Ok, But you asked for it [OathkeeperXIII vs Hope]

The Location: Dark Alliance Headquarters

Located in the dark realm, the D.A headquarters is a tall, decaying, tower that stands alone above a long broken world. It mostly abandoned and overrun by powerful heartless and nobodies. It is also the home to the Dark Alliance: an organization of mostly nobodies. It is led by a twisted, but brilliant nobody who experiments with human life, the heart, and darkness. His dangerous creations also populate the landscape.

The Characters:

Spoiler: OathkeeperXIII (TOM)

Name:

Spoiler: OathkeeperXIII (TOM)

Tom
Origin RP: The New Organization
Tier: 7
Age: Unknown. He stopped counting his years after he became a nobody as he wasn't sure if his life began anew or if he carried on his original self's age and identity. Either way he does not age and his original self is dead.
Race: Nobody
Bio: In his former life, Tom's original self was a scientist and an explorer named Thomas Tallas. He took on his original self's name once he remembered it. He had a fascination with the darkness and the evil that rested within the hearts of all things, even worlds. Eventually that fascination became an obsession which consumed him. His exploration into the darkness gained him a lot of power, at the cost of his body and his sanity. Still his power and charm get him far in life and he has acquired many followers mostly in the name of discovery. He does use his success and power to aid others on occasion but it's always at a cost. And his test subjects and followers usually pay the price for his quest for knowledge as well. He is currently working on a project which he has named "Crimson"
He is essentially trying to use a human, nobody, and heartless to create a new being. Currently he is at the stage of gathering the 'subjects' for his experiment.
Description: Tom does have muscle definition but is quite a bit thinner than the average man. His height is an average 5'9''. His skin cold toned, pale, and appears to be quite thin and stretches across his body in some places, especially his hands, in a way that appears somewhat grotesque. His face is long and has somewhat feminine features. His eyes are slanted, and deep and bright orange in color. His hair is black with some grey beginning to show and has natural tight curl. From lack of self care, it is long, full, and matted and tangled. He dresses himself similarly to how his original self used to with more of an edge. He wears slacks and a button down collared white shirt with a black tie. His top few buttons are always undone though, and the tie is usually loose if tied at all. He wears a black leather jacket over the top of his shirt and heavy combat boots.
By most rights, Tom could classify as handsome. But his lifestyle has taken a tole on his body. He always appears to be tired and early signs of aging are starting to show. He is also decorated by a number of scars and marks from experiments gone wrong or done to himself.
Personality: Tom carries himself with a polite and sophisticated manor. He is also observant and cruel. He does have a certain charm and persuasiveness that is intriguing and draws people in. Especially people who are desperate enough to accept his help in spite of his reputation. Underneath his more proper outer personality, Tom has a much more savage and brutal temper under the surface. It takes a lot to bring out his dark side, but those who do rarely survive to regret it.
Weapon: Fates Eclipse
Tom's weapon is a mockery of the Keyblade. It is a keyblade of sorts but it is of his own creation and is more of a sword that is made in the image of a keyblade. The majority of the blade itself is black and silver steel and mythril. It is a weapon capable of doing damage to a person's soul as well as their body. It also mimics the key like functions of an average keyblade.
This 'key' also has a special ability that Tom has designed it to. He can, so to speak, use his weapon to "unlock" a persons mind driving them from their sanity or taking control. This ability is mostly effective on heartless or other creatures with simpler minds. But with enough time and exposure he has been successful in using this ability on stronger people.

Powers/Abilities:
Master of darkness-

• Dark Guardian- Tom has split his soul into six pieces which he can control to some degree. Each soul fragment does have some self awareness and control. But each one is still Tom, and has the same desires. Because of this, they act in the way he would want. The soul fragments are shadowy figures of Tom himself, though they do have some heartless-like features.
• Dark Portals- Tom is able to travel between spaces using the dark realm as his bridge between himself and wherever he wants to go. This ability ranges from only a few feet away to different worlds entirely.
• Darkness Manipulation- Tom's control of darkness has developed to a physical state. He can use the darkness to create various different objects. He can even use this ability to conjure weapons or restrain his enemies.
• Anatomic Shadow Fusion- Tom can quite literally control an unprepared enemy using their own body against them. It is an ability he created himself using his control of darkness and his vast knowledge of anatomy. No one quite understands how he does it but Tom himself. He essentially bonds one of his soul fragments with his enemy. A side effect of this ability is his target's shadow takes on Tom's image rather than it's own.
• Shadow Manipulation- Using a same technique as mentioned above, Tom is able to summon heartless and manipulate them into copies of himself or whoever he is facing to aid him in battle.

Genius

• Tom's mind is literally developed to a point of being it's own power. His various experiments and research has given him a greater understanding of many things. Particularly the makeup of souls,human beings, and the dark creatures that are born from the darkness in their hearts. He also works with certain chemicals and medications to create various potions, poisons, and drugs that he carries with himself. His mind also makes him difficult to outsmart in a fight, where he takes pride in quickly reading his targets and staying a few steps ahead at all times. He is also proficient with mind based abilities such as telekinesis, mind reading, etc...

Max Level Kingdom Hearts based magics: Cure, elemental, gravity, etc...

Weaknesses: Light hurts. He is also quite a chatterbox, often taking time to taunt his enemies or talk to himself in battle. Mostly this is due to his ego, he gets too cocky in fights.

Theme:

Spoiler: HOPE- RAVEN

Name-

Spoiler: HOPE- RAVEN

Raven
Origin RP- The New Dawn
Tier- 7
Age- 20
Race- Human (mostly)
Bio- (Going by this timeline IF New Dawn was in the same universe as TNO) Raven's past is mostly made up of tragedy at this point in her life. What she remembers is a normal childhood having grown up on a mostly peaceful and prosperous world in a city half built over an ocean and half over the land. While she was still very young her world was attacked and destroyed for no apparent reason. Many of her family and friends were killed violently in the destruction before her eyes before she lost consciousness and fell into darkness. When she awoke, she was alone. She was on another world for the first time in her life with no memory of who she was or where she came from. The world she ended up on was not a kind one. She spent the following years alone forced to learn quickly how to survive. Luckily, she seemed to have a natural talent with magic which she pushed herself to master. Her powers, she learned, were closely tied to her emotions. As her memories of her past, and what happened, returned to her she became a reclusive and guarded person. Her darker outlook on life pushed her to using the darkness. Though, she never felt truly connected with it.
Her key strength came from magic. Raven mastered a large number of spells and supported herself with the work of a mercenary. Though she did have a strong moral code, she would only accept work that didn't force her to compromise her personal values. Sometimes that code was more difficult to stick to than others as she learned life was not always as black and white as it seems. As she got stronger, she began traveling around the worlds in hopes of finding her home world or other survivors. As the next few years dragged on, she had still found no sign of either and began to lose hope. (UNKNOWN TO HER: Raven is much more powerful than she remembers and is well on her way to becoming immortal though she is not yet. She is the key to the light of the universe so to speak.)
Description- "Pretty" by popular standard. Raven has brown naturally wavy hair that she brushes back and behind her ears. She has a pigmented and warm complexion naturally but is pale from little time spent in sunlight. She has green eyes that appear more blue in different lighting. She is 5'7" and has a toned athletic body type. She is most often seen in casual, dark colored clothing that is easy to move in. Most of her attire is more suited for speed and agility than for defense.
Personality- Raven's personality is known to be cold and reclusive. She is mostly silent and to the point. She tends to be on the more skeptical side when meeting new people and is slow to trust. Because of this, she uses sarcasm as a mechanism to stop people from getting close and really getting to know her. Beneath her ice-queen exterior, there is more to her than she lets people see. She has a kind heart and a level head. At this time, she has no friends close enough to know that about her though. She is also a bit of a control freak and only relies on herself.
Abilities- Raven has some skill with using darkness to her advantage and is a master of armed and unarmed combat. But her true strength comes from magic and her strong strategical skills. She has also recently learned she has access to 'light' based magic. But the more she practiced her 'light' abilities, the weaker her control of the darkness seemed to get. Being more comfortable with the darkness and the spells she has learned using that side of her, she began to repress her light abilities.
Magic-

• Advanced elemental magic- Raven has memorized a great number of spells that allow her to control each of the four elements.
• Advanced Healing- Raven has also mastered many healing spells and can heal herself and others with very little energy or attention. It is difficult to keep her down for long.
• Offensive Spells- Raven knows too many offensive spells for me to list here. She is also comfortable enough with them to cast in rapid succession. These spells can do anything from slowing to causing great harm to her enemies.
• Master of all known kingdom hearts based spells.

Darkness-

• Dark Portals- Much like Tom, Raven is able to use the dark realm as a means to disappear and reappear in other places.
• Dark Magic- Raven uses this ability to cast illusions, cast offensive spells, and conjure heartless. However, she is unable to control them once they have arrived so this is an ability she only uses in special cases.

Light- This is the early stages of Raven learning about her "Light" side. She only uses them if she has no other option.

• Light Compression- This is one of the first light abilities Raven learned. She is able to use it to gather light energy at a certain point until the energy becomes unstable. She then unleashes that energy on an enemy, causing what could potentially become an explosion of light concentrated on a target. (Credit: Desert Warrior- Kingodm Hearts Daybreak)
• She can also form the compressed light into a sort of weapon for a limited period of time. However at some point the light energy will become unstable and react.

Enhanced Physical Stats

• For a human Raven has unexplainably enhanced strength, durability, and speed. She does not know why this is. But if ever asked, she simply explains that she casts spells on herself to achieve the enhancements.

Weapon- Raven's sword is about as tall as her and the blade is probably about as wide as one of her forearms is long. There is some minor decoration etched into the blade but not much. For someone who relies more on speed, the sword would appear counter productive but she manages it without trouble. The sword is one of the only belongings she had with her upon waking up with no memories and she never parts with it.
She also carries as many knives as she can conceal in various places mostly hidden in her clothes.
(She does not know about her Keyblade for the sake of this Arena.)

Weaknesses- Even though Raven does have some control of darkness, Raven does have a weakness for it. Strong spells and pure darkness used against her have negative effects. She casts wards on herself specifically for that reason.

The scenario:

This battle takes place quite some time time before Tom's entrance into the New Organization series. Raven happens to wander onto this location in her travels and well Tom lives there so I shouldn't have to explain what he's doing there. I'll give you the first post considering I'm too lazy to write one out after re-typing Raven's template again lol.

 

Raven regarded this new world in the same way as all of the other castaway corpse planets of the dark realm. Firstly, it was a disappointment, because it was clearly not the one she was looking for. But at the same time, that was also a good thing because this one was clearly beyond saving. Lastly, it was a complete bore. Many of the abandoned lands lost to the darkness seemed to mold together to just be the same thing over and over again: Dark, dirty, and full of annoyances. As long as I'm here, I might as well look around. Might find something valuable or at least useful...
At first glance, it would have been easy to overlook the creatures that overran Raven's new surroundings. But she saw them sure enough. Shadow heartless scurried every which way. There were so many in some places, it was difficult to pick out individual heartless. They looked more like one squirming black mass. The only hint of individual creatures was the handful of yellow eyes that watched her without blinking as she walked past. The heartless would eventually attack, she knew. They always did. But for now, they were far enough away she thought she had time before she had to worry about that. Nothing nearby was of any interest. She could tell this world was populated at some point, but it had obviously been abandoned or destroyed long before her time. Even the standing buildings didn't appear to be very sturdy. And after so many years of neglect and potential looting, anything inside didn't seem worth the effort and possible risk of finding a way inside.
There was one structure that still stood tall, though. Much like the wreckage that surrounded it, the tower was in terrible disrepair. It was an absolute dump and probably crawling with heartless. But it was unlike the other buildings as well. For one, the architecture stood out. The way it had been designed appeared very different than what she could see of the others that were closer to her. Was it from a different civilization? And why one singular tower? Was it the last standing part of what was once a larger home or fortress? The curiosity made it at least worth checking out.
Like a pack of guard dogs, the heartless zeroed in on Raven the moment she made a move toward the building. Raven paused, startled by their sudden aggression considering they only showed her mild interest only moments before and had been far away. Also, before she had only seen shadow heartless. Now, they had been joined with more powerful friends. Some of which were a kind of heartless Raven was unfamiliar with. "Really? Now you choose to give me a hard time?" her statement was more rhetorical than actually questioning. She knew they were not listening "Oh well..." she shrugged, reaching for the sword strapped across her back "Have it your way then." she challenged them just before they all attacked at once.
She dispatched a group of shadow heartless that had lunged at her with a fire spell, side stepping to dodge their burning bodies. In the same movement, her sword was finally released from it's sheath. She raised it to her side just in time to block an ice spell that had been cast toward her. The sword's blade simply absorbed the ice and Raven swung her sword in the direction it had come from. An amplified ice spell was thrown right back. It killed the wizard that had cast it along with a few more shadows that happened to be too close.
Just then a black mass rose from the ground directly in front of Raven. Startled by the sudden appearance, and assuming it was another heartless, her instincts kicked in. Like her large sword weighed nothing at all, she changed it's direction mid swing. It whistled through the air directly in route to a weak point just below the creature's head.
What happened next was unexpected. Her sword simply glanced back away from the blow with a force of it's own, nearly throwing her with it. Raven regained her balance, and her wits, checking the blade and grateful to see no damage. Her eyes rose just in time to meet Tom's. She hadn't seen the exact second he had taken human form.

Raven took a step back, very aware of the way the heartless reacted to Tom. They feared him, or he controlled them. Either way, the reaction didn't say good things about the newcomer. She watched with a sideways glance as they all darted away, but hovered close enough that she could still see them. So many had gathered, they formed a rough circle of a crowd around herself and Tom.
Her sword stayed in hand, in case it was needed. But this seemed like a kind of situation Raven would rather try to talk her way out of if she could. She returned Tom's politeness, but with caution. "Good evening." she returned his greeting in kind "I visit hell for the same reason as anyone else: wrong turns." she shrugged, hoping her sarcastic excuse of simply being lost was enough to quell the stranger's curiosity. Either that or politely hint at her not wanting for trouble or company. But it was a long shot. "Anyway, pardon my intrusion. It appears this place is not what I was looking for. So I will be on my way."

(OOC: Was it? I couldn't find the thread to verify. But they were your org so you'd know better. I'll change it if you want.)

 

Raven frowned, glancing from his outstretched hand and back to his eyes once more. The guy seemed nice enough. But she was no fool, and frankly he gave her the creeps. The way he looked at her, and called her a 'lovely subject' seemed very off. She did not reach out to shake his hand. But she did smile, waving her hand to dismiss his offer "Oh no! Generous offer, truly." she opened a dark portal and stepped toward it "But no, thanks. I'm better off on my own."
'What a weird man..."

 

Just as she was about to leave, Raven was surprised by an intense frigid burning sensation that wrapped around both of her arms. She was yanked down to her knees before she had a chance to investigate. She noticed the chains and her eyes traced the dark aura wrapping around her arms. She was dumbfounded for a minute. This eccentric stranger was apparently trying to restrain her. Just great, that had certainly escalated too quickly. She listened to his words behind her, which were accompanied by the sound of his feet in the sand as he stalked toward her. She sighed, exasperated. But for the most part, she remained still letting him think for the moment he had won. She watched intently as his feet came into her peripheral view and around to face her front.

As those last words came from Tom's lips, Raven did as she expected he would. He started to crouch down in front of her, presumably to make eye contact. Too predictable, much to Raven's advantage. His balance would be compromised, which she took advantage of. Contorting one of her bound arms to get better range of motion, Raven brought her feet out from underneath herself to sweep under Tom's, knocking him over forward. She acted quickly, not giving him a chance to retaliate. She wrapped one of the chains around his neck, pressing her knee into his back. The tension put Raven into an awkward position, making pull tightly against her right arm in an uncomfortable way. Still, it was still much worse on Tom. His airway would be completely cut off, and she made sure he would be unable to move unless he was inevitably forced to dismiss the restraints to free himself. "Crimson who? No thanks. Now if you'll kindly get rid of these nuisances- the chains AND the heartless- I'll leave you in peace." the odd feeling brought on by the darkness against Raven's skin was only made worse by how tightly it was pulled. She was confident the wards she had placed on herself against it would hold out though.

 

Tom's words kind of muddied together toward the end there when Raven was thrown again by Tom's magic and hit her head on the ground. There was a ringing in her ears and she was dizzy for a moment. But she did manage to understand what he said and recovered quickly enough to get a grip on what had happened. The markings on her arms were felt as plainly as seen, and Raven noticed her veins were darkened in a gross way around where his magic touched. So much for the wards she had placed on herself against darkness based magic. She grimaced, getting back up to her knees without a moment's hesitation, she flung her good arm in his direction, murmuring a string of unintelligible words. The result was a strong force intent on knocking Tom away for a moment. At this point, Tom had just ticked her off. If he wasn't going to let her leave, she would just have to fight her way out.
Whatever the spell was that had a hold of Raven's arms, she knew it had to go. "Gjan Scáth níos" No sooner had the rushed phrase been spoken, the marks on her arms were surrounded by a spell very similar looking to aeroga but it was more focused and had a slight glow. It only lasted for a second, but the markings on her arm faded away along with it. Satisfied with her work, Raven reached out to pick up her sword, quickly bracing it against the ground and using it as leverage to re-place her dislocated shoulder as she got to her feet.
"I might be in your realm, but you're on my nerves." she stood in a defensive stance to counter his next attack "I suppose we'll see who is on more dangerous ground."

 

Having been expecting an attack, Raven was much better prepared to counter him this time. She stood still, carefully watching his movements as he got closer. He was fast, and she already knew he was powerful. Just as he got close enough and moved to swing his sword, she noticed a change in his movements. The change was followed by him conjuring two copies of himself much like he had done earlier when blocking her sword. The memory came to mind of what had happened last time her sword came in contact with one of the copies. Blocking two of them at once was risky, as she didn't know if the recoil would double with two of them. Still, he didn't give her much time to think up another option. With only a fraction of a second to spare, Raven raised her sword flat side in front of her face and used her other hand to help stabilize it. As she expected, the impact of the three swords hitting all at once was strong. It was strong enough that her own sword was knocked to the side and Raven was pushed backward a foot or so from the impact. Aside from some irritation to her injured shoulder, she was unharmed. But something told her he wasn't really trying that time. Before she had even stopped from being pushed back from the force, Raven started muttering more words as her free hand fluttered in a small circular motion.
"Coimá dorch dóiteáin" no sooner had the words left her mouth, a ball of dark energy formed, shaped by the motion of Raven's hand. It hovered there only a moment before Raven swung her sword upward though it's center. The orb immediately reacted to the blow, expanding as though a high pressure seal had been broken. Blue and black flames were released and exploded toward Tom.
"Maybe it would, if I had any intention of staying. But as I've already told you, that isn't going to happen."

 

Ah... oops. That didn't work. Raven didn't have much time to react and the compressed shadow struck her through the chest. Instantly, she could feel the cold burning sensation where it pierced through her flesh. Just as it did so, it exploded similarly to the way it had when she had struck it earlier. The damage and feeling was much more intense than it had been previously. It made it difficult to focus on her surroundings. At that same time, the light around her faded by a thick cloud of darkness that surrounded her and Tom. She knew he would use her limited vision to stage another attack, she kept her wits about her listening for his approach. Luckily, his arrogance and gloating proved useful. The moment he spoke, she knew exactly where he was without having to see him. He was directly in front and slightly above her, trying to attack her from above. Raven reached to a holster around her right thigh and pulled out three throwing knives that she threw in the direction of Tom's voice. The three of them were launched one at a time in a vertical line with the lowest one having been thrown first. She then rolled forward to keep low as she did her best to get behind where he would land. As she came back up, her sword was back in hand and she slashed upward right where he would land.

 

Raven had no time to celebrate the small victory of outsmarting Tom. The moment he landed, and her sword grazed up his back, she felt the ground shift under her feet. The movement was followed by many tall, slender, spikes formed of darkness and sand that rose up in all directions including directly underneath her feet. They spun around in a drill like fashion as many of them dug into her legs, back, abdomen, chest, and arms-many barely missing vital organs- before closing up together over the top of her head. For a few moments, Raven was in shock. Encased in the makeshift iron maiden like structure of lethal darkness. Completely immobilized by the spikes which dug even further into some part of her no matter which way she moved. The darkness they were made of brought back the odd cold feeling which made her whole body feel stiff and cold like her blood was made of dry ice. It was a panic inducing feeling, to be completely powerless. It seemed that Tom had won. Even Raven herself believed that in that moment. He had won, and she was alone in the universe so no one would even know to look for her.

But then... she knew that somewhere there had to be other survivors of her lost home. Others that were probably just as alone as she. If she was stuck here, who would look for them? She had to fight through this, for them. With that in mind, Raven knew there was only on real way to free herself: Light Compression.

The faint glimmers of purplish moonlight coming through the cracks between the spike would have to do at first. All she needed was a base which brightened and expanded all around Raven's body to a bright golden light which broke down the dark energy which held Raven. The brighter it became, the more it wore away at the compressed shadows that held her in place until the compression finally became unstable and burst outward in a form of explosion that broke away the spikes, throwing debris and light energy in all directions. Raven staggered forward slightly when she was suddenly supporting her own weight again on heavily injured legs. She managed to steady herself using a quick wind spell to push herself back up.

"Neat trick..." Raven panted, returning Tom's taunt from earlier "-Mind if I try?" Suddenly a halo like disc of arm length needle-like beams of compressed light formed directly behind Raven and shot forward around her directly toward Tom. Some from the sky, others looped around her and propelled straight in front of her toward Tom. The last six separated to either of his sides. Each at the speed of an arrow.

 

Raven stumbled and allowed herself to fall backward just as Tom's keyblade would have slammed into her chest. It's sharp edge sliced her face a little, but otherwise she barely managed to avoid his attack. She swept her feet under Tom's, to use the momentum from his advance to trip him. She was on her feet in one swift motion and her sword glowed with a golden light as more spear like structures were formed out of compressed light. She swung her sword down at Tom as he fell, the blade was followed by three more compressed light spears that fell down toward him.

Even with her injuries, Raven's movements were much faster and precise than before.

 

Raven cursed herself for not having the good sense to expect him to try to tackle her as he managed to get on top of her. She managed wrestle him for a few moments. But Tom was physically bigger and stronger than her, so from an on the ground vantage point, she was at a disadvantage. She glared at him as a luminescent shield like veil of light materialized between Raven's chest and Tom's blade. It flashed brightly and cracked like glass on impact, repelling Tom's blade from harming her. As it cracked, each fractured piece formed it's own long pointed spike. They all then projected back at Tom toward his face and torso.