Interesting. Able to turn yourself into a mass of armor. Interesting."

Spreading his fourteen foot wingspan, Chephros took a leaping flap backward that propelled him a good twenty feet.

"Let's see how fast you are in that form of yours."

As he said that he would take a few steps back and makes his wings spread upward. If she cold move easily in that form of hers he doubted she would be able to maneuver very well as a mass of metal was normally hard to shift very quickly. He however was in very light armor and could fly around as he felt like. However he wouldn't leave it just to her to attack.

His hands crossed and charged with magic. Putting a quarter of his power into it, it was fairly strong. It's ability to get stronger over time only made it greater. As his hands made their circle and crossed on the mirrored side, the spiraling lines shot and aimed to less than a milimeter in front of Tas's armored form. The technical cores of the magic blasts were even smaller. The energy that slammed into the target first was simply the radiance of it. The explosion was just a secondary force. If she were to move forward into it, she would be slammed by things almost half a milimeter in diameter. However it would have the force of a bullet, only in a much smaller area.

The first blasts would fire in a few seconds, followed by successive blasts every four seconds. Each would hit with the force of twenty pounds, added with another one each shot. The actual explosion itself has the force of one and a half the shots themselves. i.e: 30 lb force in the blast is a 40 slam for the explosion.

((Me being horrible with speeds and such, I did impact force instead.))

[Aiyon]

((Impact force is fine with me.))

As he talked Tas floated silently, not moving, not blinking, focused entirely on him. Her first reaction was when he spread his wings. Her eye shifted slightly, examining them.
"Oh you'll see how fast i am." is her grim response to his last words. She knew full well he wouldn't be impressed, but her severity of tone might get him worried. Then again, he was a demon, so maybe not.

When he starts throwing his magic about she is caught a little unawares, too busy looking at the wings. Fully expecting the lines of energy to try to pierce her plating Tas braces herself, and is again taken by suprise when they detonate instead. Small creaks are audible between the blasts as her frame absorbs the energy, dents and scratches appearing as it does so. After a few times she realised the attack was regular, and backs off slightly, wobbling slightly in the air from the magical impacts. "Timing it, huh? Ok... lets try to disrupt that." she thinks grimly to herself, and with determination stops the slight wobbling.

"Nice spell... those bangs are solid." she says graciously, loud enough for him to hear her. And it was true, she did have some respect for it. Then, between the demon's blasts, there is another louder blast. This blast, which was actually two a split-second apart, heralds a pair of armour-piercing cannon shells tearing through the air at him. If she'd only had his body to aim at she'd have probably missed... but those spread wings, impressive as they were, were a rather large target. She'd aimed at his left wing with both shots, expecting the piercing rounds to easily punch through the thin wing. "Shame they're not high-explosive." she thought to herself as she fired. "That's tear it up bigtime. But a few holes will be cool, unless he's faster than i think at dodging..."

[Chephros]

As the alternate blast, the one that wasn't from his own attacks came towards him, he knew how to dodge it. Unless it was electrical based, it wouldn't hit him fast enough. Plus aiming at his body wouldn't be easy when the blasts would be likely covering him from vision. The regularity and the rapid spinning of the orbs would cover his body, and that was half of what he was counting on. A range attack on his wings, not so much. He pulled them in quickly, but his left was still clipped on the tip. Being a wing, that hurt like all fucking hell. Wing membranes weren't especially thick unless you were a dragon, in which case they still weren't very thick and could be pierced by guns just as easily. However, the clipping only cut an inch in and a centimeter wide. The blasts were definitely something to avoid.

Having pulled his wings in though, he was now heading straight down. Being twenty feet up, it was quite a drop. He let his wings pull out three feet to increase air resistance, but the tearing pain at his left wing was hard to go through. He would have to get that checked out soon enough. However, he would get used to it. The outsides of his wings would eventually be filled with battle scars like many flying demons were. It was painful, but it would heal. Plus it would only add to the image he could give. He should thank her, but right now he was intent on beating the hell out of Tas.

"Going for the shots the demons take ehh? Good, good. This makes it all the more fun!"

The easy targets on him would be his wings, if extended, his stomach, his head, and his legs. His arm blade would deflect bullets away from him and his armor would as well. His stomach however was the center point of his body. Shoot there and he would have to side dodge to full escape. A double shot though could easily get him if she guessed which way he would go. He could likely wait for her to come at him and hopefully wear down. Strength wise he likely couldn't life that suit of armor. The cannon wouldn't by much fun to get near either. This was a good defensive tactic, but what happened when she ran out of ammo? She would have to refill somehow, and that was his turn to move. Right now he simply touched the ground hard, rolled to his side to avoid any shots coming at him then, and started walking backwards to put some distance between the cannon and him.

[Aiyon]

"Say what?" she shouts back, startled. "Demons go for wings first? Man... tough life, huh?" As she spoke some new circles appear in front of her, tracking him as he fell. And, just to keep him on his toes, another cannon shell was sent tearing in his direction, this one trying to home in on his middle. While this did mean the cannon was empty, Tas was fortunate that is had a box magazine so it was something an opponent could see.

"Ok then... something for you, too." she announces as her Focus spell finishes building up, drawing light and air from the ambient. "Sickle Wind!"
As Tas utters these last words her focus spell ignites, and a cone of cold, piercing, torrential air bellows out of the circles in the demon's direction. Just by falling he wouldn't be able to dodge it, and anything that was caught by the stream would be sliced at by swarms of unseen blades. Fortunately for any potential victims the spell was only of short duration, so any strong opponents wouldn't suffer much from it.

[Chephros]

"Not really." Chephros had to grit his teeth through the words. Falling with a wing open was horrible even with a small trace cut like that. That was the main reason that wings were a curse to demons. They were also targetted first because large cuts gave crippling amounts of pain. If a foot wide hole was blasted in any section, the pain could send a demon insane. Not to say they couldn't handle that, but then you would be fighting a berserker who was constantly losing blood. A warrior who would be going more and more crazy and would pretty much kill you, then die. That however, wasn't this demon. He was cold, calculating, when it came to battle, but he didn't have his weaknesses. Thinking while fighting was one of them, partially like now about his reminiscence of berserkers.

However, the crippling pain was dieing. People and beings often recovered from sharp pains via adrenaline, Chephros was just used to it. It crippled him for a few seconds, but that was about it. However now he had something else coming at him which didn't help. He touched down to the ground and saw the shell while his eyes seemed to slow down. He had one thing that could potentially stop it, but he would still feel the force and be jammed in the stomach. Using his magic again he created a spike where the shell would hit and the center points of both collided. It pushed him back, and knocked his torso back more. His spine hunched over and he coughed a bit. Damn that had hurt. Then of course, Sickle Wind wasn't a pleasure either.

It ripped into him as he stood up and most of it hit the metal plates in his armor. However, three shots hit his wings, causing gashes to rise out of nowhere. He would definitely need medic assistance leaving these grounds, but that wasn't to say he was going to lose. The pain made him go to one knee and one arm. It also blinded him for a few seconds. Then after about five seconds when it died, he would attempt to stand up. That is, if nothing else was thrown at him.