I bite my thumb at you, sir.

[theprobator]

Who: theprobator and pullsheavendown
When: midday Friday
Where: Just outside a sandwich shop in Sector 4
Summary:

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[theprobator]

... We're feeling particularly mature today, aren't we, Ventus Junior? The fireball smacked against his sandwich before Vanitas could do anything about it, effectively lighting it like a torch. He had no choice but to drop it to avoid burning his hands, and to stare down at the flickering mass that should have been his lunch.

He didn't turn toward his attacker immediately; he simply stared down at the sandwich corpse for several agonizing seconds. Somewhere in that deafening silence, the air around him literally turned two shades darker. Boy, if someone thought Unversed were emotions taken tangible form...

That was his sandwich. Vanitas doesn't pay for many goods around Siren's Port when they're just as easily stolen, but a freshly made sandwich? From this store? That's probably the one thing he's willing to shell out a little cash for-- and he spent a good five minutes dictating to the sandwich artisan exactly how he wanted it, which included raising quite a stink when they tried to charge him for the extra bacon.

Vanitas finally turned slowly to sneer at the sandwich murderer, and-- that darkened air suddenly encompassed the both of them. Roxas.

[pullsheavendown]

There was something really satisfying in the way the sandwich burst into flame. Vanitas's obvious surprise was good too, even if he couldn't see his face. Yeah, that had been worth it.

Roxas straightened himself as the other boy turned to face him. He didn't react to the darkening air, although some of the people around them did, hurrying nervously down the sidewalk away from the two of them. He hadn't really expected it to end with a burnt sandwich anyway.

What to say now? One corner of his mouth twitched upward as he decided.

"Oops."

[theprobator]

"I have to give you credit, Ventus Junior-- you've got guts."

A death wish. Vanitas' voice was even, calm and collected as always, but the look on his face-- the way the darkness practically pooled around them and even sent normally overfed and reckless pigeons scattering-- was probably enough to skin and rip apart a thousand Captain Nibbles.

Vanitas would have no qualms doing exactly that and blaming Ventus' beloved pet's death on Ventus Junior making him angry enough.

He began walking toward Roxas, taking short and even, yet heavy footsteps. Void Gear burst into his hand, the only current trace of light in the space between them.

[pullsheavendown]

Roxas shrugged. "If you say so." From the way Vanitas was looking at him, though, it seemed that he wanted those guts scattered across the sidewalk.

Oathkeeper and Oblivion appeared in twin flashes, but otherwise he didn't react to the obvious signs of a fight-to-be. "I guess you were hungry, huh? Too bad."

The darkness in the air thickened, growing so strong he could practically feel it on his skin, but Roxas didn't care. He was ready. This was long overdue.

[theprobator]

"Shut up."

Always one to get the last word in edgewise, Vanitas broke into a dash, Void Gear poised to slash at Roxas' face-- though, in the middle of his stride, a blink after he lifted his eyes to meet Roxas' and before it looked like he would crash right into his opponent, his form suddenly dissipated into familiar wisps of darkness.

[pullsheavendown]

Roxas was waiting for that move. It was the same thing he'd pulled the first time they'd fought, and not that different from what he'd done when kidnapping him-for whatever reason, Vanitas seemed to like attacking from above.

He dodged the strike without bothering to look up and confirm his opponent's presence, but the rush of displaced air that came a millisecond later told him he was correct. A moment of focus, and he cast a thunder spell-one strike, straight down, aimed where Vanitas should be.

[theprobator]

A direct hit! The thunder cracked down against his shoulder, sending him stumbling back-- but despite the successful effort, Vanitas immediately regained control, and sidestepped out of the range of those Keyblades should they come swinging.

For all of one breath. Roxas wasn't the only one in this battle who could make use of homing fireballs: Vanitas raised Void Gear directly at the sandwich killer, shooting a blast of darkness-laced fire. It drifted almost lazily for the first second as it traveled the space between them- and when it was halfway to its intended target, who admittedly probably had plenty of time to move out of the way, it suddenly picked up speed, and burst into three separate masses of fire that began triplet kamikazi attempts to burn Roxas at all costs. Vanitas was directly behind them, dashing to follow up with a series of swings.

Considering their still fairly close proximity to the sandwich shop, it wouldn't be surprising if Vanitas' lunch wasn't the only one destroyed that afternoon.

[pullsheavendown]

Now this wasn't something he'd expected, but it wasn't something Roxas couldn't handle, either. Months ago, maybe he'd have done nothing but duck for cover, but that first spar with Terra and subsequent training sessions with other Keybearers with more experience had taught him a thing or two about making the most of his abilities-all of them.

Gritting his teeth as he tensed in preparation, he hurled a Blizzaga spell forward-and directly into the ground. But he wasn't done; stomping a foot onto the edge of the resulting ice mine, he brought up a hand to cover his face as the explosion of ice and mist that was so cold it burned sprang up. Large hisses of steam told him the makeshift shield had worked.

Of course, it hadn't worked without causing Roxas some pain as well, but he didn't have time to check for serious injury-blindly, he drew up his Keyblades into a more substantial shield, ready for the blows he knew were coming.

[theprobator]

Vanitas had to give Roxas props for that rather clever use of Blizzaga-- but no time to dwell on that thought; he'd dashed within range and began a bladed assault, trying in his consistently growing state of fury to break through Roxas' defenses so he can get a hit in.

After several hard hits, Vanitas topped it off with a downward swing, unleashing a tidy, vertical beam of darkness that was as close to point blank as he could get.

[pullsheavendown]

Roxas had started this fight with the upper hand, if he counted the frying of the sandwich as the first move, but Vanitas was working overtime to reverse their positions. With two Keyblades, it was easier to keep the strikes from connecting with his body, but the power of them made his hands ache.

Enough was enough. Vanitas was angry? It was nothing compared to the fury that had been smoldering in Roxas for days, since Vanitas had had the gall to brag about harassing Sora-no, it had been there for weeks. He'd ambushed Roxas, made him afraid to go out alone. No more. He wanted a fight? He had one.

The surge of adrenaline gave him a boost of speed as he barely dodged the shot of darkness, and then he was charging Vanitas with his own double-bladed attack, fast and furious and venting every bit of anger inside him. And then the light was there, called forth by his wall, three columns of searing energy headed straight for a boy made only of darkness.

[theprobator]

Had Vanitas been any other wielder, three beams of light would not have been as threatening-- but as a being of pure darkness, a direct hit could prove to be outright fatal.

A single beam of light was no problem, but Vanitas was not expecting three. One step out of the way of one led him right into the path of another, and the blast caught his left arm and a portion of his left side. That cry of pain-- it probably sounded less like that overly sarcastic and cocky teenager taunting over the network and more like... well, Sora.

When the beams dissipated, Vanitas was on one knee, bracing himself against Void Gear and breathing heavily. He struggled to lift his left arm, gritting his teeth in pain as he ripped the fury in the air and from himself and formed it into a line of sizeable Mandrakes. A cheap move, yes, but he was desperate to buy himself a few minutes to recover.

[pullsheavendown]

It should have been more satisfying, that cry-it was pain Vanitas deserved, pain he'd more than earned. But it sounded even more like Sora than his voice usually did.

He wasn't Sora, though, and Roxas wouldn't forget that. It got easier to push the thought out of his mind when the Mandrakes appeared. Those were Unversed he hadn't fought, and he'd only seen a small one the second time he and Vanitas met, but he was sure they weren't as benevolent as the ones that produced cake.

Vanitas wasn't the only one who could use fire. Roxas didn't bother to see what the Mandrakes would do before he fired several Fira blasts at them, stopping just long enough to see them ignore before charging at Vanitas, both Keyblades poised to strike.

[theprobator]

Though still nearly debilitated by pain, with his vision blurred with moisture and making focusing a struggle, Vanitas still managed to find the strength to straighten, and to fall into a defensive tactic: his entire body pooled into one crackling patch of darkness on the ground.

He had one shot to shut out Roxas' brutal assault, and he had to do it fast. The pool of darkness shot around, circling Roxas, closing in to flick at his heels-- the millisecond Vanitas lurched close enough, he suddenly shot up, his body reforming in both an explosion of fire and darkness, and with a fierce, downward swing of Void Gear.

[pullsheavendown]

Roxas didn't know what Vanitas was doing when he sunk into the ground itself, but he wasn't surprised when it culminated in the explosive attack. He could have dodged; he could have cast a magic spell to separate the two of them.

He did neither. Instead he scowled through the burn of the blast and blocked Void Gear with a crosswise slash of Oathkeeper, then followed it up with a fast, hard swipe with Oblivion that landed solidly on Vanitas' ribs.

[theprobator]

Rather than the normal thud of a Keyblade hitting flesh, Oblivion hit with a resounding crack that sent Vanitas reeling back and lifting Void Gear to shoot a blast of lightning at Roxas, to keep him as far away as possible for as long as possible.

It took Vanitas almost a full minute to realize what had happened, why it hurt to inhale the slightest or even move his arms-- his entire body. The pain wasn't as bad as light nearly tearing through his side, which was why he was able to... somewhat shake it off, but he was likely underestimating how much it hindered him. He repositioned himself and lifted Void Gear farther up to his normal fighting stance with a pained grunt, wheezing. One more hit like that and it'd finally sink in, and Vanitas would make a point to retreat.

[pullsheavendown]

There was no way he was going to let Vanitas out of here on his own terms. Roxas had started this fight, but Vanitas had started so much more. What he'd done to Sora-to Ven-to Roxas himself-it was too much, and his anger had finally boiled over.

He blocked the lightning blast with Oblivion, redirecting the electrical energy down the black blade. He still felt a jolt travel all the way up to his shoulder, but he grimaced and charged forward without stopping.

Moving faster than he had so far throughout the fight, he struck once, twice, three times without waiting for Vanitas to decide on a counter-strategy. He wouldn't kill the dark wielder even if he could, not when he didn't know what it would do to Ven, but mercy was not on his agenda.