Round 1: Seraph vs Helios (Phoenix) [Welcome To The Jungle]

This was highly unexpected. Just moments ago, Hartley MacArthur had been waving to billions of fans in the center of a massive colosseum. They had announced the names for the first fight, and he was surprised to find himself up first, fighting someone named "Helios". It took him a few moments to remember that Helios was the name his best friend and leader Phoenix had chosen to conceal his identity for this tournament, and when it hit him, he knew this fight wouldn't be easy. "Fucking wonderfu-" Hartley managed to say before he was instantly transported to what was presumably the arena. As he glanced around, he found himself in a jungle of some sort. He noticed a strange, scaly-looking squirrel scurry away quickly and he shook his head. "Summit Achievement ain't done shit to prepare me for this..." he chuckled to himself.

Seraph flew into the air a few feet above the tree line and looked for Phoenix. The arena was massive, seeming to go on for miles. How the hell am I supposed to find him? he thought to himself. He realized that Andrew was most likely thinking the same thing just about now, so on a whim he decided to speed up the process a bit by firing an explosive arrow into one of the trees below. The tree was blown into splinters, and the nearby trees all caught fire. Surely that would bring his friend running.

As Hartley hovered about the fires, he had a few moments to think. He knew he wouldn't be able to win this fight, after all those years of being beaten by Andrew in playful scuffles, but he was still confident that he'd be able to put a dent in the mighty Phoenix. Switching his mask's vision to thermal, he looked around to see if Andrew was close. Sure enough, Hartley saw a dark red blotch wading through the trees, heading in his direction. He wasn't surprised to find that his heat signature was much warmer than anyone else he had encountered, seeing as her could generate fire from his ass. Seraph readied his bow with a standard arrow, ready to fire as soon as Phoenix reached the clearing.

As the loud crowd began to quiet, Andrew felt some butterflies in his stomach. Who would his first opponent be?
He was as surprised as Seraph when he heard their names were paired.
Looking quickly over to his best friend Hartley he just gave him a thumbs up, and then he was teleported into their fight. The terrain was a jungle. and a big one at that. The animals inhabiting the area were different though.
Genetic altering seemed to have made weird cross species of creatures like tiger-chimps, and snail-squirrels.
"Well this is...different." Andrew spoke to himself under his breath.
His opponent was nowhere to be found.

In the air he saw flames coming from a group of trees. "So he's trying to draw me out huh?"
The hero dashed towards the clearing of trees and saw where the trap was set.
"Better play this one smart." The hero thought to himself.
Remembering one of the techniques Elena taught him he created a giant skeleton-like creature of fire around himself.
There head of the creature easily reached passed the tops of the trees.
In one hand of the flaming beast was a katana, in the other a throwing knife.
Walking through the clearing, Andrew stared his longtime friend down.
He had an arrow drawn and waiting for him.


With a thought The Phoenix created a wall of fire between him and his friend.
"This isn't going to be easy for you." Andrew said through his mask.
Moving his arm, the fire-creature moved it's own in unison.
Andrew released the throwing knife at Seraph, aiming for behind him.
He didn't want to hit his target, just get him thinking.

Before Seraph had the chance to let loose an arrow, his vision turned red due to the massive fire constructs his friend had created. Quickly switching his visor back to standard vision, Hartley flew left to avoid the fire shurriken being hurled in his direction. For a fleeting moment, he had no idea what he was going to do. Would it be possible for his arrows to penetrate thick layers of fire? Rather than take the risk, Seraph decided to make a desperate move. He flew further left, so he could get a shot at Phoenix without having to worry about the wall of flames.

Sweat trickled down his brow as he reached behind him to retrieve two arrows from his quiver, one explosive, the other ice. Drawing his bow and firing the explosive arrow at his opponent, he followed it up with the ice arrow at incredible speed. As the arrows hurdled through the air, the blue ice arrow knocked into the explosive one, just as Seraph had planned. A thick layer of ice exploded and encased the explosive arrow, which would hopefully allow it to pass through the fire surrounding the Phoenix.

"I'm more resourceful than you think, Qwah." Hartley said, using a nickname unknown to the general public as not to reveal his identity.

((Sorry for the short post bro, but my foot is wounded and I'm trying to take care of it right now lol. I'll show you when I get to your house if you want but I don't know why you'd wanna look at my feet...))

"Resourceful yes, but foolish." Andrew thought grinning on the inside of his mask.
The wall of flames moved with a single thought, and got in the way of the winged archer's arrows.
He watched as the blaze devoured what was meant as an attack.
"You'll have to do better than that if you wanna move on to the next round."
Andrew swung his right arm and the katana headed straight for Hartley. For his follow up, he sent about six or seven throwing knives Seraph's way.
With another barrage of katana swipes, he was positive one had to have landed.

Fire and dust was all over the places. Smoke was beginning the fill the jungle at it became almost impossible to see his opponent.
Andrew let the giant skeleton around him fade to nothing, and prepared his boe staff for when his buddy showed himself. Spinning the staff ferociously, a tornado of fire came blasting out of it and sucked up all the smoke and dust. It also revealed his friend's location.
"Gotcha."
The hero leaped into the air and blasted two extremely powerful streaks of fire towards the winged-warrior.
"I'm just getting warmed up."
His next attack, he dropped low to the ground and pushed his legs towards his opponent, expelling more fire in his direction.
Lastly. Andrew created a giant ball of fire above him. It took both hands above his head to hold it up.
Letting out a grunt, Andrew Pettiglio released the flaming construct at his long time friend.
"That should do it." The hero thought to himself taking a stance incase his plan fell through.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! Hartley thought to himself, after his attack was blocked with little to no effort. As he was about to string up another arrow, a barrage of fire knives were sent in his direction. Reacting quickly, he moved his wings to take the hits, seeing as they were far more durable than the rest of his body. Four of the knives connected, and he winced as pain seared through his wings. "You're not nearly as tough as you loo-" Seraph attempted to mock before being tossed to the side like a ragdoll by one of Andrew's katana swipes.

Pushing himself up from the ground and coughing up a little blood, Hartley spun around and tossed a tear gas grenade towards his best friend and dashed as fast as he could into the densest part of the jungle. Once he was confident that he had lost his opponent, he took a moment to wipe the blood from his mouth and catch his breath.

After a few moments of rest, Seraph snapped back into battle mode and pulled out six C4 arrows, then pulled the arrowheads off of each arrow and tossed the shafts back into his quiver. He proceeded to bury each C4 arrowhead in the dirt in a perimeter around what he had chosen as his favorite tree, and flew to the top of the tree to get a better perspective. Waiting for his friend to show himself, Hartley lay in wait with an arrow strung up and ready for his ass.

"Trying to run are we?" Andrew thought as he took off after his friend. No way was he going to lose sight of this sneaky bastard. Hartley had the advantage of the air, but The Phoenix was hot on his tail.
Before he knew it, he slammed face-first into the chest of a ware-guerilla.
"Woah...easy buddy." Andrew spoke as stepped back slowly.
Pulling his boe staff off his back, he took a swing at the creatures head. The large mammal fall to it's knees as Andrew saw his opponent getting away. "Shit, now i'll never catch him."
With a few more hits to the head of the guerilla, the hero took a deep breath and prepared to gather a strategy.

"Ok, by now he has definitely set a trap. I can't comb every inch of this jungle for em', I'll die of starvation first."
The metaphoric lightbulb turned on over Andrew's head as he spoke three words aloud.
"Process of elimination."
With that Andrew inhaled and began releasing powerful blasts of fire throughout the jungle.

The trees began burning like crazy and he just spun in circles making what was once a jungle a glass parking lot. All that was left was about a football field's worth of trees.
"Well I haven't been teleported out of this mess, so I guess he's in there." the hero thought to himself.
Creating a spear of fire, he launched it into the woods and let it expand. He heard a loud boom and a grin grew across his face.
"So explosives huh?"
Andrew dashed towards the little remaining jungle left and prepared for what would be his final strike on his best friend.
"Sorry buddy, but all good things have to come to an end."

Seraph sat up in his tree, waiting for Phoenix to get close. As he bided his time, the pungent smell of nature burning filled his nostrils. Looking to the sky, he saw smoke billowing up from what was left of the jungle. “Fuck.” Hartley said to himself. Andrew had burned down almost the entire jungle, leaving only the area where Seraph was hidden. “Hm. Won’t be long now.”

Before long, a flash of fire shot through the trees and hit one of Seraph’s explosives, sending the tree he was perched on crashing to the ground. Quickly jumping to another tree as the first fell, Hartley strung up his bow and readied an arrow. As he saw Phoenix’s silhouette through the flames, he detonated the two explosives closest to his opponent.

Phoenix was tossed to the side like a ragdoll, but it seemed that he had redirected most of the explosion to keep himself from too much harm. As his friend and opponent attempted to stand up, Hartley fired a standard arrow at his shoulder, and an electric arrow at his chest. He flew up into the air directly above Andrew and let loose three ice arrows, aimed at his feet and face.

Deciding to take a risk, Seraph dive bombed directly at his best friend, dodging fire blasts on his way down. As he got closer, it became significantly more difficult to dodge Phoenix’s attacks. Hartley was hit in the shoulder by a fireball, but he stayed on course, powering through the pain.

Finally reaching Phoenix, Seraph flew into his friend at high speed, grabbing him and flying up into the sky. As he carried his opponent higher and higher, he began to feel a burning sensation where he was in contact with Phoenix. The pain quickly doubled and expanded, and soon enough Hartley was just a burning projectile, now crashing down instead of soaring high.

Seraph attempted to let go of Andrew, to drop him towards the scorched jungle below, but Andrew held on. He knew that Hartley had made his final mistake, and he wasn’t going to let this battle continue any longer. As Hartley and Andrew smashed to the ground, Hartley wrapped his wings around the two of them. Though they were still burning, his durable wings absorbed a good amount of the impact from the crash.

Andrew stood up, looking down at Hartley, battered and burned on the ground. Hartley’s visor opened up for a brief moment, and he locked eyes with his friend. “Good game buddy…” he said before he passed on the spot. The battle was over, and though Hartley was beaten worse than he had ever been before, this had been the best fight he had had in his life so far, and he was glad to have participated.