December 21st, 2012
A large rupture of golden energy in the form of one James Hazen seared through the air and collided into one of the buildings in Istanbul. The force of the impact, combined with the intensity of the power surrounding James at that moment caused a large hole to form from where James crashed straight through. Debris, shards of glass, and all other manner of remains of the building began falling through the enormous hole of James' impact. The hole was so wide and extensive in damage that the entire building began to collapse behind James. James had lost track at how long they had been battling already in their God Modes, but the building's collapse was just the latest in a string of the copious amounts of damage the two had caused to the city. It was likely that after they were done with it, Istanbul would never be the same.
Whether due to the severity of the God Mode itself, the adrenaline rushing through James, or a combination of the two, James was quick to stand up following his tumble through the building. He shrugged it off as if nothing happened at all, and quickly gathered a large chunk of energy at the base of both of his hands. The lightning danced and skipped across his hands and continued to bounce off while gathering together. The enormity of his attacks at this point were to the point of being ridiculous, but the two Atlanteans continued to fire away as if they were used to it. James released the accumulated energy with both hands pointed towards Nathaniel. Out of this came a beam of lightning almost a meter wide which soared through the air toward Nate.
Nathaniel had been standing on the ground, discarding his ice wings as James was nearly buried by the building he blasted through. The battle between the two Gods of Ice and Lightning had ravaged the sky and parts of the city below. The collateral damage they had caused was something that Nathaniel had wanted to avoid, but he needed to stop James no matter the cost. At the very least, the city had not been completely left in ruins. At least, not yet. A beam of concentrated lightning was suddenly shot downwards at Nathaniel. Swiping his hand forward, Nathaniel had created a shield and grounding tool. The lightning was sucked into the ground, sending pulses through the concrete due to the immense power of James' burst of electricity.
To counterattack, Nathaniel shot a single slate of ice forward, hopped on it, and essentially skated towards James riding the momentum and ice to approach his opponent. An aura of mist and snow surrounded Nathaniel, obscuring him ever so slightly. As he grew closer, Nathaniel shot a few bolts of ice towards James, weak yet enough to cover his approach.
James raised his arms and fired off similar lightning bolts to counteract Nate's ice. His precision in this form was greatly heightened, allowing him to be able to make contact with projectile-based attacks much easier, despite them moving at extraordinary speeds. One bolt of ice managed to get by James' initial flurry of attacks, but the electrokinetic had a quick fix. His precision had been raised, but so had his reaction and speed. James concentrated energy into the points of his fingers, and released energy.
Lightning came out as strings, lingering around his fingers before they extended further to form what appeared to be a web of lightning. He caught the ice bolt within these sets of high-temperature electric strings, melting the last bolt upon impact. James then harnessed the energy from these separate bolts of electricity, and began to merge them all together. The resulting energy merge caused the electricity to form into one, thick strand, an electric whip. Before Nate could get any closer, James moved his arm back and cracked the whip forward toward him. Sparks flew around the sky from the point of impact, rushing in every direction in search of a target. James kept the whip attached directly to the points on his fingers, constantly feeding more power into the whip as he slung it back and cracked it again at Nate, this time it extended even further by the power being fueled into it.
As the whip came crashing down, Nathaniel leapt into the air, narrowly avoiding the electricity fueled strike. The whip slashed the against the slate of ice snapping in half. The fragments of ice fell down towards the ground, shattering upon impact but leaving deep gashes into the ground. With the air filled with ice and electricity, the storm of elements made for a dramatic sight and for a moment Nathaniel felt as if he was moving in slow motion. Perhaps it was just the fact that everything seemed heightened in this ascended state. Or maybe it was just adrenaline.
Regardless, he was suspended in air and open to any attack. His initial plan foiled with a single swipe, Nathaniel was forced to improvise. Freezing some moisture in the air, Nathaniel crafted a small platform and bounced off, transferring what little momentum he had into a bold attempt to reposition myself. With a small hop, Nathaniel dove directly towards James, coating himself in a thick suit of frozen armor. Extending heavily armored gauntlets, Nathaniel made himself into a battering ram, throwing himself at his rival.
As James saw was Nate was planning on doing, the electrokinetic decided to hold his ground to make his stand, to test his potential of his own ability versus Nate's. He cracked back the whip one more time, and just as Nate was coming at him, and attempted to strike at his armor, or even wrap around it with the electricity-powered ability in the hopes of propelling Nate away from him, or to simply melt away as much of his ice armor as he could.
James' whip struck and wrapped around Nathaniel's one arm, there was a brief moment in which Nathaniel was concerned that his bold, if somewhat foolish strategy, was doomed to fail. However, the armor endured, the momentum persisted and Nathaniel continued. While the armor was undoubtedly weakened, Nathaniel blasted through before James had any opportunity to take advantage of his clever counter. Using a combination of gravity, momentum, strength and the sheer weight of his armor, Nathaniel tackled James with raw force breaking through the floor that James stood on. The concrete foundation shattered with a fair sized hole memorializing their battle for a moment. Rocks and ruin rained down onto the lower level as dust filled the air.
James felt the impact of brute force collide directly into him from Nate's uber ice spear attack. The tremendous impact sent the two crashing through the ground and into the large hole they created. Had James not been in his overpowered state he was in now, he wondered if his body would have been able to take such an impact. Sure enough, he felt the harm done to him, but not nearly as much as he felt the adrenaline pumping through his body to make him go further.
Still lying on his back from where the electrokinetic landed, James extended his arms forward and pointed them toward his rival, and began firing away dozens of concentrated, smaller bolts of electricity. He propelled himself onto his feet and continued this onslaught of lightning projectiles.
As Nathaniel rose from the ruins of the building, he was immediately treated to the barrage of lightning from James. The fervor of battle had seemed to overwhelm his opponent, yet it could just be desperation. Nathaniel had felt as if he had the upper hand for at least parts of the fight, yet James was not going to back down. Surprised at the quick recovery, Nathaniel was able to sidestep a few bolts, yet one solid shot planted Nathaniel square in the chest, knocking him back several meters from the impact. A wave of numbness swarmed his body and Nathaniel could feel pins and needles in his fingers.
As he came to struggle with the feeling, Nathaniel instinctively, focused on the air and began to slowly freeze it, lowering the temperature rapidly. The quick change in temperature came in the form of mist filling the crumbled room. Before Nathaniel's eyes, the visage of James became little more than shadow, and he assumed the same could be said for James. Slowly, Nathaniel returned to his feet and hide himself in the mist more so, hoping to design a skilled sneak attack.
James acknowledged himself briefly for landing a shot on Nate, but cursed under his breath as his rival began to get up soon after the hits. He was dishing everything he had at him, and Nate was taking it. He felt his ambition for winning surpassed that of any opponent he had previously faced. Thankfully for James, his own ambition was just as strong. Sometimes, however, ambition enough wouldn't get the job done. He had to outperform his opponent.
The electrokinetic rubbed his arms together to warm himself following the mist that enveloped the area. Because of the thick fog-like attack of Nate, James began to swiftly lose track of his opponent, until barely a thing could be seen in the haze. James looked around briefly to try and pinpoint his rival, but he knew relying on his eyes wouldn't help unless he supplemented them with something else.
James poured a bit more energy into his palm and released it out of his hands, but kept the lightning close to his body. He allowed the energy to act more as a light than an attack, and used it to shed a bit of clarity on Nate's location. Though the lightning didn't help identify Nate's exact location too well, it made shadows more visible, which James capitalized on by seeing the slow, steady movements of a creeping shadow. James could only assume it was Nate, and fired off the budding electrical energy at the target.
As the electricity shot forth, a loud impact shot echoed in the room. The mixing of temperatures exploded with steam and mist further filling the area with a crumbling sound hidden behind it. It sounded as if ice had been shattered from the raw power of James' lightning bolt. The mist had slowly revealed the ruins of James' display as something rolled towards the electrokinetic: Nathaniel's head, appearing to coated in ice as if the man was bracing for impact. The rest of his body unearthed itself as well, as if the frozen remains of his body immortalized itself in a iced statue. Cracks revealed itself in the foundation, likely a result of James' attack. Ice was melting, the high voltage carrying a higher temperature when it struck caused even the strong ice that was Nathaniel's body to melt under the pressure.
Before James had any chance to really react to the apparent defeat of Nathaniel, arms swept in and locked him into a full nelson hold. With a tight grip, Nathaniel controlled the fate of James. However, knowing the extent of James' abilities, he lifted the man up off the ground and threw him into a nearby concrete pillar in the building they were brawling in. As James likely recovering, Nathaniel fired a few ice bracers, locking James into the ground for a brief moment.
"I didn't know you were as simple as to fall for a little ice clone of me," Nathaniel commented, fashioning an ice spear in his hands with the intent of stabbing the helpless James. "But then again, I was always the smart one."
"Yeah, but you were also the ugly one!" James shot back. His hands went quickly to work to begin and pour electricity at the points where he had been pinned to the ground. The exceptionally high temperature of the lightning began to become apparent as the ice bracers slowly melted. He quickly poured in more energy as Nathaniel came dangerously close, and was preparing his spear to impale James.
His lightning went into overdrive, and he unleashed a bundle of sparks at once, melting the last bits of the bracers, which freed James from his predicament. He quickly rolled over to the side to narrowly avoid the ice spear, and then stuck out his hands to shoot a large spark bolt pointed directly at the ice master's chest.
Again, Nathaniel found himself flying back, hurtling through the air and crashing through an outside wall. Plummeting to the city street with a loud thud, Nathaniel could of sworn he broke something as he heard a loud snap upon impact. Much to his relief, his abilities broke his fall with a thick sheet of ice armor and he was able to raise himself to his knees with a groan and a grunt of pain.
James was already walking toward the area Nate had landed. He was thankful to have escape the last predicament and now it seems he may be on the verge of turning the tide in the fight. "What would have been the odds if you finished me off with that ice spear earlier?" James called out to Nate with a grin forming on his face. He felt an ease overcome him that he hadn't felt earlier in the battle, after his initial emotions overtook him to try and punish Nate for ruining his plans with the Zombie Atlantean. Now it seemed he was actually enjoying himself.
"Killing me with the same sort of attack that you used to kill that other Atlantean in London," James continued. "When we first met."
"It would of been poetic justice I would think. My first and last kills done in the same exact fashion," Nathaniel said, raising to his feet. Pins and needles swarmed his hands and feet as the blood rushed back through his body. His breathing was slowly calming and his heart regulated to a standard rhythm. The jump start of electricity that Nathaniel had taken to his chest needed to be his last, as he was sure he couldn't take much more abuse from the high intensity of James' attacks.
"But if you rather, I could end your reign of havoc in something far more elaborate if you really want to!' Nathaniel said. His hands glowed for a moment before unleashing a pulse of ice from his hands. A wave of frozen energy consumed everything in front of Nathaniel, clearly not aiming for anything in particular.
"Are you kidding?! I love elaborate!" James replied with a hysteric laughter and fired his own pulse of electricity at the incoming surge of frozen energy. Combined with his overpowered 'God Mode' form, the electricity enlarged in size, and hundreds of smaller sparks bounced around nearby energy sources in anarchic turbulence, before bouncing back to the source of the energy in the middle of the pulse of energy. The amount of power James was feeding the attack through the palm of his hands was unlike anything he had unleashed before, and almost instantly he was feeling the repercussions of doing so. Both of his arms tingled and tensed, as if a thousand needles were poking him simultaneously. Oddly enough, in some parts of his arms, he couldn't feel a thing any longer.
James' electrical pulse was far stronger than Nathaniel had anticipated, but it worked well into the grand scheme that Nathaniel had planted. He hardened his pulse into a makeshift iceberg, halting the advance of James' energy burst. The clash of elements spread throughout the city block they were fighting. Shards of ice scattered about, freezing everything in the immediate vicinity making the city appear like a tundra. However, the other half of the city block was torn up by electricity, with small fires and ruin consuming all. A thick mist was left in the wake of where Nathaniel once stood, and a moment of silence fell upon the battlefield once more. Suddenly, the iceberg that Nathaniel improvised with launching a wave of ice needles directly at James.
James cursed under his breath at the incoming ice needles. His attacks could be used for precision if necessary, but not against so many smaller attacks at once. It lacked the stability to have a concrete physical form to prevent that. In this case James had to improvise. He extended his arms outward, and unleashed another wave of electricity, though this time instead of a precision attack sent out like a beam, his next attack was a field of electricity, shocking anything that the hundreds of individual sparks came in contact with. He continued the attack outward to reach the vicinity of his opponent as well.
However, as he assumed, this particular attack could prevent all of the smaller ice needles coming his way, and James did his best to avoid the smaller attacks by running around. He held his arms up to cover his face to avoid any deadly blows. There was a familiar sting across his arms as he felt some of the needles penetrate his arms. Oddly enough, some of them which pierced his skin did not give James any sort of reaction from pain. His arms were going numb. At this point, though, the electrokinetic could care less. He instead returned his attention to Nate to see how his own electric field attack fared against Nate.
Nathaniel had burrowed himself in a dome of ice to block the electric field, reading James almost perfectly. The man seemed to only have only one response for anything that Nathaniel tossed at him and that was to blast it away. The ice needles were a fair attempt, but any damage dealt was likely minimal. The longer the fight went, the more it likely went into his favor yet Nathaniel knew that James could end him a lot faster than Nathaniel could kill James.
Breaking the ice dome apart, Nathaniel turned back to the sky, forming a pair of ice wings to put himself well above where James stood. Raising his arms above his head, a mass of ice was slowly being gathered. It lacked form or shape, a far cry from the meticulous nature of Nathaniel's use of his abilities. If anything, it resembled something that James would create but at the moment, the cyrokinetic was not going to be picky. With the mass of ice sizable enough, Nathaniel tossed it towards James. As it fell closer towards his opponent, he squeezed his hand and unleashed a rain of ice, sleet, hail, and everything else aiming to once again overwhelm James.
James shook his head and cursed again, this time louder. He would have preferred the entire ice block fired off at him. At least that way, he could potentially blast through it, or try and slow it down and then dodge it. But Nate seemed to understand his game and blew it apart into thousands of pieces. He thought about using another electricity field, but James knew that with the larger amount of ice attacks launching toward him, many more would get through and it wouldn't end well for him.
He decided on another approach. James concentrated on not just pouring energy from his arms, but all across his body. Slowly, electricity began to envelop him, bouncing across his skin and causing any hairs to stand up. The lightning began to emit from his body and move across him more and more, with dozens of small sparks forming across every second. Eventually, his body was surrounded by what appeared to be a thick layer of yellow energy, but in reality was a thousand different electrical sparks roaming across his skin, providing a thick, electrical barrier.
As the ice attacks started pouring at him, they began to be instantly melted under the intense heat from the lightning. However, James underestimated the sheer amount of the ice attacks, and watched with every seconds as more and more flooded at him. And with every piece of ice, sleet and hail a small spark doused, it vanished soon after from the collision to leave James with one less piece of defense. After enduring a torrent of ice moves flung at him, James saw the electric barrier he formed began to completely deplete... but all of Nate's ice moves had not. Seeing that he couldn't protect against all of them, the electrokinetic decided to launch the remaining sparks across his body into one, single larger bolt of lightning at Nate, while taking any remaining ice attacks to his skin. The ice impacted his defenseless body and the combination of attacks sent him flying through the air and straight into an abandoned car in the streets.
The arc of lightning that James fired was narrowly dodged by Nathaniel with a big flap of his wings. The bolt seemed to get lost in the cloudy sky, continuing to carry its powerful charge as it danced amongst the dark heavy clouds. Almost blinded by the flash of lights, Nathaniel shook his head and turned his attention to James. Barely able to see him due to combination blinded vision and the great distance between the two, Nathaniel grimaced slightly before positioning his body to descend down in a swoop. Fashioning an ice scythe, Nathaniel flew down like a frozen angel of death, aiming to slice the defenseless James in a wide slash.
James opened his eyes wide as he noticed Nathaniel swooping in so quickly and prepared to slash at him. He didn't have a chance to stand and run to avoid the dangerously looking scythe, and for some reason his arms didn't budge right away when he attempted to bring them up to form some sort of defense. Once more he had to improvise. He gathered his energy, but took it away from his arms and poured it instead into his feet. The electrokinetic then did a kicking motion and fired off a dual lightning bolt shot from his feet toward the incoming Nathaniel.
Seeing the dual bolts fire towards him, Nathaniel halted his advance and used the wings as a shield, absorbing a bulk of the impact. However the force of electric attacks took him aback and Nathaniel fell back on the ground. He slid back, and struggled to regain his footing. Frustrated at James' ability to fight back, he repurposed the scythe into a javelin and with all his might, threw the bladed weapon towards the sitting James.
James scrambled to his feet following his bolt-kick, and soon found himself jumping out of the way to narrowly avoid the javelin his rival threw at him. The spear impacted the wall behind him and pierced through the stone, causing James to shake his head. He didn't want to imagine what would have happened if it hit him. James grabbed hold of the spear, and infused electricity into it. Slowly, the object began to melt, but as James tossed it back, the lightning overwhelmed the javelin form into something solid. However, as it was thrown at Nate and evaporated, it maintained the appeared of a spear, this time covered in lightning.
Almost snickering at the theme of medieval weapons, Nathaniel continued to entertain the idea as he walked towards James, the electric spear flying towards him. In his left hand, Nathaniel created a massive tower shield, heaving in front of him with his God Mode enhanced strength. Parking the shield in front of him and planting into the ground, he felt the jolt from the spear as it made impact, the attack grounded easily. In his other hand, Nathaniel crafted a number of small projectiles, resembling small pellets. Heaving them over from behind the shield, the pellets scattered about the ground and rolled in random directions. Not exactly aware if they were anywhere near James, Nathaniel snapped his fingers and the pellets exploded in a shower of sleet, particles of ice and most importantly, more obscuring mist.
James felt his vision slowly clout as the mist enveloped the area. The remaining particles of ice that rained upon the electrokinetic stung, but James hardly paid them any mind. He focused instead of trying to see Nate from within the mist. He looked around every direction, and made sudden turns to ensure he wasn't creeping up from behind. "Are we playing hide and go seek now, Nate?" He questioned through the mist, to see if he could bait the man from speaking back, or doing anything to give away his location. James gathered energy into his palms again and prepared two lightning bolts in his hands.
The attack didn't come from above, behind or any side of James, but from below. A small hand of ice gripped James' feet and crawled up his legs, locking him in place. The electrokinetic unable to move for the second, a battering ram of ice flew through the mist and struck the man square in the chest.
"Wha- hey!" James yelled as he felt something grip his legs and hold him where he was. He began to fire off the two lightning bolts he prepared along his legs to free himself, but as soon as he did, it came too late. He felt a large pillar strike him directly at his chest in a mighty blow. James was flung into the air and flew a great distance, eventually coming down straight into a pile of rubble along one of Istanbul's many ruined streets. He lay there, barely moving, and panted heavily. "S-muk..."
The area around James froze, the ground itself becoming a sheet of ice as Nathaniel grew near. The ground cracked under the extreme temperature in random patterns, hardly reflective of intent from his opponent. At this point even Nathaniel could notice his powers were almost too much for the world around him, as the air could almost feel solid in the immediate area around him due to the extreme amount of cold (or lack of heat) in an aura around the Atlantean. Nathaniel's loud footsteps could be heard echoing through the abandoned streets as he loomed around James, a sword, mirroring the Harbinger's blade in his hands. He halted his advance within about a meter of James, brandishing his ice sword in his dominant hand. "I shouldn't allow you the honor of a last word, but you have five seconds to speak your peace before I kill you where you lay," Nathaniel said as he stepped closer to the broken body of James. "5..4..."
James coughed as Nathaniel grew closer. "Five whole seconds? You really are my friend, aren't you?" He chuckled, which slowly turned into coughs. He felt the energy from the God Mode slowly leave his body. The veil of electric energy vanished across him. "Well, that's that, I guess. That was one hell of a fight. But you know what?" James reached into the side of his torn coat, and unveiled his Harbinger Sword. Just before Nate was upon him, he unleashed the sword's power, sending a powerful gust of wind directly at the ice Atlantean. "I don't feel like I'm done just yet!"