2h.) Armadillo versus Kitty Cat

Erik carelessly tossed his backpack on his bed, while leaning down to turn on his computer.

After a few clicks and beeps, Erik was on his desktop, a mixture of ironic music and sayings, some unfinished school documents, and several computer-games.

He clicked the application labeled "DaCre!", then scrolled down the list that appeared of competitors currently online. He chose a random person with a DaCre named "Arden" and began to connect.

Abidan was lying down sleeping of the couch because he had just gotten home and was tired. Soon, he awoke to find that the XRL8 on his wrist had just beeped. Abidan looked at his watch to find his list of applications. He sat up now because he decided to play DaCre. After he had loaded the game, which did*’t take very long, he looked at his DaCre, which he had nothing with, and decided to go ahead and try to do a net battle with someone. When he got to the lobby a screen soon came up saying that someone named Eric, with a DaCre called, Tesla. Abidan, knowing nothing about this kind of thing accepted the battle. After a moment’s wait another screen came up asking what kind of field the two players wanted. This time, it was his opponent’s choice. Abidan would wait for his opponent to choose a field to battle on as the thirty second counter went down.

Erik scrolled through the selection of fields, then finally selected one near the bottom of the list. He chose "Street-fight", a field that would imitate an actual street, as if the battle had just broken out in real life. He also figured it might give his DaCre a slight advantage, if there was any usable electricity around.

Erik tapped absentmindedly on his desk as the "Connecting...Please wait." screen popped up. The field resembled the run-down section of a city, complete with virtual graffiti and dark alleyways. The opponents would start off facing each other in a lone, wide street, with multiple adjacent alleyways splitting off from the main road. There were no cars, though there seemed to be a 'working' stoplight.

The stoplight turned from red to yellow, and a disembodied voice rumbled,

"Ready..."

Arden stood still in the middle of the street. About thirty yards off stood another DaCre, apparently named Tesla. In appearance, it looked like a large cat. Arden, being a huge armadillo, might have a fair advantage against such a thing.

As the battle started the holograph zoomed out to an overview of the street, this could be easily changed from a dial on Abidan’s watch though. For now a very short tutorial was played for Abidan to see the basic controls. He learned very quickly, so the controls were very easy for him. The strange thing was that he wasn’t actually controlling the DaCre; he was simply ordering it to do specific moves. For now, Abidan just held his hand on his wristwatch in a position to where he could hit any button in an instant.

Erik went with the usual. He decided to test his opponent first with a relatively risk-free attack.

Erik quickly hit the hot-key on his keyboard for "Rapid Assault."

Tesla seemed not to obey the order at first, but instead walked forward a few measured paces. She then broke into a full-out run at the Armadillo.

Erik readied his control on the keyboard to prepare for Arden's response.

Abidan would have an interesting first battle seeing as he had never fought on the net with his DaCre before really. Abidan did*’t get much time off, so the little that he had was usually doing other things. If he ever did get addicted to a game like this though, it would be a very bad addiction.

Abidan knew the moved of his own DaCre well, and because there was thirty yards in between the two DaCre, there would be more than enough time to think and press a button. After a moment or two, he pressed the attack 2 button. This caused the DaCre’s teeth and claws to buzz with electricity. As Tesla continued running forward, Arden simply stood on four legs and wouldn’t move until a couple of seconds before the opposing DaCre arrived.

"Jump, Tesla," Erik said absentmindedly. Tesla braced, then leaped high into the air, without him having to press anything.

There was now a huge cat high in the air above Arden, claws ready to strike.

~I guess I could sacrifice some HP for this...~ Erik thought to himself.

For now, to get a hang of controlling, Abidan would do a simple dodge maneuver. Assuming that the cat jumped quite high, as they can do very easily, the Arden would have enough room with more than a couple of inches to spare if he rolled forward just before the strike. So, Abidan ordered just that. Just in time, Arden, using his hard outer shell, rolled forward skillfully just under the cat who had recently jumped. The cat would presumably land behind Arden and attempt to attack again, so Abidan was ready for it.

Abidan quickly canceled attack 2 and engaged attack 3. As he did the claws and teeth of Arden became normal again and the tail became extremely sharp and hard, much like a sword. Here, because Arden couldn’t see his opponent, Arden would have to trust Abidan to use adequate and accurate orders to follow. For now, Arden raised his sword-like talk to a slight angle upward and waited for the next attack while Abidan watched the whole thing. The holographic image was more zoomed in now, it seemed to be set on some kind of automatic mode meaning that it zoomed in and out automatically.

~What the hell? He think he can fight me with his tail?~ Erik thought, somewhat amused. He stifled the urge to use Rapid Assault a second time, it would probably be dodged or countered.

He pressed the button for Lightning Ball. A compact electric field appeared in front of Tesla, crackling with energy.

Erik was about to attack, but quickly decided not to waste Tesla's energy needlessly. He didn't want a lightning attack to be dodged.

"Tesla, wait for him to move," Erik muttered, pressing the buttons for the order.

Abidan had no plans to move Arden whatsoever, in fact, Abidan expected his opponent to move. Either way, there were still many things to do. The first and most obvious thing to do was to not move and wait, though in the current position, seeing as the opposing DaCre was also facing backwards, it might be smart to do something else. Something like stabbing the back of his opponent would be good.

As armadillos could jump quite well, and seeing as his opponent wouldn’t have enough time to turn around and release the lightening ball in time to hit, Abidan controlled Arden to make a small lateral jump over the yard distance behind him between the two DaCre. This would be a very easy attack to dodge, but if it was dodged the lightening would be discharged into the ground. The spike of a tail would go through the lowest part of Tesla’s spine, splitting it open and essentially killing the DaCre. Well, it would be a kill hit because the cat couldn’t move as soon as that part of the spine turned to dust.

"Tsk...I was hoping he would do something else." Erik took advantage of his screen's vantage point, and ordered Tesla to release the Lightning Ball.

"Well...Perhaps some good can come of this," Erik muttered to himself. He pressed the button for Rapid Attack, and Tesla immediately curved off toward the left and then behind Aren, completely dodging the attack and reversing their positions.

Abidan’s response was simple; he simply went back to engaging attack 2. His claws and teeth were now beaming with energy again. He would simply wait for the cat to engage again, perhaps differently this time, and retaliate harshly.

"Man...Back to where we were."

Erik did nothing. Tesla would understand, he found that his DaCre had a knack for understanding what he wanted her to do more often than some others did.

Tesla simply slowly closed off the distance between the two. She stopped a little further than a yard away, ready to react if he changed his attack again.

Tesla raised her head in a taunt and act of defiance.

She was right in range for the electric shot.

Abidan had a fairly good advantage in close range combat. Because of the armadillo’s general armor and weapons, so he would use that to his advantage. Abidan, after a moments wait changed his attack from 2 to 1, because he couldn’t use them both at the same time. His claws did*’t seem like anything special now, but he was using attack 1, and did*’t seem to be anything special.

Within less than a second the armadillo leapt forward rather laterally and ridiculously quickly. The attack would be simple; both of the armadillo’s front legs would simultaneously hit the large cat*s upper neck just before the armadillo’s head bit into the front of the skull of his opponent. Both the claws and the teeth of the armadillo would be ridiculously quick and brutal, after the initial strike, there would by much slashing and biting.

"Man...This guy always does the same thing." Erik mumbled to himself, somewhat put off by the repetition of events. The irony didn't exactly hit him as he pressed the button for Rapid Assault once again.

Tesla quickly retreated back, but not before incurring a few scratches on her face from the attack. Tesla's HP gauge went down a bit from the hit.

Erik pressed the button for Veil. Tesla immediately went about focusing, then three slow-pulsing electric bubbles appeared around her, guarding her front.

Erik pressed another button, and Tesla immediately began to focus.

Abidan smiled as the pink dust fell from the ground. Unfortunately, Arden did*’t really have any far range attacks being in D rank. Though, if he did manage to upgrade, there would be a very interesting fight. There was an easy way to do that though, by pressing a cretin button...

“Let’s take this to the next level.”

Soon, Arden was focusing diligently at upgrading. The distance between them was now around five yards, meaning that the distance between them would be good for upgrading, so long as the opposing DaCre did*’t run forward too much. Abidan assumed that his opponent would upgrade as well, seeing as that was the obvious thing to do. Only time would tell.

Erik watched in awed silence as Tesla began to glow with power. She grew what looked like a very painful twelve inches, then slowly balanced herself, standing upright. Lines of indigo and pale yellow flowed down her back as graceful as a river, or perhaps the unfurling of ancient scroll. Tesla herself began to glow with power as she finished the transformation.

Tesla dissipated her now-weak shields with a casual flick of a finger.

~Hey, I didn't command her to do that...~ Erik thought, still somewhat captivated by Tesla's transformation.

He realized he hadn't even looked at the commands screen for Tesla's C rank form yet. Erik quickly pulled up the list of commands.

"Umm...Lightning Lance."

Tesla responded before Erik pressed the button.
The mass congealed into a visible, pulsing shaft of energy in her hand. It took the form of a golden spear, with energy rapidly pulsing at what would have been the blade on a real spear.

Abidan soon saw his DaCre grow to about 3 ¾ feet tall and 7 ½ feet long, a really massive, spiky armadillo. As soon as this was done, which was just slightly before his opponent was finished, Abidan pressed the button for attack 2, to shoot energy from its claws and teeth. Seeing as this was now two C ranked DaCre fighting with the same element, the two attacks would cancel each other out. The beam of energy would steadily dissipate the electric javelin and therefore, nothing would really happen.

But, as soon as this was done, and even before, Abidan had pressed the button for attack 3. When he did, Arden took most of the control. Three spikes were randomly removed from Arden’s back, all about 7 inches long. The first two zoomed forward spending little time levitating near the Arden’s body. They were quite quick and would cover the five yard distance in about 1.5 seconds and then hit to the right and left flank of the opposing DaCre, about a foot away from the lower back on each side of the DaCre. However, the third spike would reach the DaCre first. The third spike did leave about .4 seconds after the original two, but, in that short amount of time, it had drawn back and shot forward at an even faster rate than the first. It would make up the .4 seconds and even gain a small lead on the original two darts, only by a fraction of a second though. It would by very difficult to even see the third dart because the enemy would be focused on the original two that appeared to be shooting directly at the DaCre. However, this would only be a distraction from the real attack.

Erik froze up, he had no idea what to do. He'd never even seen his own DaCre in Rank C, much less know how to fight with her in this form!

Luckily, Tesla seemed to have an idea.

Tesla stepped nimbly to the right, eliminating the threat of the left spike, and seemed ready to slide under the second one, when she paused for a moment.

There had been a third spike that had been fired after the first two...

Tesla seemed to freeze up. She didn't manage to avoid either one, taking a hit on the left side of her torso, as well a long scrape long her right forearm, where she'd tried to block the second spike.

Erik noted with dismay Tesla's rapidly plummeting HP bar. He'd have to take control again soon if he wanted any hope of victory..

Tesla growled and conjured another Lightning Lance, she now had one in both hands.

The main spike that hit sunk deep into the bony backside of Tesla. It seemed to miss any bones or such but instead went about two inches into the flesh and stayed there, sticking out like a sore thumb in a pile of pink dust. The second simply made quite a bit of date fall to the ground, much like blood.

As this happened, another attack was already being prepared. Abidan did*’t let up at all at the apparently shocked Tesla. Even as the spike fell to the ground, Abidan was already hitting the attack 2 button again. As soon as he did, Arden’s claws and teeth beamed, and then shot with energy directly towards Tesla. This barrage of attacks might actually be quite successful in hurting his opponent. So far, it was working quite well. The damage done would be ‘hurting’ Tesla quite a bit now, perhaps that would provide a fair distraction for some more complicated attacks.

Erik had no intention of finding out what would happen if a cannon hit an arrow, so he commanded Tesla to take evasive maneuvers. She tossed one lance towards Arden in the hope that he'd be distracted, then used Swift Run to quickly retreat a ways back and to the left, hopefully out of range of the beam.

"Now she'll have a safe place to downgrade.." Erik muttered to himself.

The beam dissipated soon after hitting the lance, mainly because Abidan changed attacks. He changed it to attack 1. This made Arden jump into the air and slam back down with surprising force. Though the armadillo did*’t jump very high, and it was only on the side of his shell that was not spiked, something interesting happened; a quake formed emanating directly from Arden shot towards where Tesla was. You could tell this because the concrete ground was breaking apart in a direct line heading towards Tesla. It was traveling at about the rate of ten feet per second, meaning that at that rate, it would hit Tesla dead on probably fracturing her legs. That is, if she did*’t move.

It took only half the time for Tesla to complete the transformation backwards, once again landing on all fours on the pavement. Her javelin downgraded to a Lightning Ball, although it would probably prove more useful. The excess energy dissipated into the air.

Tesla stepped quickly to the right, although slowed somewhat by the wound on her paw that had followed her through the transformation. She barely avoided the fissure that had appeared in the earth, then dispatched her Lightning Ball towards her opponent, hopefully to catch him as he downgraded.

It moved a bit slower than a normal elemental attack would, though, and probably wouldn't cover the distance in time.

The fairly large distance between the two DaCre was enough for Arden to downgrade just in time to feel the commands of Abidan telling him to move to the right quickly, so he did just that. With a quick roll to the right, Arden changed back to his original form. The lightening ball zipped through the air just to the left of Arden. Unfortunately, Arden did*’t have any far-range attacks to do now. So, he got even farther range. Quickly, Abidan commanded attack 1. As soon as he did, he commanded to run quickly on the opposite direction of the opposing DaCre. Reluctantly, Arden obeyed.

He sped through the streets at a surprisingly fast rate. Depending on what his opponent did, Abidan planned to upgrade again so that he could fight efficiently.

Tesla growled, then gave chase to the the fleeing Arden. Erik pressed the Rapid Assault button to give her a burst of speed.

The Lightning Ball which Arden had barely avoided slowed down a bit, then almost seemed to stop for a moment.

Erik grinned, knowing what was going to happen.

The ball stretched into thin line then flashed through the streets like a bolt of lightning. It had an awkward moving pattern, bearing a resemblance to a striking snake.

It came up just behind Arden in just moments.