Suggested By Stealthranger
Here we have two powerful charcters going up against each other!
This battle will take place in Chicago.
Dresden has his leather duster, his staff and blasting rod, shield bracelets, energy storing rings, cane sword, his silver pentacle and the red gem that gives him access to the ways, and his .44 magnum revolver.
Sephiroth is in his Advent Children incarnation and has the Masamune all his powers in his current incarnation
Who wins?
Thats kinda funny
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New page
this may be helpful
“Instead of obliging her by standing in place, as I had last time she’d tried to give me the runaround, I darted forward, into the edges of the concealing steam. I got burned, and accepted it as the price of doing business. I clenched my teeth, focusing past my pain, and tracked Arianna’s energy with my Sight, waiting for my shot and hoping that she didn’t have the Sight as well.
Apparently she didn’t, or wasn’t bothering to use it, relying upon her superior senses instead. She got into position and seemed to realize that I’d gone into the steam. She began to advance cautiously, gathering more lightning to her cupped hands. I saw the instant in which she began to spot my outline, the way she drew a breath to speak the word to unleash the lightning upon me.
“Infriga,” I hissed, and threw both hands forward. “Infriga forzare!”
And the entire cloud bank of steam in the air around me congealed into needle-pointed spears of ice that flew at her as if fired from a gun.
They struck her just as she unleashed her lightning bolt, which shattered one of the spears and tore a two-foot furrow in the dirt some twenty feet to my side.
Arianna stood still for a moment, her black eyes wide with disbelief, staring down at the spears and shards of ice that had slammed deep into her flesh. She looked up at me for a second and opened her mouth.
A blob of black blood burst out and spilled down over her chin. Then she shuddered and fell, simply limp, to the ground.
From the far end of the ball court, I heard my godmother throw back her head and let out an eerie howl of excitement and triumph, bubbling with laughter and scorn.
I watched Arianna twisting upon the spears of ice. She’d been pierced in dozens of places. The worst hit came from an icicle as thick as my forearm, which had impaled her through the belly and come out the back, bursting the blood reservoir of the creature beneath Arianna’s flesh mask. The pure, crystalline-clear ice showed a glimpse of her insides, as if seen through a prism.”
Changes, Chap 45
Ice spears, very painful to be hit by, and lots of them.
and I bet it would be great combined with
“Aquilevitas!” A curtain of water rose up to meet the onrushing flame, and they consumed one another, leaving only darkness and a cloud of steam.”
curtain of water could make lots of ice spears.
“She gasped a word I didn’t recognize, again and again. I didn’t know what language it was, but I knew what it meant: No, no, no, no.
I stood over her for a moment. She struggled to bring some other form of magic to bear against me, but the cruel torment of those frozen spears was a pain she had never experienced and did not know how to fight. I stared down at the creature that had taken my daughter and felt . . .
I felt only a cold, calm satisfaction, whirling like a blizzard of snow and sleet in the storm of my wrath.
She stared up at me with uncomprehending eyes, black blood staining her mouth. “Cattle. You are c-cattle.”
“Moo,” I said. And I lifted my right hand.
Her eyes widened further. She gasped a word I didn’t know.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the Red King rise from his distant throne.
I poured all that was left of my fury into my hand and snarled, “No one touches my little girl.”
The explosion of force and fire tore a crater in the ground seven feet across and half as deep.
Arianna’s broken, headless corpse lay sprawled within it.”
Changes, Chap 45
Now this one shows a couple of things, one is that Dresden does not need to say anything to activate his spells. it also shows he has pretty decent destructive capability and that was pretty quickfire from the looks of it.
Hmm, not bad. If you’re implying that he could manipulate the curtain of water he creates into ice spears.
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How fast could propel them? Sephiroth could probably deflect several with his sword, but I imagine that such a repeated barrage would be beyond his ability to deflect and he’d have to teleport to avoid them
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“The explosion of force and fire tore a crater in the ground seven feet across and half as deep.”
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Not bad. That’d probably be wall-multi wall+ level level. Fuck if I know for sure though
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Also off-topic, but I forgot to ask you this on Black Templar vs Dresden. You have a link to a place where I can download the PDF versions of the Dresden Files books you told me about?
““The explosion of force and fire tore a crater in the ground seven feet across and half as deep.”
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Not bad. That’d probably be wall-multi wall+ level level. Fuck if I know for sure though”
multi-wall sound right to me
Forcing his enemies to ice skate against the wind
“The pressure of numbers increased, and Thomas started moving more swiftly, more desperately – until Mouse leapt in to help plug the leak in the dam of confusion that held the full power of the Red Court at bay.
I had my own side of the store to mind. Again I reached into the well of cold, ready power, and with a word blanketed the field before me in smooth, slick ice. Howling wind rose to greet any foe who stepped out onto the ice, forcing them to work around to the killing machine that was Sanya and Murphy, or else circle around to attempt an approach through Molly’s murderous light and sound show.”
Changes, Chap 46
———–
Also, Dresden knows Iroh Zuko and Iroh2 apparently
“I suited action to my words and plunged toward the opening Ebenezar’s allies were cutting for us. There was a surge of magic and a flash of motion ahead of us, as another vampire noble tossed another flare of power at me. I caught a small stroke of lightning on my mentor’s staff – it was shorter, thicker, and heavier than mine – conducting the attack down my arm, across my shoulder, and out the tip of my newly acquired sword. The lightning bolt chewed a hole in the belly of the Red Court noble. He staggered as I closed on him. I spun the staff to the horizontal, and checked him in the nose as I went by, dropping him to the ground.”
Changes, Chap 47
may not seem like much but thunderstorm plus lightning redirection? I can see this coming in handy eventually.
—————
Winter Knight status increasing his rejuvination capabilities
“I guess I was getting pretty tired, too.
I narrowed my focus to Martin, to the stairs up, and tried to ignore the burning in my arms, my legs, my chest. I drew in a sharp breath, and it was like inhaling sudden cool, clean wind. I thought I heard someone whispering to me, something in a tongue I didn’t understand – but I knew my queen’s voice. I became aware that a cloud of white mist and vapor was gathering around me as I continued, a little faster, the humid air of the Yucat¨¢n boiling around the frost that had formed on my armor.
Then the cold washed away the hot fatigue, and I felt the ice flowing into me, implacable, merciless, relentless. My legs began to churn like the pistons of an engine. Suddenly one step per stride simply wasn’t enough, and I started flying up them two at a time, rapidly leaving Martin behind.”
Changes, Chap 47
————–
Winter Knight enhanced might
“I reached the top and a half-breed jaguar warrior flung himself toward me. I snarled, batted his sword aside with mine, and lashed out with one foot, landing a stomping kick in the center of his chest.
His sternum cracked audibly, and he flew backward as if rammed by a truck. He hit the stone wall behind him hard enough to shake dust from the roof overhead, and crumpled like a broken toy. Which was exactly the kind of power the Winter Knight was supposed to have, and as I watched the poor idiot drop, I felt nothing but satisfaction.”
Changes, Chap 47
———–
Going hand to hand with a super strong Vampire, specifically the KING of the Red Court of Vampires, a guy so old he was worshiped at Chichen Itza when he was a fresh born Vamp practically. He’s about 4000 years old to be precise. So yeah Dresden hand to hand with a superstrong Vamp.
“I staggered, but I did not stop. I was hysterical. I was not well. I was invincible. My armor and my grandfather’s staff and the sight of my frightened child and the cold power flowing through my limbs allowed me to push forward one step, and another, and another, until I stood nearly toe-to-toe with him.
The Red King’s restored right hand snapped forward to bury the obsidian knife in my throat.
My left hand dropped the staff and intercepted his wrist. I stopped the knife an inch from my throat, and his eyes widened as he felt my strength.
His left hand shot out to clench my throat with crushing power.
I formed the thumb and forefinger of my right hand into a C-shape, ice crackling as it spread over them, rigid and crystal clear.
I plunged them into both of his black, black eyes.
And then I sent my will coursing down my arm, along with all the soulfire I could find as I screamed, “Fuego!”
Fire seared and split and cooked and steamed, and the king of the Red Court, the most ancient vampire of their kind, the father and creator of their race, screamed in anguish. The sound was so loud that it blew out my left eardrum, a novel new agony for my collection.
And when the Red King screamed, every single member of his Court screamed with him.
This close to him I could almost feel it, feel the power of his will calling them, drawing vampires to him with a summoning beyond self-interest, beyond reason. But even if I hadn’t been there touching him, the sudden storm of cries from outside would have told me the same story.
The vampires were coming toward us in a swarm, a storm, and nothing on earth would stop them from going to their king’s aid. His grip on my throat faltered, and he staggered back and away from me. My fingers came free of his head, and I grabbed his knife hand at the wrist with both hands. Then, screaming in rage, coating his arm with frost, I snapped his forearm in half – and caught the dagger before it could fall to the floor.”
Changes, Chap 48
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sensing magic coming
“The echo of my scream seemed to be a signal, sending the rest of us back to fighting for our lives. I blew a few more vampires away from my friends, and then sensed a rush of supernatural energy coming at me. I turned and caught a tide of ruinous Red power upon my shield, and hurled a blast of flame back at a Red Court noble in massive amounts of jewelry. Others in their ranks began to open up on the newly arrived Grey Council, who responded in kind, and the air was filled with a savage crisscross of exchanged energies.”
Changes, Chap 46
Dresden redirecting a spell from, probably multiple high tiered Red Court Vampire magic users. Now the Red King is 4000 give or take, Ariana…was around to be turned into a hater of Conquistadors so several hundred, she’s the lowest tier of high tier right now. Now, magic users gain power with age, and most of the Red Court magic users are easily over 500 years old (someone once said Ariana was around 600 but that seems off) Of course it’s possible they were particularly sad pathetic magic users when they started.
@Admiral
Is Iroh 2 from the Legend of Korra?
Also, if Arianna Ortega is to have a match in the site, you won’t mind If I send her against someone I’m familiar with and would back up outright of my own vocation, right?
Eh Arianna isn’t good for much beyond being a manipulator. Not enough feats.
@Stealth
not sure how fast he can propel them, but could still keep Sephiroth from closing the distance from the front.
@Admiral
She almost personally killed Dresden herself after Dresden got the Winter Knight upgrades, though.
Like I said before, if it comes down to it and it happened to be against a guy I’d back up tooth, nail and claw with, I intend to be ready for trouble, alright?
So on the main kombat at hand, this could take longer than expected.
that was more experience than power, she was focusing on Dresden’s weakpoint in magic (water over fire) and plus she’s hundreds of years old, your not around that long as a vampire witch without getting combat experience.
@Admiral
My bad for forgetting that part.
Wasn’t she also capable of built-in invisibility to boot and had to be tracked via supernatural powers just to find her?
She was hiding in the mist and Dresden used his wizard sight/third eye/third sight to track her.
“Eh Arianna isn’t good for much beyond being a manipulator. Not enough feats.”
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This. She got the vamp strength and a few spell but it’s not really a enough for a match by herself.
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“She was hiding in the mist and Dresden used his wizard sight/third eye/third sight to track her.”
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Iirc It was mentioned she veiled up as well when she went in to the fog.
Oh, forgot if she had.
@Admiral
Still not enough in general?
“Forcing his enemies to ice skate against the wind”
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Sephiroth could probably teleport or keep airborne to avoid it as it seemed the people affected by it didn’t have either power to avoid it
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“Also, Dresden knows Iroh Zuko and Iroh2 apparently”
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Thats pretty cool. That would likely help him against Sephiroth’s bolt attacks if anything
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“Winter Knight status increasing his rejuvination capabilities”
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Perhaps it would help him keep up with Sephiroth in the stamina department?
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If by rejuvenation you mean definition #1
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www.thefreedictionary.com/rejuvenation
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re·ju·ve·nat·ed, re·ju·ve·nat·ing, re·ju·ve·nates
1. To restore to youthful vigor or appearance; make young again.
2. To restore to an original or new condition: rejuvenate an old sofa.
3.
a. To stimulate (a stream) to renewed erosive activity, as by uplift of the land.
b. To develop youthful topographic features in (a previously leveled area).
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“Winter Knight enhanced might”
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“Going hand to hand with a super strong Vampire, specifically the KING of the Red Court of Vampires, a guy so old he was worshiped at Chichen Itza when he was a fresh born Vamp practically. He’s about 4000 years old to be precise. So yeah Dresden hand to hand with a superstrong Vamp.”
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M’kay. How strong was said vampire? How strong are Dresdenverse vampires for that matter?
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“His sternum cracked audibly, and he flew backward as if rammed by a truck”
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Calc time!
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KE=0.5*m*v^2
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Wikipedia is giving me several different weight figures for trucks, ranging from 3500kg to 9000kg
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So we’ll use 3500 as a low end and 9000 as a high end. As an average we’ll use 6000kg
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For the speed of a truck we’ll assume 70mph. To convert to m/s is 31 m/s
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Low end: KE= 0.5*3500*31^2= 1,681,750 joules
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Average: KE= 0.5*6000*31^2= 2,883,000 joules
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High end: KE= 0.5*9000*31^2= 4,324,500 joules
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Heh, so he’s capable of exerting megajoules of force now
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To convert said values to tons:
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1,681,750=0.0004 tons
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2,883,000=0.0007 tons
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4,324,500=0.001 tons
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Well he’s definitely far above wall level in DC/striking strength now. If he can tank said impacts too then he would have above wall+ level durability in WK armor. Not bad
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*should add this to Dresden’s FP wiki page some time soon*
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Even so Sephiroth would still be stronger by quite a margain given his shattering chunks of skyscrapers and slicing through massive canons, but at least Dresden has something of a chance up close now rather than it being all Sephiroth in CQC
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“sensing magic coming”
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Which as said before would help him against Sephiroth’s offensive spells such as Pale Horse, Heartless Angel or whatever. Not so much teleportation though
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“but could still keep Sephiroth from closing the distance from the front.”
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As I said, Sephiroth would need to teleport his way around it. He could deflect several, but a whole barrage of that level would be beyond his ability to deflect, so he’d have to teleport around the ice spears
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“I watched the poor idiot drop, I felt nothing but satisfaction”
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So he’s an anti hero now too eh? I like this guy even more now
“Even so Sephiroth would still be stronger by quite a margain given his shattering chunks of skyscrapers and slicing through massive canons, but at least Dresden has something of a chance up close now rather than it being all Sephiroth in CQC”
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Although, I wonder where it would factor for Dresden in Dresden vs Eragon
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Oh and btw, the minimum for Wall level DC is 5000 joules and Dresden can exert megajoules with his punches. Yeah
didn’t say he couldn’t teleport still the wind itself could help.
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I meant the increased stamina mainly poor choice of words I suppose.
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how strong a vampire is varies across the three courts and somewhat based on things within the courts. Black Court Vamps are like classic Dracula, powers increase with age so varies drastically. Red Court I need to look for feats for but Dresden could never have actually gone full out hand to hand before then. Still for a guy that’s basically a normal human that doesn’t work out much beyond some quarterstaff training that’s impressive. It may also increase when he starts training physically as the Winter Knight which will be shown in the next book. Not sure how much if it does but still. That would also have affected the Kratos match somewhat I think, and may affect the Black Templar match (melee being slightly less suicidal anyway.)
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just thought another magic sensing feat would help.
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at least there are ways for Dresden to put Sephiroth off the offensive if only momentarily.
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he slides on the antihero scale through the series, also as far as his superiors in the White Council are concerned he’s a Megatron or Emperor Palpatine waiting to go evil and start murdering innocents. Then again in Dresden Files Santa Claus is a powerful Wild Fae that no one would dare summon and is the equal of the Erlking, Dresden has summoned the Erlking once but still Santa in Dresden Files does not equal jolly old elf but more likely mass killer.
To #516:
Actually becoming a Father(biological in Dresden’s case, or otherwise like in some others whose best examples elude me at the moment!) can do that to you, truth be told!
I did warn(or at least tried to warn DEM) in regards to Dresden’s Warpath Potential being at least 10x as massive as 3 dudes I’d list off, more times than not if we go with a general basis.
Its definitely above anything Eragon himself might cook up(NOI as ever, Admiral!) as if the regards of the whole ‘Kill via Magic, Die Via Magic’ consequence for forgetting the latter bit isn’t enough trouble to contend with.
“Red Court I need to look for feats for but Dresden could never have actually gone full out hand to hand before then.”
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I believe both the Black and Red vamps have been described as being able to easily flip cars one handed.
Iirc Susan(half vamp) broke a washing machine out of a wall and threw it.
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“If he can tank said impacts too then he would have above wall+ level durability in WK armor.”
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He took a direct hit to the chest by the Ick, a creature that smashed his car on top another car, and was breaking through house walls. Was able to get back up afterwards. Iirc this was in the duster before it got turned into the WK armor.
“didn’t say he couldn’t teleport still the wind itself could help.”
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I was bringing up how Sephiroth could counter it
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“Black Court Vamps are like classic Dracula, powers increase with age so varies drastically”
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So about Class 2+ (seeing as classic Dracula is described as having the strength of 20 humans) strength then?
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“and may affect the Black Templar match ”
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Eh, the Templar would still likely win in CQC, although Dresden does at least have a shot now and it makes more of his matches more simple than “Dresden has to keep his distance or else he dies”
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Although if he does get even stronger in the next book, perhaps he could have a better shot against Sephiroth in CQC
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“just thought another magic sensing feat would help.”
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Well, it would definitely help him against Sephy’s offensive spells such as Heartless Angel and Pale Horse, etc by giving him a form of pre-cog against it
“So he’s an anti hero now too eh? I like this guy even more now”
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I’d assume satisfaction would’ve really been the only appropriate reaction a father would have after kicking a monster who was about to kill his daughter.
That aside he’s been always been an anti-hero. Typically depend on his mood regarding how much of one he is.
forgot about the car flipping,
@Atomic Lowk
Dresden’s involvement on the site essentially happened to be an indirect catalyst to myself actually getting more stable, actually, not gonna lie about it.
If it weren’t for him, the site would have been up in black and white flames, by now.
“I’d assume satisfaction would’ve really been the only appropriate reaction a father would have after kicking a monster who was about to kill his daughter.”
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Still an anti-hero trait
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“forgot about the car flipping,”
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What means was this achieved?
To #525th post:
Maybe, but its universally justified nevertheless, given the circumstances.
Both you and Atomic Lowk are right in this respect, albeit personally speaking I’d prefer the aspect that he’s a Dad now to be 1st priority, really. (goes to look away somewhere else for a few minutes, then looks back)
@Admiral
We did warn everyone else he’s so far above a Mauve Shirt!-level Warden its not funny, did we not?
Why did it take this long for the full brunt of the warning to kick in?
@Stealth
I can’t remember, want to say it was a casual missed blow but might have been intentional. Still Dresden tanked the Devourerers claws, it could flip cars extremely casually, Dresden’s duster and himself tanked it not even a fractured bone.
@Admiral
That was also before Dresden got the Winter Knight upgrades to boot, right?
If it is, is that just the minimum requirement one would expect Mauve Shirt Wardens to have?
No that was after. He can dish blows and tank similar ones, not sure if he can tank Sephiroths strongest blows though. If we had discovered this in vs Kratos that could have been hilarious.
Also Dresden once threatened to take up every faustian deal and every dark power he’s ever been able to grab or asked, when a vampire sorceress pissed him off enough to get him on the warpath, he said that while on the warpath, if he gets pushed….it won’t be pretty for the poor son of a bitch that did it.
@Admiral
Arianna Ortega was the one who pushed him on that warpath to push him to get every faustian deal to consider taking up, considering he kidnapped and tried to murder his daughter!
If she were smarter, she would have at least faced Ebenezer Mccoy directly and just save Dresden the trouble.
No it was Mavra of the Black Court that Dresden was pissed at
“I can’t remember, want to say it was a casual missed blow but might have been intentional. Still Dresden tanked the Devourerers claws, it could flip cars extremely casually, Dresden’s duster and himself tanked it not even a fractured bone.”
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Oh, never mind. Didn’t read the whole thing
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“not sure if he can tank Sephiroths strongest blows though”
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Best feat of destructive capacity in combat I recall is casually shattering that section of a skyscraper in Advent Children. Other than that he casually carves through steel and concrete structures with zero effort
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mHHD6OmRq0&list=PL40418F87948620FD&index=135&feature=plpp_video 4:30-4:32
@Stealth
impressive
not sure how this would help but wall of wind combined with soulfire. Sephiroth’s biggest edge seems to be his air superiority so to speak.
“Within seconds, both halves had focused on me, and then two of the freaking things rolled at me, jaws clashing and snapping, equally strong, equally as deadly as before. Only they were going to come rushing at me from multiple directions now.
“Wow,” Bob said, in a perfectly calm, matter-of-fact, conversational tone. “That is incredibly unfair.”
“Been that kind of day,” I said. I swapped my blasting rod for my staff. The rod was great for pitching fire around, but I needed to pull off something more complicated than it was really meant to handle, and my wizard’s staff was a great deal more versatile, meant for handling a broad range of possibilities. I called forth my will and laced it with the soulfire within me, then thrust the staff ahead and called, “Fuego murus! Fuego vellum!”
Energy rushed out of me, and silver-white fire rose up in a ring nearly sixty feet across, three feet thick, and three or four yards high. The roar of the flames seemed to be somehow intertwined with an odd tone that sounded like nothing so much as the voice of a great bell.
The centipedes (plural – Hell’s bells, I needed to stop being so arrogant) rose up onto their rearmost limbs, trying to bridge the wall in a living arch, but they recoiled from the flames even more violently than when I’d slammed the original head with a cannonball of fire.”
Changes Chap 12
!
wait….earlier in the duel it was said that will is what allowed Cloud to overcome Sephiroth. What if I could provide a feat of Dresdens will pushing away antilife?
Okay providing it anyway.
here is what Mordite is, or deathstone or well antilife
” Instead of answering, the Archive drew a small box out of her pocket. She
opened the box and delicately plucked out an insect as long as her own
fingers-a brown scorpion-by its tail. She looked around to make sure she
had everyone’s attention. She did. Then she dropped the scorpion into the
box.
There was an instant, immediate sound, somewhere between a wildcat’s
scream and the sizzle of bacon hitting a hot skillet. Something that looked
vaguely like a cloud of ink in clear water floated up out of the box. It was
about the size of a baby’s head. Dozens of shadowy tendrils held the
scorpion, drawing it up into the air along with the inky cloud. Dark violet
flickers of flame played over the insect’s shell for all of two or three
seconds-and then it simply crumbled, carapace falling away in flakes and
dust.
The cloudy mass rose up to a height of about five feet, before the Archive
murmured a word. It stopped in place, bobbing gently, holding there.
“Damn,” Thomas said, he took the earphones out. Music with many electric
guitars sounded tinnily from them. “And this is what?”
“Mordite,” I said quietly. “Deathstone.”
“Yes,” the Archive said.
Ortega drew in a slow breath, and nodded in understanding.
“Deathstone, huh?” Thomas said. “It sort of looks like someone spray-
painted a soap bubble. And gave it tentacles.”
“It isn’t a soap bubble,” I said. “There’s a solid piece inside. The energies it
carries in it are what create that shroud effect around it.”
Thomas poked a finger at it. “What does it do?”
I caught his wrist before he could touch it, and pushed his hand away. “It
kills. Hence the name deathstone, you half-wit.”
“Oh,” Thomas said, nodding with drunken sagacity. “It looked cool when it
gacked that little thing, but so what? It’s a bug zapper.”
“If you disrespect this thing it’s going to get you killed,” I said. “It would kill
anything living exactly the same way. Anything. It’s not from our world.”
“It’s extraterrestrial?” asked Susan.
“You do not understand, Miss Rodriguez,” Ortega said quietly. “Mordite is
not from this galaxy or this universe. It is not of our reality.”
I had reservations about Ortega’s presence on the home-team roster, but I
nodded. “It’s from Outside. It’s … congealed antilife. A chip of this stuff
makes nuclear waste look like secondhand smoke. Being near it draws the
life off you bit by bit. If you touch it, it kills you. Period.”
“Precisely,” said the Archive. She stepped forward to look at both Ortega
and me. “An enchantment binds the particle in place. It is also sensitive to
applied will. The duelists will face each other, the mordite between them.
Will it toward your opponent. He with the greatest force of will controls the
mordite. The duel will end when it has devoured one of you.” ”
——–
the duel of wills, between Dresden and a vampire, also tell me this doesn’t in an eerie way mirror the Sephiroth Cloud fight, the villain seems to get the edge, then threatens those the hero loves and resolve will and righteous fury allow victory, only Dresden’s villain is a cheating bastard at the last moment.
The Archive nodded. “Gentlemen. Present your right hands, please.”
Ortega lifted his right arm, palm faced toward me. I mirrored him. The
Archive gestured, and the mordite sphere floated up until it hovered
precisely halfway between Ortega and me. Tension gathered against my
palm, an invisible and silent pressure. It felt vaguely like holding my hand
against a recirculating outlet in a swimming pool-it was a tenuous thing,
that felt like it might easily slide to one side.
If it did, I’d get to see the mordite up close and personal. My heart
skittered over a couple of beats, and I took a deep breath, trying to focus
and ready myself. If I was Ortega, I’d want to open up with everything I
had in the first heartbeat of the contest and end it almost before it began. I
took a couple of deep breaths and narrowed my focus, my thoughts, until
the pressure against my hand and the deadly darkness a few feet away
from it were all that existed.
“Begin,” said the Archive. She backed quickly toward home plate.
Ortega let out a shout, a battle cry, his body dipping slightly, hips twisting,
shoving his hand forward like a man trying to close a vault door with one
arm. His will flooded toward me, wild and strong, and the pressure of it
drove me back onto my heels. The mordite sphere zipped across three of
the four feet between it and me.
Ortega’s will was strong. Really, really strong. I tried to divert it, to
overcome it and stop the sphere. For a panicked second I had nothing. The
sphere kept drifting closer to me. A foot. Ten inches. Six inches. Small
tendrils of inky darkness drifted out from the cloud around the mordite,
reaching out blindly toward my fingers.
I gritted my teeth, hardened my will, and stopped the thing five inches
from my hand. I tried to mount up some momentum of my own, but
Ortega held strong against me.
“Don’t draw this out, boy,” Ortega said through clenched teeth. “Your death
will save lives. Even if you kill me, my vassals at Casaverde are sworn to
hunt you down. You and everyone you know and love.”
The sphere came a bit closer. “You said you wouldn’t harm them if I agreed
to the duel,” I growled.
“I lied,” Ortega said. “I came here to kill you and end this war. Anything
else is immaterial.”
“You bastard.”
“Stop fighting it, Dresden. Make it painless for yourself. If you kill me, they
will be executed. By surrendering, you preserve them. Your Miss Rodriguez.
The policewoman. The investigator you apprenticed under. The owner of
that bar. The Knight and his family. The old man in the Ozarks. The wolf-
children at the university. All of them.”
I snarled, “Buddy, you just said the wrong thing.”
I let the anger Ortega’s words had ignited flood down through my arm. A
cloud of scarlet sparks erupted against the mordite sphere, and it started
creeping the other way.
Ortega’s face became strained, his breathing heavier. He didn’t waste any
effort on words now. His eyes darkened until they were entirely black and
inhuman. There were ripples, here and there, under the surface of his skin-
the flesh mask that contained the vaguely batlike monster those of the Red
Court really were. The monstrous Ortega, the true Ortega, stirred
underneath the false human shell. And he was afraid.
The sphere crept closer. Ortega renewed his efforts with another war cry.
But the sphere made it to the midway point, and got closer to him.
“Fool,” Ortega said in a gasp.
“Murderer,” I said, and shoved the sphere another foot closer to him.
His jaw clenched harder, the muscles in his face bulging. “You’ll destroy us
all.”
“Starting with you.” The sphere darted a little nearer.
“You are a selfish, self-righteous madman.”
“You murder and enslave children,” I said. I shoved the mordite sphere to
within a foot of him. “You threaten the people I love.” I shoved it closer
still. “How does it feel, Ortega. Being too weak to protect yourself. How
does it feel to know you are about to die?”
In answer, a slow smile crept over his face. His shoulders moved a little,
and I saw that one of his arms hung limply at his side, like an empty
sleeve. A small bulge appeared just to one side of his stomach, like a gun
being held in an overcoat pocket.
I stared at it in shock. He’d pulled his real arm out of the flesh mask. He
was holding a gun on me.
“How does it feel?” Ortega asked, voice very quiet. “Why don’t you tell
me?”
————-
not sure if that will help but, it’s there.
“Sephiroth’s biggest edge seems to be his air superiority so to speak.”
-
Theres that and his teleportation+strength, speed and sword skillz which were Sephiroth’s biggest advantages in this fight
-
“not sure how this would help but wall of wind combined with soulfire”
-
Sephiroth’s teleportation might be a loophole around it dependent on the size of said rings of fire
-
“wait….earlier in the duel it was said that will is what allowed Cloud to overcome Sephiroth. ”
-
The creator of FFVII stated that Cloud’s victory over Sephiroth in AC was PIS and that Sephiroth only won because he didn’t view blondie as a threat and toyed around with him. Although in FFVII I think there was something about Cloud having to engage Sephiroth on the astral plane to defeat him or something like that. Im not entirely sure about this though as I haven’t played the original FFVII
-
“What if I could provide a feat of Dresdens will pushing away antilife?”
-
Sounds kind of comparable to Sephiroth resisting his conciousness and soul from being absorbed (resisting death, feat of willpower)
-
“also tell me this doesn’t in an eerie way mirror the Sephiroth Cloud fight”
-
Heh, now that I think about it it kind of does
-
He could hold likely his own against Sephy in a battle of willpower with that, which is why Sephiroth would need to end this with his physical abilities/teleportation. Depends if Sephiroth would want to toy around with Dresden like he did with Cloud in AC
-
Sorry for taking a while to reply, I was bust on other threads
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdGYaFDPlks&t=5m0s 5:03-5:15 or so
-
Zack Fair casually dodging machine gun fire from all sides simultaneously. In Crisis Core, Sephiroth casually owned Zack in the Niblehiem reactor. Sephiroth’s reflexes have increased since then, so he’d be capable of greater/similar feats
I wonder…how likely is Sephiroth to arrogantly state his name or something like that? At any point during the fight.
“the astral plane to defeat him or something like that. Im not entirely sure about this though as I haven’t played the original FFVII”
===
There was nothing at all of this sort considering Sephiroth was in Kadaj’s body at the time so the battle was entirely physical, not metaphysical aspect to it whatsoever.
===
“Depends if Sephiroth would want to toy around with Dresden like he did with Cloud in AC”
===
Doubt it. Sephiroth has no reason to toy with Dresden like he did with the FFVII cast.
===
Anyone think they can sum up what’s been going on in this thread lately?
“I wonder…how likely is Sephiroth to arrogantly state his name or something like that? At any point during the fight.”
===
Honestly, I don’t think he’s ever announced his name at all in the entirety of the Compilation of FFVII so I’d say very low.
Well right now it looks like it could go either way with a slight tilt towards Sephiroth if only for speed and strength and somewhat teleporting. Though Dresden would sense the teleportation meaning that he may be able to react.
I asked about the name thing just because Dresden may have been able to use Sephiroth’s name against him. But he would have to hear it from Sephiroth’s own mouth.
Also powerful fire spear used on a fallen angel.
“Then I drew in a breath, whirling a hand over my head and bellowed through my ragged throat, so loudly that it felt like something tore, “Fuego, pyrofuego!” I stabbed the first two fingers of my right hand forward as I did, unleashing my fury and my will. “Burn!”
A bar of blue-white fire so dense that it was nearly a solid object lashed across the distance from me to Tessa and slammed into her like an enormous spear.
The mantislike Denarian threw back her pretty face and screamed in agony as the shaft of fire bored cleanly through her, melting a wide hole that burned wider still before searing itself shut. She went down, howling and thrashing, burned by fire far deadlier and more destructive than any I had ever called before, with a blasting rod or without one.”
Small Favor, Chap 44
“There was nothing at all of this sort considering Sephiroth was in Kadaj’s body at the time so the battle was entirely physical, not metaphysical aspect to it whatsoever.”
-
No, I mean in the Original FFVII, not AC. I heard something about Cloud facing Sephiroth in the lifestream on the spiritual plane or whatever, I just wanted to make sure
Dresden’s precognitive abilities coming in.
“But that wasn’t the creepy part.
The creepy part was that it felt familiar.
Walking up those stone steps, my legs settled into a steady pattern of motion, as if they’d already walked up that path a thousand times. I swerved slightly on one step, for no reason that I could see, only to hear Michael, behind me, continue walking in a straight line and slip as the stone he stepped on shifted beneath his foot. I found myself counting silently to myself, backward, and when I hit zero we mounted the last step and reached the summit of the hill.
Somehow I knew, even before I saw it, that one side of the old lighthouse would be torn open to the sky, revealing an interior that was as hollowed-out and empty as the inside of a rifle barrel. I knew that the little stone cottage built against the base of the tower would still be reasonably intact, though about half of the slate-tile roof had collapsed inward and would need repairs. I knew that it had been made from the stones of the collapsed lighthouse. I knew that the front door rattled when you opened it, and that the back door, which wasn’t in sight from here, would swell up during a rain and get stuck in its frame, much like the door at…
…at home.
I also knew that as freaking weird as all of that was, I couldn’t afford to let any of it matter right now.
Nicodemus and company were waiting for us.”
—
“Can I get your take on something?” I asked her.
“Certainly.”
I told her about my experience on the island, and the eerie sense of familiarity that had come with it.
“Oh, that,” Anastasia said. “Your Sight’s coming in. That’s all.”
I blinked at her. “Uh. What?”
“The Sight,” she replied calmly. “Every wizard develops some measure of precognizance as he matures. It sounds to me as if yours has begun to stir, and has recognized a place that may be of significance to you in the future.”
“This happens to everyone?” I said, incredulous.
“To every wizard,” she said, smiling. “Yes.”"
Small Favors, Chap 46
Cyclone spell, could be useful in a city with parked cars and such, mix in some soulfire and it could cause some serious damage.
Cyclone Spell
“My magic had a risky batting average against these creatures, but there were things I could do besides hosing energy directly at the enemy. Hell-fire came to my call, and my staff’s runes exploded into light as brilliant as a magnesium flare. Their flame lit the benighted courtyard while somehow not damaging my clothing or flesh. My will and the Hellfire roared through me in a torrent as I whirled the staff in a circle over my head and screamed, “Veritas cyclis!”
The howling winds thundered down into the silent courtyard as if I had torn off an unseen roof. They gathered along my spinning staff, fluttering with lightning the same color as the blazing runes on the staff. I cried out and hurled the winds, not at the oncoming fetches, but at the thousands of bones lying between them and me.
The wind picked them up with a wailing shriek; a sudden cyclone of broken bones and shattered armor, spinning them into a whirling curtain. The lead fetches were too late to avoid plunging into the cloud, and the ossified tornado began to rip them apart, battering to pulp whatever was not sheared away by the edges and points of bone and broken shards of ice.”
forgot to post it.
“Well right now it looks like it could go either way with a slight tilt towards Sephiroth if only for speed and strength and somewhat teleporting. Though Dresden would sense the teleportation meaning that he may be able to react.”
====
Sounds like just as the thread was left. Why was the subject restarted if it stayed the same as when it was last started out of curiosity?
===
“Dresden’s precognitive abilities coming in.”
===
Pre-Cog can come in handy to ease a speed blitz.
“No, I mean in the Original FFVII, not AC. I heard something about Cloud facing Sephiroth in the lifestream on the spiritual plane or whatever, I just wanted to make sure”
===
I think that was more of a mental thing for Cloud than an actual way of destroying Sephy. My conjecture is that he was attempting to take over Cloud due to his large influence over him as it was but Cloud’s will was strong enough to overcome him at that point and it stopped him from being overwhelmed and end up like say, Kadaj.
===
That’s just my take on it however.
@Soldier’s Shadow
Not so much restarted as new feats were added, including some strength feats.
——–
blade of force
“The next room was padlocked shut. I felt a little bad for doing it, but I lifted my staff, took a moment to close my eyes and concentrate, and then sent another pulse of energy down the rune-carved length of wood, this time focused into a blade of pure force. It sliced through the hasp and bit into the heavy wood of the door behind it. The lock fell to the floor, its cleanly severed steel glowing dull orange at the edges.”
—
“Fourteen floors later I emerged into a darkened hallway and, guided by the light of my upraised amulet, I found the door to the roof. It was an exterior door with a heavy dead bolt, and there was no way that the crowbar was going to get it open.
I took a step back, lifted my staff, and focused my will on the door. Once upon a time I would have just let fly with my will and blasted it right out of its frame, a fairly exhausting bit of spellcraft. Instead I pointed the end of the staff at the bottommost hinge on this side and barked, “Forzare!”
A blade of unseen energy, like that I had used on the padlock, severed the hinge with a miniature crack of thunder. I did it for the middle and lower hinges too, then used the crowbar to pry the heavy door out of its setting and hurried out onto the roof.”
Small Favor, Chap 7
———-
fire blast and force
“I whirled in pure frustration and snarled, “Fuego!”
My raw anxiety and rage lashed from the tip of my blasting rod in a lance of blinding scarlet fire. It blasted into a metal trash can in front of Marcone’s building and… well, it would be bragging to say that it vaporized the trash can. Even I would have trouble with that. It did, however, slag the thing into a shower of molten metal as it gouged a two-foot-deep, coffin-length furrow in the concrete of the sidewalk behind it. Chunks of heated concrete and globs of molten metal hit the building’s exterior, cracking several thick panes of glass, pocking stone walls, and leaving several wooden planters on fire. The concussion rattled every window within a hundred yards, and shattered the casing of the nearest streetlight, so that it cast out fractured illumination. Half a dozen car alarms went off.”
White Night, Chap 30
——-
cupped fire in his hand, could be useful if Sephiroth teleports and Dresden is ready.
“I most likely didn’t have time to grill even one of the gunmen. Torelli’s goon was hurt and probably mad as hell at me. He was probably more loyal to Torelli, too, if he was a personal retainer. That really left me only one smart option for gathering information.
I stepped forward, shifting my gun to my left hand, and held out my right. I spoke a quiet word and a sphere of fire, bright as a tiny sun, kindled to life in the air above my right hand. I turned a slow stare on Bart and stepped close to him.
The thug flinched and fell onto his ass in the snowy street.
I released the sphere of fire, and it drifted closer to Bart. “Look, big guy,” I said in an amiable tone. “I’ve had a tense couple of days. And I’ve got to tell you, burning someone’s face off sounds like a great way to relax.”
“I was just a hire!” Bart stammered, scooting back on his buttocks from the little sphere of fire. “Just a driver!”
“Hired to do what?” I asked him.
“I was just supposed to put you off the road and cover the shooter,” Bart half screamed. He pointed a finger at the wounded man. “Him.”
I spread my fingers a little wider, and the flaming sphere jumped a few inches closer to the goon’s face. “Bart, Bart. Let’s not change the focus here. This is about you and me.”
“I’m just a contractor!” Bart all but screamed, writhing to get his face farther away from the fire. “They don’t tell guys like me shit!”
“Guys like you always know more than you’re told,” I said. “So you’ve got something you can give the cops to keep yourself out of jail.”
“I don’t!” Bart said. “I swear!”
I smiled at him and pushed the fire sphere a little closer. “Inhale blue,” I said. “Exhale pink. Hey, this is relaxing.”
“Torelli!” Bart screamed, throwing up his arms. “Jesus, it was Torelli! Torelli wanted the job done! He’s been getting ready to move on Marcone!”
“Since when?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. Couple of weeks, maybe. That’s when they brought me in! Oh, Jesus!”
I closed my hand and snuffed out the sphere of fire before it could do more than scorch the sleeves of Bart’s coat.”
Small Favor, Chap 16
gathering energy and holding it in order to use later
Fight smarter, not harder, Harry. I drew in power on the way-a lot of power. If there wasn’t going to be any magic available for the taking once the symbol went up, I’d just have to bring my own.
Usually I draw in power only when it’s ready to flow directly out of me again, channeling the energy through my mind and into the structure of a spell. This time I brought it in without ever letting it out, and it built up as a pressure behind my eyes. My body temperature jumped by at least four or five degrees, and my muscles and bones screamed with sudden pain while my vision went red and flickered with spots of black. Static electricity crackled with every single motion of my limbs, bright green and painfully sharp, until it sounded like I was running across a field of bubble wrap. My head pounded like every New Year’s hangover I’d ever had, all in the same spot, and my lungs felt like the air had turned to acid. I concentrated on keeping my feet underneath me and moving. One step at a time.
—
(using excess energy)-breaking spell and added static discharge from his force blast-
I pounded through the entry to the Oceanarium, felt a shivering sensation as I ran right through a veil I had not sensed was there, and all but barreled into a demonic figure crouched down on the floor. I skidded to a stop, and there was an instant of surprise as we stared at each other.
The Denarian was basically humanoid, as most of them were, a gaunt, even skeletal grey-skinned figure. Spurs of bone jutted out from every joint, slightly curved and wickedly pointed. Greasy, lanky hair hung from its knobby skull to its skinny shoulders, and its two pairs of eyes, one very human brown and one glowing demonic green, were both wide and staring in shock.
It was crouched amidst the preparations of a spell of some kind-a candle, a chalk circle on the floor, a cup made from a skull and filled with water-and it wore a heavy canvas messenger bag slung across one shoulder. One hand was still down in the bag, as if it had been in the midst of drawing something out of it when I’d come charging up.
Fortunately for me, my mind had been in motion. His had been tangled up in whatever spell he was doing, and he was slower to get back into gear than I was.
So I kicked him in the face.
He went down with a grunt, and a chip of broken tooth skittered across the floor. I didn’t know what spell he was getting together, but it seemed a good bet that I didn’t want him to finish it. I broke his circle with my will as I crossed it with my body, unleashing a ripple of random and diffused energies that had never had the chance to coalesce into something more coherent. I knocked his skull goblet into one of the enormous nearby tanks with my staff as I raised it and pointed one end of it at the stunned Denarian, snarling, “Forzare!”
Some of that searing storm of power I was holding in screamed out of my body and down through my staff, hurtling at the Denarian, an invisible cannonball surrounded by a cloud of static discharge. It was more power than I’d meant to unleash. If it hit him it was going to throw him halfway across Lake Michigan.
Small Favor, Chap 30
———
hand construct
His left hand returned to rummaging in his bag, while his mortal eyes went back to the now-scattered remnants of the spell, evidently dismissing my existence. The green eyes remained focused on me, though, and darkness suddenly gathered around the forefinger of his upraised right hand.
Time slowed down.
Dark light leapt toward me.
Sheer defiance made me step forward, trying to brush past the little spinning columns of shadow that surrounded me, only to find them as solid as steel bars, and colder than a yeti’s fridge. I threw my magic against those bars to no avail as a shaft of dark lightning streaked toward my heart.
Something happened.
I don’t know how to describe it. I was trying to slam another bolt of force between the bars of my conjured prison when something…else…got involved. Ever been carrying something and had someone intentionally, unexpectedly jostle your elbow? It felt something like that-a tiny but critically timed nudge just as I threw my will into a last futile effort of defiance.
Power screamed as it wrenched its way out of my body. It shattered the black-thread bars of my prison and left a streak of metallic light on the air behind it for an instant, reflective, like a trail of liquid chrome. It caught the falling Denarian in a massive silvery simulacrum of my own fist.
I actually felt my fingers close over the gaunt, skeletal, grey-skinned figure, felt the numerous spurs of bone jutting from its joints press painfully into my flesh. I flung it away from me with a cry, and the huge silver hand flung the Denarian into the nearest wall, ripping through several feet of expensive stone terracing and carefully simulated Pacific Northwest.
I stared for a second, first at the stunned Denarian, and then at my own spread fingers-and at the floating silvery hand beyond, mirroring my movements. Then the skeletal Denarian gathered itself and rose, fast as hell-until I shoved the heel of my hand forward and drove his bony ass six inches into the wall of rock behind him.
“Oh, yeah, baby!” I heard myself howl, elated. “Talk to the hand!”
I picked up the thorny fiend by a leg and laughed as it raked and bit and scrabbled at the construct that held it. I could feel the pain of it-but it was a small thing, really, something I might have gotten from a rat. Unpleasant as hell, but I’d felt much, much worse, and it was nothing compared to the agony of the power still burning inside me. I slammed him into the wall again, then swung him twenty feet through the air, shoved him through a pane of unbroken three-inch-thick glass on the outer wall of the Oceanarium, drew him back through, and then rammed him through the next one, and the next one, and the one after that, cutting him to tatters as I did.
Small Favor, Chap 30
also the fallen angel getting pissed at what Dresden did when using soulfire the first time.
” “Insufferable, arrogant little monkey,” Namshiel hissed. “Playing with the fires of creation.
Binding your soul to it, as if you were one of us. How dare you so presume. How dare you
wield soulfire against me. I, who was there when your pathetic kind was hewn from the
muck.”
It wasn’t so much being strangled to death that I objected to, or even the megalomaniacal
monologue I was being subjected to in the process. I just wished that I knew what the hell
he was talking about. Granted, I had busted him up pretty good with that silver hand thing,
but he was taking it so freaking personally. “
Blocking a charging seven or eight hundred pound gorilla like Fallen Angel.
Magog spun before Deirdre’s feet were more than a yard off the ground and broke into one of those diagonal simian charges, coming right up the bleachers as smoothly as if they’d been level ground. Forget what I’d said about not reacting quickly. Magog’s reaction time had been nothing, if not a little less. He had to have checked in at seven or eight hundred pounds, and he covered the forty feet between us in the space of a couple of seconds, the acceleration incredible.
Of course, reacting quickly isn’t always the same thing as reacting intelligently. Magog looked like he was used to being an unstoppable force.
I brought up my shield bracelet, slamming my will through it, pushing most of the painful load of power still remaining to me into the barrier that sprang to life. I shouted out in wordless challenge, my voice thin and strained beside the deep-chested bellow that Magog unleashed in answer. Normally my shield manifests as a shimmering dome of mixed blue and silver light.
This time I left it transparent, on the theory that what Magog didn’t know would hurt him. The shapeshifted Denarian slammed into the invisible barrier in an explosion of silver sparks and found it as immovable as the side of a mountain. The force of the gorilla-thing’s charge was not simply physical, though, and ugly red light clung to the silver power of my defenses. Excess energy bled through my bracelet as heat, scalding my skin-but the barrier held, and Magog staggered back, stunned.
Small Favor, Chap 32
Honestly, I don’t see the power feats as truly necessary as we do know that Dresden has the power to destroy Sephiroth were he to hit him hard enough and fast enough before evisceration.
===
Instead, we’d need some speed, reaction and more nifty little ones like pre-cog to help possibly win this match-up for Dresden.
Okay I’ll see what I can find. Any idea what the shield feat I just showed would equate to? I can’t really tell how fast it would take to cover forty feet in a couple of seconds (probably 2-5 if I had to guess)
“instead, we’d need some speed, reaction”
-
@GA
Dresden seems to be as fast or faster then Vamps now. Maybe try finding some of there speed feats.
Well, in terms of speed, the teleport can make Sephiroth’s movement instant but Dresden’s pre-cog could possibly counter that if it is in fact magical in nature which would allow for a shield + prepared fire blast to at least ward off Sephiroth.
dealing with black court vamps (around equal to red court vamps in strength who in Changes Dresden meleed with) and sensing and redirecting magic.
And as if that weren’t enough, the curse suddenly coalesced and came shrieking out of the night to end Inari’s life.
I had scant seconds to act. I charged the vampire, leaned back, pictured an invisible beer can beginning an inch above the vampire’s teeth, and stomp-kicked the creature in the chin with my heel. It wasn’t a question of Harry-strength versus undead superstrength. I’d gotten the chump shot in, and while the vampire might have been able to rip through a brick wall, it only weighed as much as a dried corpse and it didn’t have enough experience to have anticipated the attack. I drove the kick home, hard. Physics took over from there, and the vampire fell back with a surprised hiss.
I seized Inari’s right arm with my left. Energy flows out of the body from the right side. The left side absorbs energy. I stretched out my senses and felt the dark energy of the curse rushing down at Inari. It hit her a second later, but I was ready for it, and with an effort of will I caught the dark power coursing down into the girl before it could do her harm.
Pain erupted in my left palm. The power was cold-and not mountain-breeze cold, either. It was slimy and nauseating, like something that had come slinking out from the depths of some enormous subterranean sea. In that instant of contact, my head exploded with terror. This power, this black magic, was wrong. Fundamentally, nightmarishly, intensely wrong.
Since I’d begun my career as a wizard, I’d always believed that magic came from life, but that it was only potential energy, like electricity or natural gas or uranium. And while it may have come from positive origins, only its application would prove it good or evil. That there was no such thing as truly evil, malevolent, black magic.
I’d been wrong.
Maybe my own magic worked like that, but this power was something different. It had only one purpose-to destroy. To inflict horror, pain, and death. I felt that power writhe into me through my contact with the girl, and it hurt me on a level so deep that I could not find a specific word, even a specific thought to describe it. It ripped at me within, as though it had found a weakened place in my defenses, and started gouging out a larger opening, struggling to force itself inside me.
I fought it. The struggle happened all within an instant, and it hurt still more to tear that darkness loose, to force it to flow on through me and out of me again. I won the fight. But I felt a sudden terror that something had been torn away from me; that in simple contact with that dark energy, I had been scarred somehow, marked.
Or changed.
I heard myself scream, not in fear or challenge, but in agony. I extended my right hand and the black magic flowed out of it in an invisible torrent, fastening onto the vampire as it gained its feet again and reached out to grab me. The vampire’s expression didn’t even flicker, so I was sure it did not feel the curse coming.
Which made it a complete surprise when something slammed into the vampire from directly overhead, too quickly to be seen. There was a sound of impact, a raspy, dry scream, and the vampire went down hard.
It lay on the ground like a butterfly pinned to a card, arms and legs thrashing uselessly. Its chest and collarbone had been crushed.
By an entire frozen turkey. A twenty-pounder.
The plucked bird must have fallen from an airplane overhead, doubtlessly manipulated by the curse. By the time it got to the ground, the turkey had already reached its terminal velocity, and was still hard as a brick. The drumsticks poked up above the vampire’s crushed chest, their ends wrapped in red tinfoil.
The vampire gasped and writhed a little more.
The timer popped out of the turkey.
Everyone stopped to blink at that for a second. I mean, come on. Impaled by a guided frozen turkey missile. Even by the standards of the quasi-immortal creatures of the night, that ain’t something you see twice.
“For my next trick,” I panted into the startled silence, “anvils.”"
Blood Rites, Chap 17
———
sensing and redirecting a spell directly back at the casters.
“The echo of my scream seemed to be a signal, sending the rest of us back to fighting for our lives. I blew a few more vampires away from my friends, and then sensed a rush of supernatural energy coming at me. I turned and caught a tide of ruinous Red power upon my shield, and hurled a blast of flame back at a Red Court noble in massive amounts of jewelry. Others in their ranks began to open up on the newly arrived Grey Council, who responded in kind, and the air was filled with a savage crisscross of exchanged energies.”
Changes, Chap 46
————
“He had to have checked in at seven or eight hundred pounds, and he covered the forty feet between us in the space of a couple of seconds, the acceleration incredible.”
-
Lets see now
-
KE=0.5*m*v^2
-
Seeing as we have the mass and the velocity, now we need to convert those to the right values required
-
Converting 700lbs to kg equals 318 kg and 800lbs to kg equals 363 kg
-
Converting feet to meters. The value given was 40 feet. Which converting to meters is 12 meters. It took 2 seconds or so to cross this distance which equates to 6 m/s
-
m=318 or 363
v=6
-
KE=0.5*318*6^2
KE=5724 J (or 0.0000014 tons)
-
KE=0.5*363*6^2
KE=6534 J (or 0.0000016 tons)
-
Definitely above wall level *shrug*
-
Sounds fairly low end since Dresden can tank worse in his duster from what I’ve gathered on him in this thread
-
Probably wouldn’t deflect Sephiroth’s direct blows though. Then again, im not sure how much force exactly that Sephiroth would have exerted in destroying that skyscraper section, because I have no idea how big that was
-
“sensing and redirecting a spell directly back at the casters.”
-
Which could help against Sephiroth’s offensive spells such as Heartless Angel and Pale Horse. Not sure about teleportation
-
“around equal to red court vamps in strength”
-
“while the vampire might have been able to rip through a brick wall”
-
So those vamps would have had wall+ level striking strength or whatever then?
-
“prepared fire blast to at least ward off Sephiroth”
-
I wonder if Shield would be able to deflect the blue flames given it absorbs element based damage
-
“some strength feats”
-
Which I calced Dresden’s kicking strength comparing it to that of a truck moving at 70 mph (came up with a range of speeds for trucks on a google search, got figures ranging from 55mph to 90mph so I went with 70 as an average) based on the ‘as if he was hit by a truck’ thing. About 2 MJ or something was the result. Which easily puts him above wall+ level fs
“Sounds like just as the thread was left. Why was the subject restarted if it stayed the same as when it was last started out of curiosity?”
-
Because new feats came up for Dresden and Sephiroth every now and again
-
And I want my match to have more comments
quick thrown up circle making spirit beings facewall.
“She appeared beside me in a shooting stance, aiming at the nearest grey suit. “Harry!”
“I know!”
Metal gleamed amongst the gravel and I swooped down on it as Murphy opened fire with precise, measured shots, sending the nearest grey suit into a tumbling sprawl. The others just vaulted over him and kept coming.
I’d found the key, but it was already too late.
Neither of us was going to make it to the shelter of my hideaway.
Chapter Nineteen
“Stay close!” I shouted. I thrust the end of my staff into the gravel and dragged it through, drawing a line in the dust and stones. I swiftly inscribed a quick, rough circle maybe four feet across around Murphy and me, actually getting between her gun and the grey suits for a second.
“Dammit, Harry, get down!” she shouted.
I did so, reaching out to touch the line in the gravel, slamming a quick effort of will into the simple design. Murphy’s gun barked twice. I felt the energy gather in the circle and coalesce in a rush, snapping into place in a sudden and invisible wall.
The nearest of the grey suits staggered, and then flung itself into a forward dive. Murphy flinched back, and I grabbed her, hard, before she could cross the circle and disrupt it.
The grey suit slammed into the circle as if striking a solid wall, rebounding from its surface in a flash of blue-white light that described a phantom cylinder in the air. An instant later, more of the grey suits did exactly the same thing, maybe twenty of them, each of them bouncing off the circle’s field.
“Easy!” I said to Murphy, still holding her against me. “Easy, easy!” I felt her relax a little, ceasing to struggle against being held in place. “It’s okay,” I said. “As long as we don’t break the circle, they can’t get through.”
We were both shaking. Murphy took a pair of gulping breaths. We just stood there for a moment, while the grey suits spread out around the circle, reaching out with their hands to find its edges. I had time to get a better look at them while they did.
They were all the same height and weight. Their features were unremarkable and similar, if not quite identical. They looked as if they could have all been from the same family. Their eyes were all the same color, an odd grey-green, and there was no expression, none whatsoever, on their faces.
One of them reached out as if to try to touch me, and his open hand flattened against the circle’s field. As it did, a freaking mouth opened on his palm, parallel to his fingers. It was lined with serrated sharklike teeth, and a slithering, coiling purple-black tongue emerged to lash randomly against the circle, as if seeking a way through. Yellowish mucus dripped thickly from the tongue as it did.
“Okay,” Murphy said in a small, toneless voice. “That is somewhat disturbing.”
“And it’s gonna get better,” I muttered.
Sure enough, the other grey suits started doing the same thing. Within seconds, we were completely surrounded by eerie hand-mouths, writhing tongues, and dripping slime.
Murphy shook her head and sighed. “Eckgh.”
“Tell me about it.”
“How long will this thing keep them off?”
“They’re spirit beings,” I said. “As long as the circle’s here, they’re staying outside it.”
“Couldn’t they just scuff dirt on it or something?”
I shook my head. “Breaking the circle isn’t just a physical process. It’s an act of choice, of will-and these things don’t have that.”"
Turn Coat, Chap 18-19
doesn’t show much for shield but shows calculations on the go of what he needs to put into spells
The spell fell on my shield and the meeting of energies yielded a torrent of angry yellow sparks that rebounded from the shield, scattering over the hall, the doorway, and bouncing back into the apartment.
I dropped the shield as I brandished my staff, sent a savage torrent of power down my arm, and snarled, “Forzare!”
Unseen force lashed through the doorway and splashed against the apartment’s threshold. Most of the spell’s power struck that barrier, grounded out, and was dissipated. What amounted to less than a percent of the power I had cast out actually made it through the doorway, as I had known it would. Instead of delivering a surge of energy strong enough to flip over a car, I delivered only a blow strong enough to knock an adult from her feet.
I heard a woman’s voice let out a surprised grunt at the impact, and heavy objects clattered to the floor.
White Knight, Chap 10
might show reaction or might not not sure
“The ghoul crouched behind a rock maybe twenty yards upslope, his face only barely distended as he held mostly to his human shape while employing the human weapon – a freaking Kalashnikov. Thank God. The weapon was tough and serviceable, but it wasn’t exactly a sharpshooter’s tool. If he’d been toting something more precise, he probably could have inflicted a lot more damage than he had.
I was over to one side, and the ghoul was squinting hard down the rifle’s sights, so that I was only a flicker of motion in the periphery of his focus. It took him a second to recognize the threat and whip the weapon toward me.
I had time, and I threw out my hand and my will, and snarled, “Fuego!”
Fire bellowed forth from my right hand – not in a narrow beam, a jet of tightly focused energy, but in a roaring flood, spilling out from my fingertips like water from a garden sprayer. A lot of it, way more than I had intended. The fire got the ghoul, all right – and the ground for twenty feet around him in every direction – more on the uphill side of him. The roar of flame gave way to a hideous shriek, and then a steady, chewy silence shrouded by black smoke. A low breeze, a herald of the day’s oncoming heat, nudged the smoke away for a moment.
The ghoul, now in its true form, lay outstretched on the scorched earth. It had been burned down to little more than an appallingly blackened skeleton, though one leg retained enough muscle matter to continue twitching and thrashing – even then, the creature was not wholly dead. It didn’t surprise me. In my experience, ghouls hadn’t done much that wasn’t disgusting. There was no reason to expect them to die cleanly, either.”
White Knight, Chap 22
“might show reaction or might not not sure”
===
Harry himself stated he had time in that quote so I don’t know if that’d be a proper reaction feat as he spotted the ghoul and then reacted before it “recognized the threat and whip the weapon toward me.”
shield blocking mine explosion
The mine beeped. There was a sharp, snapping click of metal.
Kincaid tumbled past me. I leaned aside to let him, and at the same instant brought every scrap of strength I had left to bear on the shield.
Lumpy metal spheres, maybe twenty or thirty of them, flew out into the air. I had angled my shield in a simple inclined plane, its base at the closet’s doorway, its summit at the back wall of the closet, about four feet off the ground. Several of the spheres hit the shield, but the slope of it sent them rebounding out into the hall.
The submunitions exploded in a ripple of thunder and light. Steel balls flew in deadly sprays, rattling off stone walls and tearing into flesh with savage efficiency. The sloped shield flared into azure incandescence, energy from the shrapnel being absorbed and shed as flashbulb-bright bursts of light. The sound was indescribable, almost loud enough to kill all on its own.
And then it was over.
Silence fell, broken only by the crackling of flames. Nothing moved but drifting smoke.
Blood Rites, Chap 33
Dresden’s most recent shield structure feats from White Knight
————-
” The new shield wasn’t like the old one. The old one had provided an intangible barrier meant to deflect
solid matter and kinetic energy. It hadn’t been made to stop, for example, heat. That’s how my left hand
got roasted practically down to the bones. It had been of only limited use against other forms of magic or
energy. If there hadn’t been a war on, and if I hadn’t been spending so much time drilling Molly in the
fundamentals—and therefore getting in all kinds of extra practice, myself—I would never have considered
attempting to create such a complex focus. It was far moral complicated than almost anything I’d done
before. Five years ago, it would have been beyond me completely. More to the point, five years ago, I
wouldn’t have been as experienced or as strongly motivated.
But that was then, and this was now.
The shield that formed in front of me was not the familiar, translucent part-dome of pale blue light.
Instead it flared into place in a blurring swirl of colors that solidified in an instant into a curving rampart
of silver energy. The new shield was far more thorough than the old. Not only would it stop everything the
old one had, but it would provide shelter against heat, cold, electricity—even sound and light, if I needed
it to. It had also been designed to turn aside a fairly broad spectrum of supernatural energies. It was this
last that was important at the moment. “
Bringing it up then using it to block bullets
“Some people are faster than others. I’m fast. Always have been, especially for a man my size, but this duel
had gotten off to a fair start, and no merely mortal hand is faster than a vampire’s.
Vitto Malvora’s gun cleared its holster before my fingers had tightened on the blasting rod’s handle.
The weapon resembled a fairly standard Model 1911, but it had an extension to the usual ammunition clip
sticking out of the handle, and it spat a spray of bullets in the voice of a yowling buzz saw.
Some vampires are faster than others. Vitto was fast. He’d drawn and fired more swiftly than I’d ever
seen Thomas move, more swiftly than I’d seen Lara shoot. But bodies, even nigh-immortal vampire
bodies, are made of flesh and blood, and have mass and inertia. No hand, not even a vampire’s, is swifter
than thought.”
” I brought the shield up at the last second, a flat plane perpendicular to the floor, and Ramirez took a
hopping step back just in time to get behind the shield as it formed. Twenty or thirty bullets ricocheted off
the invisible barrier in a shower of sparks—and spalled more or less toward Madrigal Raith and his
magical protection.
The nifty armbands apparently weren’t made to stop physical projectiles, because one of the bouncing
bullets ripped through the outside of his thigh with an ugly explosion of torn cloth and a misty burst of
pale blood. He screamed and faltered, throwing out one hand to catch his balance before he could hit the
floor. ”
————–
More of Dresdens current shield
“As I rounded the corner a shape was already in motion, coming toward me. My shield bracelet was ready. I lifted my left hand, fingers contorted into a gesture that had nothing to do with magic but that was generally considered insulting. My will poured into the charm bracelet hung with multiple tiny shields, and in an instant my power spread from there into a quarter-dome shape of pure, invisible force in front of me. The black shape of the vampire hit the shield, sending up concentric circles of blue light and white sparks, and then rebounded from it.”
Changes ch 4
This is completely irrelevant, and off topic, but holy cow! You almost had a Quint-Post!
What’s a Quint-post?
“Bringing it up then using it to block bullets”
====
This one is a bit strange as I can’t tell whether he brought it up before or after the bullets entered their flight path. If they did after, Dresden’s got himself a decent bullet timing feat.
cave with quite a bit of C4
If you recall,” he said, “I agreed to extract you alive. I’m not leaving until I have done so.” He paused
and added, “Provided, of course, that it happens in the next two minutes.”
From where I was standing, I could see three two-brick bundles of C4, detonators thrust into their soft
surfaces, each fitted with old-fashioned precision timepieces. They were simple charges on the floor. The
other three must have been shaped charges affixed to the cavern walls. I had no idea how much
destruction was going to be wrought by them, but I didn’t suppose it would be much fun to be there when
they went boom. Alas, that the poor ghouls would most likely be staying for the fireworks.
******
a little later using emotion to power his shield and allow him to catch the explosion
” It was a close thing, but I held back enough to keep from forgetting the danger. The lust nearly killed me
—but lust is an emotion, too.
I embraced that lust, allowed it to enfold me, and returned the kiss with nearly total abandon. I slid my
right hand around the suc-cubus’s waist, and down, pulling her hips hard against me, feeling the amazing
strength and elasticity and rondure of her body on mine.
With my left hand, I extended the shield bracelet toward the cavern, the bombs, the onrushing ghouls—
and I fed that tidal force of lust through it, building up the energy I would need, some part of me shaping
and directing it even as the rest of me concentrated on the mind-consuming pleasure of that single kiss.
The clocks stopped ticking.
The explosives went off.
Cleverness, determination, treachery, ruthlessness, courage, and skill took a leave of absence, while
physics took over the show.
Tremendous heat and force expanded from the explosives. It swept through the cavern in an almighty
sword of fire, laying low anything unfortunate enough to have remained within. I saw, for one flash-
second, the outline of the ghouls, still charging us, unaware of what was about to happen, against the
white-hot fireball that expanded through the chamber.
And then that blast hit my shield.
I didn’t try to withstand that incredible sledgehammer of expanding force and energy. It would have
shattered my shield, melted my bracelet to my wrist, and crushed me like an egg. The shield wasn’t meant
to do that.
Instead, I filled the space at the mouth of the cave with flexible, resilient energy, and packed layer upon
layer of it behind the shield, and more of it all around us. I wasn’t trying to stop the energy of the
explosion.
I was trying to catch it.
There was an instant of crushing compression, and I felt the pressure on my shield like a vast and
liquid weight. It flung me from my feet, and I held hard to Lara, whose arms gripped me in return. I began
to tumble, blinded by the flame, and fought to hold the shield, now hardening it all around us, into a
sphere, constricting it around us until we were pressed body-to-body. We hurtled up the tunnel, flung out
ahead of the explosion like a ship ahead of a hurricane—or, more accurately, like a ball being fired down
the barrel of a long, stony musket. The shield banged against the smooth walls, dragging more effort out
of me. A single outcropping might have stopped our progress for a disastrous instant, shattering stone,
shield, succubus, and shamus into one big mess. Thank God the vanity of Lara’s family had made sure the
walls of the tunnel were polished smooth and gleaming.
I didn’t see the ghouls guarding the upper reaches of the tunnel, so much as I felt them hit the shield
and be smashed aside and splattered like bugs, only to be consumed by the flood of fire washing up the
tunnel after us. I don’t know how fast we were going, beyond “very.” The explosion flung us up the long
tunnel, and out into the night air and up through the branches of a couple of trees—which shattered under
the force. Then we were arcing through the night, spinning, with stars above us whipping by and a long
tongue of angry flame emerging from the entrance to the Deeps below.
And all the while, I was locked in the heated ecstasy of Lara’s kiss.
I lost track of what was happening somewhere near the top of the arc, right about when Lara’s legs
twined with mine and she ripped aside my shirt and hers to press her naked chest against me. I had just
begun wondering what it was I’d forgotten about how kissing Lara was not the best idea when there was a
horrible crashing sound that went on for several seconds.
We weren’t moving. The shield wasn’t under pressure, and I was so dizzy and tired that I couldn’t string
two thoughts together. I lowered the shield with a groan of relief that was lost in an answering moan of
need from the succubus in my arms. “
@CC
Like a double post, just five posts instead of two.
@Soldier’s Shadow
I don’t either, from the way it’s described I want to say he put the shield up right when the trigger was pulled…but I may be wrong. How fast does a modified full auto 1911 handgun fire?
Hmm, the shield shows us that it’s pretty durable, very durable but that whole energy thing to contain the blast, did he do that ahead of time? If so, that’s disregarded for this match-up.
===
The shield sounded like it was already up when the explosion hit. Perhaps I read it wrong?
@Soldier’s Shadow
It was probably up after the Explosion came in rather than before that, is where my initial bets would wager.
It wasn’t up when the explosion came, meaning Dresden was faster than expected.
“The shield sounded like it was already up when the explosion hit. Perhaps I read it wrong?”
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Idk, it looked like he put the shield up before the explosion happened to me. It also said he was building up energy to get said level of shield durability or something
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Unless you want to argue that Dresden is hypersonic
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Even so, would the shield be able to hold up to Sephiroth’s blows?
I’d be inclined to believe the Shield would be able to hold against the physical blows, the main matter worth noting would be this:
How long can the shields hold up before they break unless Dresden does something about it?
just durability and all more than anything, although I think that he activated it just as the explosives detonated.
Well having read the quote, it looked like he put up his shield slightly before the explosion
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He could probably pre-emptively set up such shields against Sephiroth, which could protect from his initial attacks, although given Sephiroth can level big sections of skyscrapers with his blows and strike fast enough that materials he cleaves through are left burning along the cut lines, it probably wouldn’t be able to hold up in the long run of things, although surviving his initial attacks could allow him to fire a kinetic blast or a fire attack to at least stagger Sephiroth somewhat
Anyways, has anybody brought up Sephiroth’s limit breaks yet?…..
“Even so, would the shield be able to hold up to Sephiroth’s blows?”
===
Well, that force destroyed a mine of unknown size and length and was destroyed by a packed up amount of C4.
===
Sephiroth’s force destroys sections of buildings quite easily and large sections of skyscrapers. If anything, Sephiroth’s blows would be stronger if not equal to that sort of power but I don’t want to risk a guesstimation fail that brings on the wrath of those that know their calcs and/or explosions so I’m leaving it at that with no real definite.
—-
However, I’d reckon that at the speed of which Sephiroth strikes and with such force combined with superb maneuverability would eventually crack it if it can withstand his attacks.
“Anyways, has anybody brought up Sephiroth’s limit breaks yet?…..”
===
What limit breaks?
“However, I’d reckon that at the speed of which Sephiroth strikes and with such force combined with superb maneuverability would eventually crack it if it can withstand his attacks.”
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Given Sephiroth can swing fast enough to leave materials burning along the cut lines in addition to blocking bullets, yeah
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“What limit breaks?”
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www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/1715/18364.JPG
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Never mind
I think I can find more on the cavern if that would help with it?
@Admiral
Please do that.
Some specifics would be nice if possible
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Speaking of which, I’ve been wondering if these 2 on a team would be awesome
no idea if anyone would get this but
th09.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2012/158/7/c/mab_is_laughing_right_now_by_metalarc09-d52led4.jpg
“no idea if anyone would get this but
th09.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2012/158/7/c/mab_is_laughing_right_now_by_metalarc09-d52led4.jpg”
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The attitude he takes towards Mab by the end of ghost story.
not sure if this will help, but if Dresden happens to have one of these portable ward crystal shields it may not kill Sephiroth but…it could slow him down especially if infused a bit with soulfire. Sephiroth attacks it planning on shattering it, that’s the incorrect way to bring it down so the shield goes boom and destroys the area around Dresden.
“”Now,” Ancient Mai said, turning her focus back to me. “You will instruct your apprentice to lower the shield, or I will tear it down.”
“Might want to take a few steps back before you do,” I said. “If anything but the proper sequence takes it apart, it explodes. It’ll take out the cottage. And the tower. And the top of the hill. The kid and Morgan should be fine, though.”
Molly made a choking sound.
“Hngh. Finally made that idea work, did you?” Ebenezar said.
I shrugged. “After those zombies turned up and just hammered their way through my defenses, I wanted something that would give me some options.”
“How long did it take you to make?”
“Nights and weekends for three months,” I sighed. “It was a real pain in the ass.”"
Turn Coat, Chap 46
also while he says it took him time to make that one he had them for in case of being able of rending steel type things.
It says it took Dresden three months to make, which nothing there suggests that such a shield can be utilized in an immediate combat situation. Let alone one against a physically superior (and more mobile) combatant such as Sephiroth
like I said it did take that long to make them, but he made it 1. Portable 2. Reusable and I’ll check but I think activation is far simpler than deactivation
“which nothing there suggests that such a shield can be utilized in an immediate combat situation. Let alone one against a physically superior (and more mobile) combatant such as Sephiroth”
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I think he still has it, or did; not really sure what he managed to save after Changes.
And it doesn’t take any prep to bring it up. It’s like a panic room version of Harry’s shield. Easy and quick to bring up, harder and more dangerous to bring down…. also Explosions, cuz Harry has some subconscious fixation on collateral damage.
Can he utilize said shields in an immediate combat situation is what I want to know. If they’re portable (as in teleport like I assume) then how far can he teleport them? As for re-usable, if it means reform, how long does this take?
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As for surviving it, im not sure what Sephiroth has in that regard other than Sephiroth survivng Genesis’ huge fireball thingy and some explosion while he was engulfed in it and emerged unscathed from it
-
Plus Sephiroth has his healing materia based spells if he were to be severely injured
@Atomic Lowk
Any word on when MessMaker will return?
“and I’ll check but I think activation is far simpler than deactivation”
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Molly popped it up out of fear right when Thomas was going all incubus to keep herself from going to him and him getting to her.
Although, if Sephiroth (via powerscaling) is up to par with Jenova in durability, Jenova survived the collision of a large meteor and a planet or something like that, but she only took a bit of the impact. Not sure where this puts Jenova (or Sephiroth via powerscaling) though
Here, Harry,” she called, as she hurried into the cottage. She held a crystal of white quartz
about two inches thick and a foot long in her hands.
“Get to work, grasshopper. Don’t hesitate to use the crystal if things get dicey. And good luck
to you.”
Harry told his apprentice to activate it if things got dicey, seems like it must be fairly quick activating.
Dresden can do that during immediate combat situations is where IB stands.
“Harry told his apprentice to activate it if things got dicey, seems like it must be fairly quick activating.”
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If this is to do with the portable thing then I guess that sounds fair enough (seeing as you and Lowk said that Dresden still had it up)
@Stealth
even if it doesn’t kill him, if he put a little soulfire into the shield it should give him something to think about and may stun him long enough for Harry to level some seriously powerful attacks
Hmm… Caius Ballad vs Sephiroth?
Anyways….
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If Sephiroth were to sustain serious damage its always possible for him to use his cure materias (or whatever it is that heals you) to heal himself (seeing as he doesn’t need materias to use magic nowadays)