Tam Tenderpaw vs. Raynare - A Battle of Grace and Wind

Raynare came flying in, and completely missed the attack!

In that short moment, where the world seemed to slow down, Raynare's head twisted around to see Tam go up and then generate a shield to push herself at Raynare in an offensive fashion. At that split second, Raynare saw both a thrusting tonfa, but an overhead bash tonfa coming at her too. Her face didn't show it, but Raynare actually panicked for a bit, suddenly shocked at what just happened. Was she doing a double attack?

Raynare turned her body around in that short moment mid flight, bringing both arms up at different angles in a defensive attempt to try to stop the attack, but it was not effective. The thrusting tonfa struck her hard in the stomach, as she got pushed and knocked downwards, slamming into the dirt hard with another explosion of dirt and dust flying around! Raynare disappeared in the dust clouds, as some of the feathers got knocked out of her wings and gently floated in the air.

Tam’s blunted tonfa tig dug into Raynare’s midsection in an abrupt stoppage of her momentum. For a brief moment, she was suspended in the air from her contact with the fallen angel, feeling the impact traveling through her into the other woman. She let out a scream as the runes flickered across her foci. With a soft mechanical click, the tonfa snapped forward, extending out past her wrist into Raynare.

The sound was thunderous, the awed audience was stunned into silence as the angel fell for a second time like a meteorite crashing into Gaia. Tam had sprung back a bit, propelled upward again from the separation but would begin to drop again. She could have made a platform to step to or a bubble to slow her descent, but she wanted to use this. She shifted herself in the air, swishing her tail to position her body to another dive. There was no clear target in the debris, but that was fine. For what she was planning it wasn't necessary.

Tam squinted against the air rushing past her, watering her eyes as she zoomed down toward the crater. She chanted low and quiet, the runes on her foci not just lighting up, but burning with ethereal flames as she drew forth as much energy as she could muster. The metal creaked like the strained shell of a submarine under the crushing depth of the ocean as she greedily drew as much as she could as fast as she could. Cocking back an arm, the tonfa clicked and released into her hand where she gripped it tightly. She shot through the cloud of dust, parting it with an intense burst of air as she neared its epicenter.

“Try to dodge this one!” she snapped her arm around, thrusting a punch into the empty air. Vibrant and volatile sparks of blue and green shooting from the burning ruins like stray fireworks, as she released all that stored-up energy forward. From a pinprick of pink light, in an instant, it expanded out to a massive abjuration fist large enough to engulf the entire ring within the closed arena.


It made landfall with an earth-rending crack, one that quaked the entire surrounding park as it sank into the ground, upheaving the terrain and imprinting a massive fist-shaped crater into the ground that overtook the one she had buried Raynare in. There was no real way to know if her opponent had been in there or not, the massive glowing pink fist had obstructed her view from where she remained, suspended at where the wrist of it tapered off into the air.

She forced it down for as long as she could when her hold over the massive barrier she constructed shattered. It was too much to hold for long and the backlash of energy exploded in her face as one of her tonfa bucked violently and shot from her hand, vanishing from sight somewhere within the warding. As the fist broke apart into pink frackle light, it left Tam in a tumbled freefall as she slipped into the dust cloud as well and hit the ground hard, the soft soil and grass now compressed to have the density of concrete.

The dust and clouds around Raynare had not even settled when she noticed, through the dust, a light approaching....and then a giant fist.

She couldn't move fast enough as she had been somewhat buried into the ground.

In a short moment, the world disappeared in a flash of light for her, and the force was so intense, the runic shield around the arena activated to contain it, the runes lighting up and stopping all the force from going outwards and reaching the audience. Some could've sworn it was like a ripple had gone along the entire park area, as birds flew out of the trees in panic, and some animals out in the forest got freaked out, enough for the park rangers to alert each other.

The audience was left stunned speechless, too shocked to say much. People felt the ground rumble from that attack, those who were standing falling back on their seats. A massive burst of dust clouds blew around, obscuring most of the view inside. A tense atmosphere spread outwards, as people were clenched on what they will see.

After a long silence and pause, the silence lifted as the dust clouds cleared.....

Raynare lay, covered in dust, soot, and her own feathers inside a large fist shaped crater and she herself was buried in. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving. Strange runic symbols were glowing all over her, before breaking off like glass and dissipating.

A referee covered in armor quickly ran up and checked Raynare. He took glances at her, and pulled out a magnifying glass to examine her carefully. Reaching in, he pulled Raynare's hand out of the dirt, lifted it up, and let it fall.

It tapped on the ground. He did it again, and it fell on the dirt. He lifted it one last time....

and it fell and tapped the ground.

The referee jumped onto his feet as he yelled, "SHE'S OUT COLD!"

The audience erupted into cheers and yells of support. Mad clapping, whistling, signs raised, people yelling "TENDERPAW! TENDERPAW! TENDERPAW!" rang to announce Tam's victory. All the while a stretcher carried by two small catfolkcame, effortlessly pulling Raynare out of the dirt (with shovels) and flinging her onto the stretcher like a mannequin. She didn't say a word to Tam, or even looked at her, too flattened out cold to say anything as she was carried away bouncing up and down as the catfolk ran as fast as they could with her, yelling "MEEEE-YEW MEEEE-YEW", emulating an ambulance noise for some reason.

The referee looked at Tam and said, "She'll live. Nobody dies during these. Rune field prevents fatal hits."

Tam lay in the settling dust on her back, right fingers twitching as latent sparks of mana sprang from her fingertips where she had clutched her foci. She had pushed harder than she ever had and could feel the lack of responsiveness in her whole body. There was a reason people used devices like her tonfa to help focus magic, using the body as a conduit, especially someone without formal mastery such as her, was a recipe to burn out. Not figuratively either, literally ignite herself from within. She had heard plenty of stories, it was some of the first things she was cautioned about when she started her studies into magic.


“Huh…No, I’m… f-fine.” Tam strained, trying to sit up but partway through the motion her body just flopped to the side, her tail plopping against the dirt to kick up another fresh cloud of dust. From this position though she could see the distant official neat a crater. They weren’t talking about her.

Her ears twitched, swiveling slightly to catch the rising cries of her name from all around. They were cheering her name. She had done it. She actually won. With a groan, she forced her unsteady hand to the ground and shook the other out until the tonfa unlatched and toppled off her wristband. Pushing herself up she sat forward and used her tail to rest her back against. Raynare was being carted off. She did that. Her eyes looked down at her hands and then back to the scampering felines as they left.

“Oh…” She remarked when she was informed the damage wasn’t fatal. She hadn’t even considered that she could have potentially killed someone. She had just been lost in the moment and… went feral. Was that what it was like to be the hunter, to just untether oneself from morality and unleash it all? Her brow furried and she made a face, nodding to the official. “Thanks.” She looked to the cheering crowd and through the pain, lifted up a fist to celebrate along with all of them.

The referee walked up to Tam, helping her lift the arm up to announce her victory.

On the loud speaker, the big energetic announcement came "HERE IS YOUR WINNER! TAAAAAAM TENDERPAWWWWWWW!" which was followed and punctuated with louder cheering and other sounds of celebration, soaking up Tam as she stood in the lights, surrounded by the arena celebrating her victory in this intense battle.



VICTOR VIA KNOCKOUT: TAM TENDERPAW