Go For The Hearts, You've Got The Diamonds., Stanfield

[Voltus Severus]

The dummy popped up as artificially as one possibly could. Before the entire torso was up out of the ground, it was rended from it’s supporting stick. What the hell kind of training was this? Oh, you can bet he was going to file a large complaint about this in the Office. For the most popular and advanced Exorcist headquarters, the training facilities sucked. In the ten minutes he had been in this pseudo-gymnasium, he had massacred twelve static, slow, and utterly lifeless training dummies.

Because the Akuma are definitely this slow. I bet some even go slower.

His sarcasm was one of his… finer points. Oh joy! One crawled at the pace of a being slower than a snail towards his head. He punched it. The stick broke.

“This is a waste of time! Can you please update this shitty combat training system?!”

Yeah, he was pretty fed up. Maybe if he asked to sign up with somebody… But could he handle it? Insentient beings were one thing, but someone capable of responding and coming back with force? He would have to try eventually, even though he hadn’t quite gotten the hang of these things yet.

Retracting his Diamond Forme, he looked at the immaculately clean gloves, noting how they looked so normal. The shock that all of this was actually happening still hadn’t dissipated, it was still quite present in his mind. No matter how you looked at it, it was Magic. It was Science. It shouldn’t be possible. Yet; here Voltus was, in Britain, housed by a large, unassuming building. With magical friggin’ gloves.

And what about the Akuma? Yeah, he’d read that silly manual, and watched the DVD it came with (A nice touch, he would like to add.). Sure, they were like something out of a twisted children’s fable, but to think they existed was mind boggling. What would he do on his first mission? Well, besides erase them from the Earth, but would he be able to? Would he be too shocked? It was all way to uncertain for his liking.

As he snapped out of his thought-coma, he realized a few dummies had attempted to surround him.

He broke their stick necks and stormed out of the door.

Forcefully stepping his way behind the counter for sign ups, he looked at the women with nothing other than pure contempt.

“Is there someone I could actually spar with?”

It was said with such a tone, that pure acid could have flung from his mouth, and melted her face, or at least some part of it.

He probably would have laughed.

[Stanfield]

"H...hello."

A voice uttered meekly from behind the angry Exorcist, calling for his attention.

Behind Severus stood another young member of the Order, his profession already apparent from the black uniform worn smartly on his thin frame. His brown fringes hung from the top of his head, framing a nervous smile on his facial features.

It had not been even a minute after he signed himself in at the front desk. Stanfield had been standing near the stacks of bottled water, distracted from his task of reaching for a bottle by the attitude of a youngster bursting through one of the gym doors to terrorize the poor clerk at the front desk.

She stuttered and flipped through the pages of the registry for possible opponents, and only found one available candidate, to whom her eyes quickly moved to with a small hint of urgent distress.

Stanfield had been reluctant to respond, since his first mission left him with a fractured rib which had only recently healed. Yet the clerk looked like she was about to burst into tears, and from the looks of the teenager, it would seem that Stanfield would at least have the advantages of being older in a match.

"Looking for someone to spar with?"

He offered with a smile, and motioned with his head to the direction of the arena, he saw with the corner of his eye the clerk's shoulders drop with relief.

His arms were folded casually in front of him, and in one of his hand held a long blade blade with a black hilt, sheathed in a matching scabbard.

[Voltus Severus]

Neat. The boy, who was most likely more experienced than him, stood there with his arms crossed, and a blade, black as pitch in his hand. It was shiny, like Gunmetal. He looked older than Voltus, but was a few inches shorter. He looked of mixed descent, maybe a smidge of some Asian type in there? He looked fun enough, and the way he spoke was a bit timid… This could be good for Voltus.

Casually, Voltus replied. “Yea, actually. Someone to spar with would be great. Are you offering?”

His ADD kicked on, as he realized what he had done seconds earlier.

He turned, hastily, and got on both knees, grabbing the clerk’s hands. “Oh lord! I’m so sorry, I forgot I was talking to a woman there! Please, allow me to make it up to you. I’ll get you, uh…” He looked around her desk, for anything she liked, that maybe he could get to make up for his heinous crimes against a woman, “Ah! You like tea? I’ll take you out for tea this week, I promise! Again, so sorry!” He didn’t bother waiting for a reply. The exchange of his promise only took a few seconds, and he signed his name down on the list to spar with.. Uhm..

“What’s your name?”

He figured it must be the Stanfield guy, as it was the newest entry, but still, one should always be polite.

(OMG Short post is short. Sorry.)

[Stanfield]

"Sure."

Stanfield's reply was short and sweet, and probably went mostly unheard by Severus, who had made himself busy with the business of making everyone in the room feel confused with his eccentric mannerisms, the clerk in particular, with her eyes darting rapidly between the two boys and the floor in embarrassment, was the personification of the concept of uncomfortable.

His brief, apologetic outburst had made Stanfield cringe a little, as it hinted that he might have possibility run into another strange personality, which, according to previous encounters, would end with him dodging everything from flying desks to roaring chainsaws, but at least in a proper arena he could actually fight back.

"Stanfield. You?"

He took the time to size up his opponent as he provided his reply, the person felt younger, but his exotic appearance hardly allowed the fact to be betrayed, but the gloves on his hands were what drew most of Stanfield's attentions. They were more or less normal ones, but unlike the pair that Stanfield was wearing himself, they did not look like they provided any particular function, allowing it to be concluded that they were the forms of his Innocence.

Stepping over to the large door behind him that led to the arena, pushing and holding it open with one arm, waiting for his sparring partner to step through.

[Voltus Severus]

Stanfield was this person's name indeed, and Voltus signed next to it. He turned, his features now becoming icy, as he put on his mask. He walked up to the boy, smiled, and walked so that his shoulder was completely parallel with Stanfield's. He turned his head, and told him: "Let's have a blast."

Walking past him and into the gym, he focused really tentatively on extracting the power from his gloves. If he thought of it like a computer program, it sometimes came easier. You know, for being a newbie trying to harvest God's energy, he wasn't half bad.

-Concentrate. Open the program. Right click. Extract to Real World. Open Program.-

He opened his eyes, and with an irritated sound, looked at his unchanged gloves. Maybe he wasn't specific enough? Ugh, there he was, about to fight, and it just wasn't working, He felt like an old man who couldn't get it up. Shit. He clenched and unclenched his hands a few times, trying to rid the stress. Instead, the Trump Gloves shifted into the Diamond Forme.

-How ironic. Thanks for the timely response, guys.-

The felt heavier than usual, was it the spiritual pressure in the air? God, he was itching to finally try these babies out!

"Ready, and willing, when you are, Stan."

[Stanfield]

The youngster had responded with spirit to his invitation, carrying himself confidently through the open door held open with an air of confidence. Stanfield, perhaps affected a big by the words himself, felt a vague tingling sense of anticipation building up within himself. His grip tightens around the sheath of his weapon, and he nodded add Severus' words with a smile, waiting for him to pass into the arena before he let it swing shut behind himself.

Stanfield placed himself in front of his opponent, putting about twenty paces of space between them, and stood with a straightened posture that made him look taller than he was as he watched the gloves of his opponent shape shifts his fingers into weaponized claws that extended like delicate knives.

In response, Stanfield unsheathed his blade, revealing a straight, metal longsword that was coloured in a shiny black coating from the hilt to the tip, throwing the sheath aside to the bleachers as he did so.

"Alright then,"

He slashed the air once, testing his strike as he replied, but quickly realized that he did not have the teenager's name yet.

"What's your name?"

[Voltus Severus]

"What's your name?"

The question caused his concentration to waiver, as he answered back. His pinky finger went limp, as the gloving around it contracted into it's normal shape. "Shit!" He yelled, obviously annoyed with this outcome. A gear in his head clicked, and he blushed.

"That's uhh, that's not my name,"

He chuckled, albeit nervously. "My name is Voltus. Voltus Severus." As he said this, his pinky again reshaped. This business about training wasn't just crap. It was hard to maintain these when there was something else with spiritual pressure in the air. Especially someone like Stanfield. He looked inexperienced, but he had this odd air about him that Voltus just couldn't place.

He made wave motions with his fingers, the blades making their metallic sounds as they brushed up against one another, the close proximity natural. -This practice wasn't going to start itself, so why not make the first move? It's now or never.-

He jumped. He liked this part of the training, he could jump very high. Crossing his wrists in the air, he prepared himself for the landing. Once he was close enough, he swung out, hoping to reach the Exorcist.

[Stanfield]

Stanfield almost laughed at the comedic sequence of events, but most of his own concentration was put into maintaining the grasp on his own Innocence, but his young opponent's name registered, and he tried to repeat its pronunciation mentally.

Voltus Severus.

Arguably better than most of the Order members he'd met, but he still considered Manor to be the only person whose name doesn't tie tongues into knots.

The sudden disappearance of Voltus from where he had stood snapped Stanfield's attention back to the starting battle, he threw his sight upwards intuitively, catching the his leaping figure in flight, rendered into a dark silhouette by the arena's powerful ceiling lighting.

With Aether's dominion yet to be summoned to his aid, Stanfield did not respond as quickly as he could have, acting like a stunned deer in headlights until Voltus landed before him, and a panicked step to the side in respond to his swipe managed to stop him from another rushed visit to the infirmary, but the tips of the claws, its sharpness forming almost an audible sound, torn slightly into the shoulder-guard of Stanfield's uniform, scratching a deep gash into it easily as if it were made of wax.

A defensive leap carried Stanfield backwards, temporarily away from Voltus' reach, he breathed out a long sigh, relieved that his inattentiveness didn't bring an early end to the match.

Aether, activate.

No sooner than the thought crossed his mind, did his body find itself to have covered the distance between himself and Voltus in less than a fraction of a second, bringing him to his opponent's side. His blade drew a black arc in the air as it was swung with an unrestrained force and masterful precision, aiming for Voltus' arm.

[Voltus Severus]

As the blade came nearer and nearer, Voltus panicked. -Move. Have to move.- His thoughts were correct, Voltus had to move; lest he lose an arm. He rather liked his arms. As he moved to retreat, his time ran out, and the blade sliced a cut from his elbow to his wrist. It wasn't terribly deep, but it would be bleeding. A lot. His Gloves had blocked the blade from cutting up the hand, which he was very thankful about. He hopped back a few steps, quickly noting that he had to be careful with that arm. It was bleeding heavily. The ruby blood poured from the gash, dripping down onto his claw,

"Shit."

That was the only word Voltus Severus said, before charging in again, with pure intent. He ran straight towards the man, and quickly zigged left, and zagged right. He knew this worked on animals, but why not try it on people? Were we not just evolved forms of an animal?

As he got closer, he flung his claw, the blood sent flying in Stanfield's direction, as he got close enough to rake him with his other claw. Yet; instead of raking, he jumped, and landed behind him. The claw with the blood was phasing in and out of Clawed to normal, so he could only use the one at the time.

And of course he used it. He didn't care if he was behind him, or that hitting someone from behind them was cowardice.

He just wanted to win.

The Claw made a whooshing sound as it raked through the air, heading for Stanfield.

[Stanfield]

For an average teenager, it's hard to cut someone without wincing, as thousands of nurse and doctor trainees everywhere would testify, and it was probably even harder for someone like Stanfield, who charitably hands out sympathy at even the slightest signs of suffering on another person. If it were up to the regular Stanfield, he would have probably pulled back his blade the second it tore flesh, and the sickening sensation would have made him forfeit the fight in favour of more harmless forms of training, perhaps running on a treadmill or something.

Make no mistake, the meek Stanfield was definitely still in control, and there was probably a part of him that was profusely apologising for what he'd done, yet the blade master implanted into his psych by Aether easily pushed that persona aside, allowing him to feel strangely satisfied by the feat of drawing blood, and he made no effort to dampen the force of the swing as even as it sliced cleanly into Voltus' pale flesh.

Voltus pulled himself away to recover, and Stanfield did not close in and pursue, he merely watched, a smile came to his expressions, one which was not very challenging, and not at all like he was gloating over the injury that he had inflicted, but simply the same, warm, friendly smile that Stanfield always wore, though the feeling it gave off was probably morphed quite a bit, what with him holding a weapon with drops of blood rolling off its tip.

His opponent charges it for another attack, and unexpectedly seemed to attack with his injured limb. Stanfield ducked under the path that he had assumed the attack would take, and mercilessly delivered an upward blow that would have crippled the youngster. Yet all he managed to hit was a splatter of red, and a few red drops survive the hit well enough to make their way into Stanfield's eyes, making him immediately regret not seeing that trick coming, he threw another vicious, but blind swing at the general direction of Voltus, only to hit air, completely missing the boy who was flying through the air right above him.

A soft thud behind him told Stanfield where to strike next, but the painful intrusion of blood into one's eyes can impede a person's response to cues, nevertheless, he managed a half-heartedly executed swing that used his momentum as his spun around, although it was only a menace to the air it cut, his ears picked up on the whooshing sound a little too late for him to manage a parry to Voltus' attack, he could only raise his free arm, which had been occupied with rubbing the blood out of his eyes up till this point, to try and minimize the effect of the coming blow.

Voltus' claw tore effortlessly through the sleeve of the Exorcist's coat, allowing the sharp tips of his claws to draw four neat parallel cuts into the back of his forearm.

Stanfield jumped backwards, once again effectively putting distance between him and his opponent with the nimble footworks granted by Aether, he blinked the blood out of his eyes so he could survey his wounds, and on agreeing that it had not yet granted Voltus a victory, his smile returned as if it had never left, and once again he stood silently, forcing his opponent to be the offensive party.