Match C: Leonius Decimi Regulus and El Taladro Que Perfora El Cielo VS Isabelle Kyoto and Issac d'Aterni

((Leonius - El Taladro - Isabelle - Issac))

It was clear that the launchers were not made with someone of Leo's mass in mind. Despite being in Modus: Vindicta, however, Leonius took advantage of the rather weak throw, vanishing quickly into the canopy before his cannons began slowing his descent and repositioning himself as quietly as possible. He wanted to make his position as unpredictable as possible.

Stage one, secure one's position. Landing with a muted thump thanks to a pile of soft soil left by years of decaying leaves, Leonius looked around, sweeping the area with his senses. Secure enough in the lack of any immediate threat, and accompanied only by the booms of people slowing their descent echoed and muted by the stretches of giant trees between them, and the sound of his breathing. The forest was too quiet. Entirely too quiet.

"Modus: Servator."

Satisfied that he was alone, for now, Leonius enacted stage two. As his cannons folded up, and compartments on his backpack flipped open, fourteen tiny disks rolled out and unfolded into simple little machines that hovered around him, small multicolored crystals popping up on the top and bottom of the drones. Gesturing to fan out, though issuing the bulk of the command mentally, the drones darted into the forest to establish his sensor grid. Any hostiles, and the masked man he had partnered with, would have their positions within the grid relayed back to the metal titan, though he gave orders to specifically relay his own position to El Taladro. Nestled amongst tree branches and other crevasses, the drones would be silent observers...

... Allowing Leonius the luxury of rest, as his eye and sensors rested upon something that made the half-dead giant smile.

Slowly, Leonius sat upon the boulder, resting his legs and chuckling as he released one more drone, directing it to fly and obscure itself nearby. And there he waited, looking down periodically at the device he had been given and confirming he was close enough to the area it indicated, waiting for his enemy to come to him, into the hellfire he had prepared.

El Taladro tensed his body. He was unsure of how these launch pads worked, but was confident that they were effective. He timed his jump with the pad's push, jettisoning himself as far out as he could. He roared with laughter as he flew through the air with both grace and style. "EL TALADRO PISAR!" he thundered, straightening his body with his legs out in front of him. He flew into a tree leg first, snapping the trunk and "riding" it to the ground amidst the resounding SNAP of the tree, the CRACKLE as the tree trunk broke through the canopy of the forest and the earth shaking POP of the trunk slamming into the ground. El Taladro then proceeded to front flip off the trunk, landing in perfect form with his feet together and his arms outstretched, palms open, as if receiving the praise of an audience.

Issac goes soaring through the air. He activates his aura and curls into a ball to brace for impact with the trees. "Oh, this is going to be painful!" He begins his descent, landing in a roll. "Well, I suppose I should find my foes. Should hope to find my ally first.."

Issac's descent did not go unnoticed, as a small drone silently sat hidden in the crevasse of a tree, noting from a distance as the well-dressed young man rolled to a stop within range of a metal titan's sensor net.

Some distance away, Leonius smiled. "... Found you..." He took the drone's coordinates, his combat computer doing some calculations based on recorded distance. Leaving standing orders with all of his drones, Leonius slowly rose from his seat. "Work... before pleasure..." He rasped, clenching his fist. "Modus: Iudicium."

As the cannons on his back lowered, somewhat, and took positions for artillery fire, the metal giant's smile grew broad. The tinny voice in his ear chirped its acknowledgement. "Firing solution obtained. Coordinates are specific. Ready: Cluster shell, twenty-four round burst, medium altitude detonation."

Immediately, Leo's smile faded, and he opened the gates of hell on his unsuspecting classmate.

The once-quiet air of the forest was split with a series of explosions that shook the trees. Twenty four shells shot up out of the canopy, their arc taking them over Issac's distant position, where they burst into a rain of dust-charged bomblets and shrapnel.

And then Leonius turned, glancing once at the drone he had hidden nearby, before he began moving away from his firing point, knowing that he had given away his position and needing to obfuscate his placement once more.

"Okay, so I should head that wa-" Issac hears the explosions and tracks the shells until they burst above him. "Oh. Oh no. No no no." Issac then runs off as fast as he can towards where he thinks the shots came from, still getting some bits of hot metal on his shoulders. "Ahhh, that burns. Now I need to get a new shirt." As he takes off the now ruined shirt.
(hit count: 1, I guess)

El Taladro hears the thunder of explosions of in the distance. He grins widely and stretches.
I think I'm going to enjoy this!
El Taladro takes off like a rocket, running towards the sounds of the explosions.

Leonius growled as his drone fed him images of his target, crossing his arms. He had neglected to calculate for wind, and his barrage was centered a few meters north of his target. He made a note to direct a drone skyward to prevent such mistakes in the future and get accurate wind readings, but mostly waited as several drones chirped in one after another, with one more sending a signal that El Taladro had entered the sensor net but was already on his way.

It was when Issac finally made his way to where Leonius had issued his bombardment that the titan smiled again.

The drone he had left behind gave a single beep when Issac ran by before it detonated, a ball of fire engulfing the area behind an expanding blast wave.

"Sonuva-" Issac manages to activate his aura just in time to block any damage, but still gets thrown back. "I am getting tired of all these explosions. This guy might be some trouble..." Issac runs off, now keeping an eye on the trees for for fireball bots.

Isabelle plummets from the sky, the wind rushing past her face so quickly that she finds it hard to keep her eyes open.  Suddenly, she hears explosions and she turns her head right to see smoke rising up into the air.  That was probably where she'd find her opponent.  Drawing the swords from the sheaths on her back, she plunged through the canopy of the forest.  She held the blades over her head and pointed them forward, in attempt to land on the face of a tree.  Now only a few feet away from one, she activated her aura to protect herself from the crash.  The blades pierced the tree easily, and she came to a stop.

Now to find my partner.

She pulled the blades out of the tree and flipped backwards, hitting the ground and landing on her feet.  She began to sprint towards the location of the explosions.

El Taladro heard another explosion, considerably closer this time. He runs forward for a few more seconds, considering whether or not to change his path when he runs into what used to be a beautiful clearing but was now a smouldering crater. He looks around rapidly, searching for any movement or sign of either friend or foe. Seeing neither, he roars out, "Where the hell is everybody?!?"

Leonius was fine with the sacrifice of that drone. They were tiny enough that he had many, many more of them. What disappointed him was his target being thrown from the explosion into another zone of his sensor net, mostly unharmed.

El Taladro charging into the crater, however, gave him a bit of hope.

As did the other target's arrival within the net, and again the titan smiled. Might as well give his partner a clue of where he was. The tactical computer returned its firing solutions, and again his cannons traced upward and turned slightly.

Another series of explosions shook the forest as another twenty four shells burst from the canopy, tracing down and filling the hooded girl's path with the same hellish rain that he had laid down upon her partner when the shells burst in a line across her projected line of travel. With, of course, firing corrections from his previous barrage.

This time, however, Leonius did not move position to fire again. "Modus: Vindicta."

As his cannons swung back into their wing configuration, Leonius approached the crater. With a wave of his hand, several glowing gears appeared in the air, spinning as they amplified his voice to a boom that could be heard throughout the area Ozpin had set up as their battleground.

"I AM... IN DEFIANCE OF THE LAWS OF NATURE... I AM... I AM THE HAMMER OF THE SKY... HE WHO BRINGS LOW THOSE WHO... PRETEND TO THE THRONE OF THE DIVINE... FEEBLE CREATURES OF BASEST FLESH... YOU HAVE SEEN BUT A GLIMPSE OF MY WRATH... I AM LEONIUS DECIMI REGULUS... AND I AM COMING..."

He smiled as he finished, giving a short chuckle that the gears amplified before finally fading.

Nothing like a little psychological warfare, the titan thought as his wings of flame caused him to burst from the foliage into the crater he had created. He nodded to El Taladro upon landing, thumping his hand against his chest. "It is good... to see you well... my friend..."

"Amigo! There you are! Don't tell me you went and finished our opponents off without me!" El Taladro let out a booming laugh, filled with adrenaline and vigor by Leo's display.

Isabelle ran through the forest, before suddenly hearing more explosions.  Looking up into the sky, she realized that she was about to be carpet bombed.

Oh come on...

She quickly turned left, trying to get as much distance between her and the place where the bombs would be landing.  When the barrage of explosives lands behind her, she is knocked off her feet, but is able to activate her aura and guard herself from flying shrapnel.  Climbing back to her feet and brushing the dirt off of her clothes, she begins to run in the direction where she believes the shots came from.

Leonius frowned, shaking his head as a feed of his bombardment against the girl came in. "No... Our opponents have... survived my bombardments... And the trap... that one of them sprung... They approach... this crater..." He flexed his fingers, energy crackling around his bracers as his Dust systems went through their final checks.

Slowly, he turned to look in the direction Issac had flown, then Isabelle's direction of approach.

"The girl... is very agile... and the boy... has a powerful defense... And I do not yet know... their offensive capabilities... But I am eager... to find out..." He looked back at El Taladro, slapping his partner on the back, without the augmented force of Modus: Vindictas. "Let us deal... with them quickly... my friend..."

El Taladro grinned as he felt the first good pat on the back since he was but a boy. He crouched and tensed his muscles. Like a cheetah readying to run down and shred his prey, El Taladro bared his teeth in a savage grin.

"More explosions, and not around me. Guess that means Mystery Bomber found my partner." Issac unsheathes Midnight and runs towards the explosions, for once.

Isabelle pushed her way through the bushes and branches quickly, attempting to get to her opponent as fast as possible.  Whoever it was clearly had an advantage at range.  Suddenly, she exits the shrubbery and enters a clearing, noticing 2 other students standing there.  Stealth was no longer an option at this point, and they didn't appear to be very friendly.

"Gentlemen."

Leonius had been watching Isabelle's approach through his drones, already having a gauntlet pointed at the girl when she emerged from the bushes. "... You are... very fast... to have dodged my artillery strike... Your comrade... is on his way here... And I do not think... my friend here is eager... to crush a young lady... like yourself... two on one..."

Slowly, he raised his other gauntlet, pointing at the point where Issac's path would cross the clearing created by the explosion he triggered.

"My friend... perhaps you would like to... greet our second guest?"

Issac pops into the clearing just after Leo finished that last line. "Oh, look. It's living artillery. And a little lady. I assume you're on my side, miss?"

"Prepare yourself, Muchacho!" El Taladro roared as he sprang from his coiled position, flying through the air, performing a graceful flip and directing his considerable bulk towards Isaac.

That luchador guy is crazy...

Seeing that El Taladro was already attacking, Isabelle saw no point in waiting to attack any longer than she already had.  She drew a single blade out of it's sheath and quickly dashed towards Leo, swinging the sword at his leg.

Issac sees 260 pounds of lucha flying though the air towards him and dives out of the way. "First explosions, now this. Why these guys?"

Leonius smiled as the girl came at him, rather than engaging at range, and chuckled when a glowing gear spun into existence in Isabelle's path, a solid wall of force cutting off her path to Leo. The hum of his Dust reactors growing, he opened his hand and another gear formed, followed by another. To Isabelle's sides, and above her, planes of force were coming into being, and slowly coming together.

The iron titan was trying to crush her, and the faint outline of a fifth and final gear, behind her, was starting to come into being.

Isabelle's running is cut short when she suddenly stops.

What the...

She had run into a wall that seemed to appear out of the middle of nowhere.  Noticing the others that were forming on her sides and closing in on her, she rolls backwards in attempt to escape before she is boxed in.

El Taladro lands in a roll, preserving as much momentum as possible. He turns towards Isaac and strikes a fearsome, battle ready pose. "Well done Amigo! I was afraid this would be over quickly! I will not show you any mercy and i expect you to show me the same courtesy. Good luck, Muchacho!"