If This is a Bad Time... [Closed]

Gray watched incredulously as Daxel unsheathed his sword and cut through his saw blade. He cut through it like it was nothing! Gray was surprised, to say the least. His ice wasn't exactly easy to break, unless he made it to be. Now that it was useless, Gray let the ice that had formed the disc crumble away into nothing. Hearing his words, Gray looked back up to the Arrancar, his demeanour much more serious. This wasn't going to be easy.

Gray's eyes widened as he felt the Arrancar's presence vanish altogether, and then a second later, reappear right above him. Thinking fast, Gray raised both of his arms above his head to block the kick to his head. And with that, Gray felt that he could match Daxel's strength. If the Arrancar thought that he could beat Gray without even his zanpakuto, then he was in for a surprise.

As the Arrancar's leg was still in contact with Gray's arm, ice began to slowly spread over it. Gray was trying to freeze it before the Arrancar broke contact. In the instant that Daxel had moved, Gray knew that he was a lot faster than himself, so he knew that he needed to slow him down if he were to emerge victorious.

Once Daxel used Sonído to get away from him, Gray took a couple steps back as well, to distance himself. It seemed that it had been a waste of time to try and freeze the Arrancar’s leg; he would have been better off just attacking him while he had been in such a compromising position. Oh well, it was worth a shot. Gray thought, disappointed.

“Well, that was quick.” Gray muttered, loud enough for the Espada to hear. He had been referring to Daxel’s “examination process”, which had consisted of a Bala and a kick. Upon hearing that the Arrancar planned to use his Zanpakutō, Gray narrowed his eyes. Now he had a serious problem. His knowledge on Arrancar’s was pretty vague at this point, but one thing he did know was that releasing their Zanpakutō usually gave the respective Arrancar’s a drastic boost in power. At current, Gray did not have anything like that. He’d have to make up for it, somehow. Running away was not an option.

As he waited for the Espada to release his Zanpakutō, his own frosty white Reiatsu began to rise a little, enough that it became visible once again, snaking up from the ground at his feet like it had been when he first activated Cold Excalibur. When Daxel did go into Resurrección, Gray did not seem too daunted by his Reiatsu, even though it was considerably stronger than his own. He was ready.

When the Arrancar raised his hand, Gray figured that it would be another ranged attack, and so he knew how to deal with that. “Shield!” He called out, pushing both of his hands out in front of him as a solid plate of ice formed in front of him at a fast rate. Since he had been more focused on just blocking the Espada’s attack, Gray failed to notice what Daxel was actually shooting at him. Trying to block the attack with a shield made out of ice was probably the worst thing Gray could have done.

The first few flame bullets were snuffed out easily enough by Gray’s shield, but soon enough, they melted right through it, to his dismay. “What the hell?!” He cried out as the bullets broke through his shield. Due to the surprise, he was unable to react fast enough to effectively dodge the projectiles. A few of them hit his upper body and right shoulder, the impact throwing him backwards. As the remainder of the flame bullets flew over him, Gray rolled onto his side, clutching at his shoulder. It had been a while since he had felt pain that bad. It’s fire. Gray realized. That was just great. Now he was going to have a hell of a time.

He got to his feet, ripping his burnt shirt right off and tossing it on the ground. If anyone did ask him, he actually did have an excuse to strip, this time. He was fighting a fire user; it just wouldn’t do if his clothes got lit on fire.

It seemed to him that this Arrancar liked using ranged attacks, which was a given if he used fire. So it was time for some close combat. Gray knew he couldn’t mess around now, so he was pulling out all the stops. After he had gotten off the ground, Ice had begun to travel up both of his arms. It completely covered his left forearm, and on his right arm, a wickedly curved blade of ice jutted out from his elbow. “Ice Blade…”

Once they were both fully formed, which didn’t take long, he vanished, using Bringer Light to bring himself right up close to Daxel, with his ice-covered left arm drawn back. When he was close enough, he swiped the blade of ice towards the Arrancar’s chest. Whether that hit or not, he would then bring his other arm up, slashing towards his neck with the curved part, and then again with his left arm towards Daxel’s right shoulder.

After the three consecutive slashes, Gray ripped his arm away from the fragments and jumped back a few feet to regroup. He had come dangerously close to having a blade broken before the technique was even fully carried out, hence why he had backed off so fast. He didn't stay back for long though. Mere seconds later, he jumped back towards Daxel, using Bringer Light again to speed himself up and perhaps give him the element of surprise.

He seemed to be quite a bit faster than before, but that was only because this technique allowed him to use his full dexterity. Without having to worry about making objects or damaging the surrounding area with such pinpoint accuracy, he was surprisingly quick. It wasn't so much raw speed as it was reaction time.

This was his last chance to land a heavy blow on Daxel with the Ice Blade technique. Abandoning all defence, Gray swiped at Daxel's upper body three times in a row, before a green luminescence surrounded his feet and he was gone again. "Seven Slice Dance!" He yelled as he reappeared above Daxel in the air, flying down towards him with his left arm reaching out to try and make a long, deep slash down his back as he landed behind him.

After that, the ice blades on Gray's arms began to crumble away and he jumped back away from the Arrancar to survey whatever damage he had caused. He hoped that he had at least done something, because Seven Slice was one of his most powerful techniques; it almost always worked. If that didn't do the job, Gray didn't know what else he should try.

At Daxel’s sudden bout of laughter and his actions after getting slashed, Gray raised an eyebrow. Has this guy lost it? He wondered, taking a single step back in case the Arrancar attacked suddenly. Admittedly, he was starting to get very tired. Before now, he had already been fighting and training; soon enough he was going to run out of Reiryoku. He had to finish this fast before that happened.

He blinked when the Espada vanished again. He didn’t have a weapon right now, and he could guess that he would not have time to form another before Daxel attacked. He would just have to dodge whatever attack he sent. Given his earlier fighting style, and the nature of his Resurrection, Gray was expecting Daxel to appear farther away and unleash another of his flame attacks, so he was taken aback when the Arrancar actually appeared right in front of him.

He was able to hastily step back to avoid the first few slashes, but then he realized that there was a wall close behind him. This momentary distraction caused a nearly-fatal lapse in attention. Gray cried out in pain as he got slashed twice; once across the chest and another across his already injured right shoulder. Blood sprayed into the air as Gray fell back against the wall, and then to the ground. He lay there for a moment, before he reached forward a little with his left hand, looking up at the Espada to see where he was. “I’m not done yet.” He said, as he began to freeze the ground in front of him with his Reiryoku. When the ice reached Daxel, it stopped suddenly, before a surprisingly large mass of icy spikes erupted from the ground underneath his feet, in an attempt to impale him multiple times, or at least freeze him.

Oh, come on... Gray thought at the sight of Daxel melting his ice again. It must take a lot of skill to instantly melt an attack right under you without blowing yourself up. When the Arrancar spoke of ending the fight, Gray got to his feet, not caring that his blood was dripping all over the ground. By the way he was talking, Gray knew to expect some sort of heavy attack from the Espada, and since he used fire, something like Shield or Cocoon just wasn't going to cut it.

The flames looked small and inconsequential, but there just had to be a catch. They probably blew up on contact, or something like that. Gray had a technique that could block nearly anything, but it would take a lot out of him to make something of that scale. I don't have a choice. He decided, crouching down to the ground so that he could place both palms down on it. A wide swatch of the ground began to glow as a massive wall of ice grew up from the ground, easily five feet thick and nearly as tall as a skyscraper, although it was not that wide; anyone could just walk around it.

When the flames exploded on the surface of the Rampart, most of it was blown up, but only where the flames had hit in the middle of the giant obstruction, so large chunks of ice began to fall down towards Daxel as the rampart started to fall apart. The explosion had also created a thick mist that enveloped the area around Daxel and Gray. Using this to his advantage, Gray jumped out of the mist, mindful of the falling ice, and ran towards Daxel. When he got close enough, he pulled back his left arm and tried to punch Daxel in the face with as much force as he could muster.

After using that last technique, Gray was nearly out of Reiryoku, so he was hoping that he could beat the Espada with plain old brute force. He could use his Fullbring a little more, but he didn't want to if he could help it. It could get dangerous if he overused his powers in his state.

After his punch sent Daxel flying back, Gray lowered his arm and stared, surprised. Is that it already? He wondered incredulously. Sure, he had hit the Arrancar pretty hard, but that was just too easy. "I guess you aren't very tough after all." He mused, taking a few steps towards the Arrancar's seemingly unconscious form after his Resurrección faded. Yup, looks like I laid him out pretty good. Gray thought; he was pretty proud of it, too.

He jumped when a bolt of lightning suddenly struck the ground somewhere close behind him. He looked back to see where it had come from, only to feel a sudden burst of Reiatsu in front of him as Daxel fired off his Cero. Too late, Gray looked back towards Daxel as the Cero hit him and knocked him off his feet. He landed face-down and skidded across the ground for a few feet. A few moments later, when Gray tried to raise his head, his vision swam and he coughed up blood. Shit... He tried to rise to his feet, but fell back down. The damage he had sustained, coupled with the exhaustion, were just too much. Even through the haze, Gray could see Daxel, standing up now. "Bastard. You... tricked me." He said in a strained voice, thinking that Daxel had been pretending to be knocked out so that he could catch Gray off guard.

You have permission to auto hit and take him now. =w=