Round 1: Haylin Versus Alice

[Alice Akuma]

Alice’s body rocked beneath the spiral’s impact, flame and force crashing against her braced palms, but where another warrior might have folded, her *Berserka* only flared brighter. The storm-light coursing through her body was no wild frenzy — it was a living craft, a crucible of bloodline and discipline.

Her Synaptic Alchemy bloomed first, the fragile forge rewriting her nervous system in real time. Neuroelectric pulses surged like pink lightning across her spine, every synapse firing at speeds her ancestors once deemed impossible. Pain diminished to faint echoes, her reflexes tuned sharper than a predator’s strike, and her vision dilated into clarity so profound she could track the rotation of every ember in Cass’s spiral blaze.

Beneath that, her Akumic Cells roared awake, those rare reservoirs of bioelectric potential storing and discharging energy with each heartbeat. Most Akuma feared overcharging them — but under Berserka, Alice tailored their output, bleeding excess power into her muscles, joints, and skin. The arcs whipping off her body turned violently pink, a signature of her unique resonance with the planet’s field.

At the core of it all burned her Anthem: Akumic Circuitry. Where her kin saw a curse — a song that trapped them in cycles of low will and vacant eyes — Alice shaped it into precision. Hormones surged under her command, adrenaline, endorphins, and painkillers released in exacting measure. Her body became a laboratory, her cells a forge, and Berserka the hammer that tempered her into something unyielding.

When Cass’s talon raked against her chest, the blow thundered through her frame — but her alchemy redirected the shock, dispersing force through tightened muscle fibers and hyper-charged fascia. Steam hissed off her arms, the ground beneath her feet cracking where her stance dug deep. In the distortion of fire and storm, she saw it: the minute lag in Cass’s spiral, the weak point hidden in the blur of wings and momentum.

Alice struck.

Her body uncoiled like lightning made flesh, pink arcs snapping from her heels and shoulders as she twisted Cass’s momentum against them. Her palm shot upward, storm-light detonating across her fingers, and slammed into the exact seam where heat faltered and flame rolled thin. The force rippled through Cass, not just as blunt impact but as a targeted overload, her pink current biting into the gap and searing deeper than raw muscle.

Berserka fed, her aura raged, and Alice’s grin cut sharp through the storm. She wasn’t just enduring — she was dismantling, piece by piece, the very spiral meant to consume her.

[Haylin Gafren]

Alice v Haylin

Stress: 3 v 4
Output: 6 v 1
Naten: 4 v 2
Speed: 7 v 3
Dex: 2 v 6
Strength: 1 v 7
Durability: 0 v 5
Awareness: 5 v 0

HP: 6 v 8

5(Berserka) + 1(Stat range buff) - 5(Haylin Durability, physical Arbiter) = 1 damage total.

Haylin HP = 7

~~~

HP: 7/8
Pool: 5/9 + 1 = 6/9

Cass reeled from the empowered strike of Alice's Berserka rage, her signature pink lightning lashing from its body forced airborne. She landed a clean hit that Cass felt course throughout its frame, quelling the flaming aura around the fierce fowl.

Haylin's body still seethed, ready to move while watching his feathered friend take an unexpected flight.

"How about this?"

Haylin brought his fists to his sides, his body seethed powerful jets of steam, and large lashes of bright fire ejected from his back liky wings of his own.

Pyromuse x 1: A

His fists glowed red hot and began to bubble with fire bleeding from his wrists before he stepped forward and threw both fists toward his shocking opponent while Cass landed and shook off Alice's clean hit.

What emerged form Haylin's fist was a golem of full flame in the shape of the Gafren Goliath, a beetle as almost as large as Cass, but with magnitudes more mass. Its wings were spread from under its thorax and its impressive horns were poised to crash directly into Alice's charged body and peel her from the ground.

Pyromuse Familiar x 1: C

Pool: 6/9 + Pyromuse + Pyromuse Familiar = 4/9

[Alice Akuma]

[Starting naten 4/9] + 1]
Alice’s storm-fed body tensed as the flaming titan roared into being, its horns catching the light like molten spears. Heat slammed against her aura, flame licking across her skin, but Berserka was already in motion — her body not resisting the pressure, but metabolizing it.

Her Synaptic Alchemy flooded her nerves with new patterns, her brain firing adjustments in fractions of a second. Where others would flinch before the looming bulk, her dilated gaze dissected every joint of the Gafren’s conjured frame, every wingbeat and horn angle mapped with cruel clarity. Pink sparks danced in her widened pupils as her body prepared a response before her conscious thought even formed.

Her Akumic Cells screamed under the demand, discharging arcs in jagged whips across her skin. The sheer heat of Haylin’s construct might have overwhelmed them — but Alice bled the excess charge into her legs, grounding the firestorm with violent pink lightning that scarred the battlefield around her. Every tremor in the ground was her drumbeat, every crackle of charge her war cry.

Her synaptic alchemy carried her through the pain, bending her biochemistry into weaponized precision, flooding her blood with controlled endorphins and fire-resistant hormones, thinning her perception of pain into nothing but a pulse to time her strike. Her people hid behind a cowards lie, beliving this transformative experience would lead an Akuma to death— instead, her Berserka re-forged her body into a blade, cutting away weakness until only will and storm remained.

The Gafren Goliath’s horns descended, a comet of fire and mass intent on burying her. Alice didn’t retreat. She rooted deeper. Her aura roared, arcs lashing in wide pink chains. The Gafren’s horns descended. Naten Charge Alice stepped forward, two fingers raised, pink lightning knitting between them like surgical wire. She continued to weave the 'knitting,' between her fingers, attracting naten to her at rapid rates.

She weaved a net, one made to the exact seam of the Gafran and released her net, its stitching laced with naten disruption whispering through the construct.

The titan’s roar fractured into sputters. Wings of flame convulsed, then collapsed inward as its borrowed form unraveled. In the space of a breath, the towering beetle-shape was reduced to drifting embers, its false mass stripped apart thread by thread until only smoke remained.

Alice exhaled slowly, lowering her hand, pink arcs still flickering along her arms like a heartbeat. Her grin was calm, surgical — not the wild smile of frenzy, but the quiet satisfaction of a craftswoman dismantling her opponent’s masterpiece.

[Ending naten 7/9] +2 for naten charge]

[Alice Akuma]

Da roll

[Haylin Gafren]

Alice v Haylin

RECALCULATED

Stress: 3 v 4
Output: 6 v 1
Naten: 4 v 2
Speed: 7 v 3
Dex: 2 v 6
Strength: 1 v 7
Durability: 0 v 5
Awareness: 5 v 0

Refreshed HP: 6 v 8

Attack 1
3(Pyromuse Familiar) + 1(Haylin Offense: Output / 2) - 2(Alice Defense: Naten / 2) = 2 damage total to Alice

Attack 2
5(Berserka) + 1(Alice Offense: Strength / 2) - 3(Haylin Defense: Toughness / 2) = 3 damage total to Haylin

Alice HP = 4
Haylin HP = 5

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HP 6/8
Pool = 4/9 + 1 = 5/9

Alice caught the Gafren Goliath just in time, leaning into the blazing creature and preventing it from sending her airborne. She stitched together more of her signature pink lightning and cast her net wide around the indomitable beetle, eating away at it sending pink sparks flying through clouds of smoke and gas. It was a hefty blow, one that didn't leave her without reoil since the flame and steam jetting out of the smoldering construct blustered all over her body. Even if she couldn't fell the pain now, the damage would take its toll on her overcharged cells.

Haylin ran forward and reconvened with Cass who shook off the previous strike from Alice, glowing faintly in the undercoat of its plumage. With a mighty jump, Haylin landed firmly with both feet righ ton Cass's back who took off in a mad dash, leaving a trail of smoske wafting in the air behind them. They traveled like this often, and Haylin surfed the plains astride his friendly fowl for days on end. Together, the two of them heated up in tandem, warping the air around them with their combined pyrokinetic auras.

Pyromuse x 2

The pair strafed around the bulked up opponent, and Haylin launched a volley of punches complete with a vicious swarm of fireballs the size of his torso raining down on Alice. He wasn't sure exactly what this new state of being she achieved. but her last hit definitely left its mark. Her pink electricity held special properties, so he and Cass made a point to stay away from its current until they were sure what to do about it.

Pool: 5/9 + Pyromuse x 2 = 7/9

[Alice Akuma]

[HP/4]
[Starting naten 7/9] +1 8/9]
She barely had time to wonder what she’d overlooked before Cass barreled into her. The impact rang through her frame, but her Berserka form held firm, muscle bulk and hardened aura bracing her against the blow. Synaptic Alchemy surged within her, dulling the pain, knitting torn fibers, and forcing her body back into fighting condition.

Even so, she could feel the slow bleed of strength, the steady drain on her Naten pool. That kind of attrition would end her long before Cass landed the finishing strike. She needed to change the rhythm—fast—before the tide slipped too far against her.

“…How’d I miss that?” she muttered, breath sharp as she sprang back, forcing space between them.

There was no time to linger, no pause to tend her wounds. Already her fingers danced, tugging the current of Ava weave into existence, threads of light and crackling sparks coiling between them, gathering for her next strike.

[Ending Naten 9/9]