OoC: No need to compliment me every time. O_o It's not like I'm winning, we don't even know that until they judge. You're doing awesome too, though! ^_^ I'm glad I finally get to fight with someone on ZU who isn't a lazy little slacker...

IC: As much as he wanted to do otherwise, he could not help himself. Jubril laughed uproariously, head back and body shaking with the full humor of the private joke he had heard in the statement made by the elf– the weak, magically inclined little pipsqueak– that could have easily killed him if it had not been for the gravity flux. He found that it was difficult to breathe after only a few moments of the hysterical laughter that had brought a torrent of tears from his eyes and given him a sudden desire to pee.

"See me die?" he choked out, between the first and second bouts of hysterical laughter, that brief little four seconds or so filled with catching his breath in huge gusts and saying the three words before he disappeared into another fit of laughing and giggling. When it subsided again, he let out a little hiccuping sound and wiped the tears from his eyes with the palms of his hands. He chuckled a few more times, and the smile stayed on his face.

By the time his breath was all the way back, he had already pulled a javelin from his shield and launched it forward into chunk his enemy stood on, watching it impact right at his feet and chuckling all the while. He shouted out across the room, "You'll have to wait a long time to see that, elf, and I doubt you have the time!"

Mahrus heaved himself forward to one of the smaller chunks of earthen mass, not far below the perky little elf and his toy sword, all the while trying to free himself from the helpless fit of amusement that still had not left him, though what exactly inspired it remained a mystery... euphoria was enough of an explanation to him. Looking up at his opponent, a gleeful smile on his face, he turned the spear in his hand and jammed it point-first into another mass hovering off above his left shoulder; his eyes never left the elf, but they slowly lost their amusement and turned hard, dangerous, and very, very cold. A predatory grin manifested itself, bringing a light into his eyes that was nothing short of disturbing, and he pulled himself up onto the chunk of earth to his right, even with his little elfin friend in height.

The grin still stretching his lips, Jubril made it a point to pull his scimitar out slowly, the hilt having only been slightly visible beneath the edge of his shield before he clenched his fist around it and pulled a bit, revealing the black-gold metal. Indestructible, almost, but keen and dangerous nonetheless, that was ebony ore. The skirmisher felt his grin evaporate, and his eyes harden even more, the grey clouds of his eyes freezing over into an icy blizzard.

It all happened to fast for the eye to follow really, or at least to fast for most human eyes, and it revealed something nicely enjoyable about the slender pretty-boy and his sand wave– even if some frowned on it as the main power holding up the strength of a fighter, speed was useful against some of the more supernatural foes. Jubril replayed the motion briefly in his head: he had leapt forward, like the predatory creature his smiling face had mimicked a few short moments before, and had brought his scimitar forward with the graceful power of an expert swordsman, slashing through the guard of that sand wave before it could reach its grainy tendrils out to resist and punching through the thin clothing of the elfin clothing before moving away was a plausible course of action. He had landed on his spear haft. Turning around, the look in his eyes grew slightly more grim as he was reminded again that this was no ordinary foe– expecting to see a thin trickle of blood from where he had swept his blade, he was instead rewarded by another useful tidbit of information. His enemy had armor, an armor that chipped away and fell like sand when hit with the brute strength of his limbs. An armor that was strong enough to prevent a wound, even if the elf had made no movement to dodge.

"I can see why you're so confident," Jubril sneered, "Seldom does an idiot of the arcane lose against a brute like me, right?"

Turning fully, he stretched the muscles of his back and felt them loosen considerable from the ministrations, becoming ready for the fight of his life. Smiling sardonically, he turned fully on his thin spear haft and leapt again, as quickly as the first time, this time with a more specific goal in mind than just a mindless slash at his enemy; really, that was a hopelessly pointless gesture of superiority, even had it ended in a wound. No slash to the arm could really punish someone enough to send them down on their knees. This time, it would be definite. At the speed he was moving it probably was unnecessarily paranoid, but the hero made sure to feint slightly, just to be sure his opponent had no chance to dodge even if he could detect the movement... which, it seemed may have been highly possible.

The feint had been necessary. What would only have been a glancing blow turned into a bullishly strong shove when the elf, seeing the faint movement to his left, dodged quickly right– and right into the path of his enemy, only to be shoved back on the rock-and-earth platform, pushed away by strength that had toppled an orc more than once. Jubril grinned. He had his foothold now, and he was not about to let it loose without a fight.

And if, in that moment, he twirled his sword with a bit of arrogance, it can be overlooked, because he had a reason for his awkwardly corny gesture of impatient self-assuredness. Simply, while his right hand was twirling his scimitar into a rather distracting display of mediocre pride, his left hand was subtly moving down to pluck the javelin from the ground it had stuck into, right into his feet– how convenient. Without warning, he let it fly forward again, this time frowning when it was slow enough to be blocked by the sand wave. It would be a contest of blood and flesh then.

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[Graphics by Me.]

[The signature links to Aleksandr Sokoll.]
["I believe in sleeping." ~ Bruce Lee]