Resolution (open)

Richard walked through the huge front doors into the entrance hall, with Hades following him. He nodded to the headmaster,

"Can you start setting up the ward bubble?" he asked as he pulled out his wand and began to stalk towards the doors of the Great Hall, "I have to announce what we're doing..."

He began to flick his wand at the stone floor. With each movement to the floor, a resounding THUD! echoed across the entrance hall and into the great hall.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

With a grunt, he swung his wand out in front of him. The doors to the great hall flew wide open, slamming loudly against the stone of the castle walls. With a silent spell, Richard's voice boomed out,

"TODAY YOU ARE EXCUSED FROM YOU NEXT LESSON!" he called out, looking out across the sea of shocked and frightened faces, "TODAY YOU WILL SEE WHAT TRUE BATTLE LOOKS LIKE! WHAT TRUE POWER LOOKS LIKE!"

Another wave of his wand brought a wave of fire, which formed a ring around him, framing him nicely. He waved his wand and the fire formed a giant dragon, which flew out towards the assembled children before fading out of existance with a bright flash. He canceled the charm on his voice and moved closer to Hades, whispering with a smile,

"Think we've got their attention now?"

Hades closed his eyes pointing his wand above his head, muttering silent spells to himself. He could feel the barrier becoming stronger and stronger until finally it sealed them both inside. He opened his eyes and looked at Rich with one eyebrow raised. "Well that's one way of doing things i suppose." He smiled. "The only problem with this enchantment..." He said pointing his wand around the invisible dome surrounding them, only made visible by the fading green fire circle around them. "...Is you can't leave till i cancel it." He laughed. "You ready?" He stepped to the side stopping just before the front doors. He pulled out his sunglasses and placed them over his eyes, this could get nasty. He smiled.

Richard held his wand up in front of him in a salute before making his way to the opposite end of the bubble. He smiled a little and shrugged his over coat off so that it was hanging on by his left arm. Acting as if he didn't realise this, Richard smiled a little more and adjusted his centre of gravity, bringing his wand up,

"I'm ready."

Rich got into position as Hades waited, wand hand ready. He enlarged his snake again leaving it to wrap diagonally over his shoulder. He tilted his head to one side remembering the cut he'd made on Rich's shoulder earlier. "You wanna heal that before we begin? I can't be fighting someone who can't fight their best because they are slowly bleeding to death." He smiled pointing his wand over to his chest.

He waited patiently for Rich to ready himself again. "Well the protection shield is strong and ready. We're both ready so let's get this show on the road." He smiled looking around at his students.

"Watch and learn kids, this will be the best fight you'll ever see." He smiled loosening the snake around his chest, making it easier to breath. "This will be magic you have never seen before. It's a little something created by yours truly." He smiled. "Let the fight begin."

Richard shook his head,

"No thanks." he shrugged a little and hissed in pain lightly from the action, "It's a good motivator. The pain just reminds me not to get hit."

He rolled his shoulders too loosen them but his right hand twisted up at the last second, sending a cutting curse at Hades to test his defences. Now rolling his right shoulder, Richard cast a much heavier cutting curse at the stone floor in front of him. The stone of the entrance hall was tough to cut through, even with magic, and so only a dozen chunks of stone resulted from the attack. With a savage twist and flick of his wand, the lumps of stone turned into replicas of the sharp metal disks he'd made at the lakeshore. As they began to rotate around him, he started to slowly walk towards Hades, ready to parry at a moment's notice.

Hades watched Rich like a hawk, just catching Arsen out the corner of his eye. The boy had come to watch like he knew he would. He smiled turning his eyes back to Rich having just enough time to flick his wand to protect himself. "Woah that was close." He laughed moving opposite Rich so they both circled the arena.

"A new branch of magic is needed i think, one where cutting me is made impossible." He smiled waving his wand around his head so fire shot out the end slowly encasing him inside a cocoon of fire. He sealed the top and waited as the fire burned his flesh away. Once the transformation was complete he punched the fire wall to reveal nothing but his flaming skeleton wearing his undamaged clothes.

"Sectemsempra." He said pointing his wand at Rich at the last minute hoping to catch him off guard.

Richard frowned a little,

"Now that's interesting." he muttered to himself as he spun out of the way of the cutting curse, his body twisting like an acrobat's. Coming out of the spin he flicked his wand up, "Bombarda."

The blasting curse was sent for Hades' torso, now the biggest target seeing as his opponent was essentially a skeleton now. He frowned a little,

"I suppose some new magic couldn't hurt..." he replied with a light chuckle as he flicked his wand up, "Aguamenti."

The water shot from his wand tip, emerging as a light spray. He gritted his teeth and flicked his wand in a complex series of motions. The water mist flashed brightly before visibily changing colour to light green. He grunted as he banished the cloud of newly made hydrochloric acid at Hades.

He laughed at his students faces they clearly had never seen anything like this. The rolled to the side ducking out the way of the bombarda curse just in time to give Rich a smile.

"You'll have to do better than water my friend, i'm smarter than that." He sighed waving his wand around. The hydrochloric acid shot straight towards him but before it had chance to make contact he painted some fire stairs beside him to run up creating a little ramp around the edges of the circle. He jumped onto the ramp quickly sliding around Rich shooting as many curses as he could at him from all sides.

"Stupify, Diffindo, Flipendo, Incendio." Before he finally made it to the bottom. He brought his hands together slowly making a fire ball between them, then pushed it straight at Rich.

Three of the metal disk shot out at incredible speeds, each of them blocking one of Hades' first curses. He frowned a little as the flames of both the incendio spell and the fireball sped towards him. With a grunt he twisted his wand and the same burst of carbon dioxide from the lakeside flew off of him, snuffing the flames instantly. He gritted his teeth,

"Bombarda! Stupefy! Diffindo! Sectemsempra!" he rattled off, linking the wand movements of each of the spells together to fire them off quickly. He then concentrated hard and threw his overcoat up in front of him. With a growl, he twisted his wand and his overcoat began to morph into something else. The coat suddenly flashed, having turned into a giant metal shield. He grabbed hold of it, sliding it onto his left arm as he sent short burst of carbon dioxide, in a cutting blast of compressed air, at his opponent.

He laughed waving his wand in front of him to make a fire wall to block all the spells he sent at him. The wall slowly evaporated in front of him after taking all the impact of the spells. He paused in his step letting the carbon dioxide fly straight through his bones. He shivers but otherwise stayed the same. "Ooo chilly, let's heat things up a little shall we." He smiled waving his wand to make his ever famous fiendfyre. He circled it around himself heating his body further. His three headed snake appearing just below the top of the force field. He sent two heads either side of Rich and the middle over the top trapping him in, creating an air tight ball meaning to trap Rich inside without damaging him too much.

Richard's orbiting disks of metal reacted quickly, creating a cocoon against the fiendfyre while he cast a bubble head charm to make sure he could still breathe. After a few moments, the metal disks had melted to become a swirling mass of liquid metal, still keeping the fiendfyre away. He paused before he began to muttered complicated spells to himself, twisting and flicking his wand at himself.

After about three minute in total, the liquid metal cocoon fell away and the fiendfyre was forced to rush in towards Richard as it's opposition had just stopped. With a small smile, Richard walked through the flames completely unharmed. However, he was changed.

His entire body had changed into a silvery metal, which was liquid at the joints to allow him total freedom of movement. He rolled his neck and spoke, his voice echoing and metallic,

"Tungsten. Metal with the highest melting point. Melting point is five times higher than the top temperature recorded for fiendfyre." he rolled his shoulder, "In short; perfect defence against fire."

He watched carefully as his fire worked it's magic around Rich slightly disappointed when when he came out with out even a scratch. He shook his head with a smile. "Not bad. What about water the natural enemy of water and metal?" He pulled the chain from around his chest that was once his snake, spinning it around his head like a lasso. "Meet Kraken, my not so squishy snake. He just loves to play with metal." He smiled spinning the chain so fast he put himself out replacing the fire with water. He slashed the chain in front of his face, making sure to blow on it was it went by making it turn to ice but still being as flexible as a snake.

"What's the freezing point of that thing?" He shrugged. "Well we're about to find out." He flung the end of the chain straight at Richard aiming for it to wrap around him whilst keeping a firm grip on the other end ready to attack if it worked.

Richard frowned a little as the freezing chain wrapped itself around his waist. He raised an eyebrow, something which looked very odd for someone who essentially looked like a metal figure,

"It doesn't matter." he replied in the same cold, detached and echoing voice. He reached down and gripped the chain in his hand tightly, refusing to let it go. His wand, now in his left hand, glowed brightly, "Converto!"

A bright green light ran down the length of the chain, forming along the entire length of the chain. Richard gritted his teeth and pulled at the still glowing chain. The glow died down immediately and the chain fell to the floor, now only a mass of useless sand. He stepped through the dust and transferred his wand to his right hand again,

"Manipulatise." he muttered. His left hand flashed and reformed into a huge hammer, "Let's see if you're skull is stronger."

He watched in shock as he turned his snake to dust, sand trailing through his fingers to the floor. "You own me a new snake Romain." He said calmly, well as calm as this voice could be. He stood for while his head tilted thinking.

He smiled swirling his wand around his head making a ca-coon of air around him, turning his bones to air but still looking solid to everyone else. "Come on then i'll give you one shot i won't even move, promise." He laughed folding his arms over his chest, so his wand pointed up.

"I have bones of steel Romain, your hammer wont do anything against me." He smiled, walking over to Rich so he could reach him with the hammer. "One hit." He winked keeping his arms crossed.

(OOC i still look solid to you so you don't know i'm air yet. )

Richard stalked forwards and raised his left arm to strike Hades. As soon as he moved through the unseen cocoon of air he knew something was wrong, the air felt wrong. Someone had constructed this air and they'd done so imperfectly. He could 'smell' the slight deficiency in Argon gas. But it was already too late, his hammer/hand was in motion. And it went straight through the air of Hades' skull. He gritted his teeth and immediately went to ground, morphing his hammer-hand back into a hand before stabbing it into the floor, curling up in a defensive ball of metal.

He laughed letting the hammer through his skull without flinching. He let his body spread through the air flying invisibly around the dome spreading out to catch Rich off guard.


He floated watching as Rich stabbed the floor. "What you planning now Romain." He asked his voice coming from all over the dome.

Richard frowned a little but didn't move, his hand still buried in the stone and still curled into a protected ball,

"It's a defensive measure. Works against most forms of attack." he replied, his voice hollow and metalic stilll. He raised an metal eyebrow, "Nice trick. You are aware that you have failed? You have only transformed into the main components of air. You lack argon and the other noble gases. A commone mistake. But one that a master of composition, such as myself, can detect easily."

"Fair enough." He laugh joining his body back together away from Rich. He waved his wand over his head once more turning into the last element he could use. His feet rooted to the ground like a tree, slowly pulling his body below the ground until finally he was fully underground.

He silently made his way underneath Rich sensing his weight above. Slowly he made his way up letting his hands rise through the ground to wrap around his ankles so you could pull them down into the earth up to his knees, trapping him.

Richard frowned his metallic frown and nodded,

"Trap the opponent in the ground..." he nodded again, "Very clever. Good use of terrain. Pointless here though."

With a deeper frown of concentration a circle of light grew on the stone that Richard was trapped in. A small grunt of power later and the stone in the circle had transformed into clear water, which he was quick to step out of. He turned back to Hades and knelt down on the ground again, gripping his wand tightly,

"Another good use of terrain is this. Watch carefully. Try not to get impaled." he commented coldly as his wand flashed brightly and a large line of stone from the floor shot up towards Hades as growing metal spikes.

Arsen turned at the sound of banging to look towards the entrance hall. One side of his mouth pulled up into a smiled at what Professor Romain said, so it was a fight between both his tutors. He ran towards the doors to get the best seat for it leaving behind his lunch, he wasn't hungry now anyway.

He leant against the door frame watching as the two men fought. He saw magic he had never seen before, but he would love to learn. So he stored it away for later so he could ask them.

"Very good, seems i under estimated you Romain." He laughed, moving above the ground and instantly beginning to make a ca-coon made out of the earth around him. He took a deep breath before letting the unpleasant transformation back into his human form begin. He waved his wand making the ca-coon fly off in all directions just managing to jump in time for the spikes to appear from beneath him. He spread his arms out wide ready as he turned into his crow form. Changing for him was as easy as blinking, it just came naturally to him.

He glided around the dome before finally changing back in mid air, landing lightly on his feet opposite Rich. "Nice face it's a real improvement." He smiled seeing for properly now he was back to normal. "Of course there is so much more i can do in my other form but that would involve killing you and as much as i would love to do that i can't." He said removing his sunglasses. "I just had to change back it was just so tempting."

"Sectemsempra." He thought the non-verbal spell slicing his wand at Rich's other shoulder. "Watch you don't get hit now." He smiled walking around the dome with his hands behind his back perfectly calm.

Richard didn't move as some of the earth pelted against his metal body. He frowned slowly as his spikes proved useless against the now flying opponent. Richard slowly tilted his metallic head to the side slightly,

"You seem to think that I can die while in this form." his eyes narrowed, "You are labouring under a delusion."

The non-verbal spell slammed into his shoulder, cutting him deeply in several places. He didn't flinch. The spell had cut through the outer layer of the metal easily and cut to the bone in some places. The problem was that every part of Richard was made out of the metal. His blood was solid and metallic. His muscles were solid and metallic. The deep cuts were deep cuts into a pliable metal, not into a fragile human body. Richard kept his head tilted slightly,

"The entire body has been reconstructed and formed into metal. There is nothing organic." he raised his arm to point his wand at Hades again, "This body is operated purely by magic. Once the magic reaches a level the change shall reverse to ensure the survival of the organic. Oblicus."

Once again spikes of metal began to grow out of the ground, but they were growing up from every available inch of the arena and showed no signs of stopping until they had reached the top of the barrier. Richard nodded his head slightly,

"These spikes will go through my body. I will not feel them. I will not die." he raised an eyebrow, "Once again. Try not to get impaled."

"Everything has it's weakness Romain you should know that." He smiled circling Rich with his wand down by his side. He watched with satisfaction as his spell cut deep into Richard's armor. "Ar but once you turn back that cut will still be there, it may not bother you now but it will."

He tilted his head to the side sensing Rich's next spell in his head and without a second thought a huge gust of wind lifted him up engulfing him completely making him spread as thin as the air it'd self. "Give it up Rich you can get me with spikes. I have pledged to all the elements except spirt, spirt chose me to do it's bidding. Did you know Hogwarts is home to many dead bodies Romain?" He asked bringing his fifth and final affinity to life. A loud bang on the door made several students jump.

Hades smiled, "I believe that's for you." He laughed watching as many poltergeists rose from the floor surrounding Rich completely. "I hope you don't mind the dead Romain, they don't tend to like the living." He laughed again floating around in the air completely safe from harm.

He sent the ghost and bodies a silent order and soon they began to destroy the spikes and moved closer towards Rich ready to suck him dry of any life if he ordered it.


"The entire body has been reconstructed and formed into metal. There is nothing organic." he raised his arm to point his wand at Hades again, "This body is operated purely by magic. Once the magic reaches a level the change shall reverse to ensure the survival of the organic. Oblicus."

Once again spikes of metal began to grow out of the ground, but they were growing up from every available inch of the arena and showed no signs of stopping until they had reached the top of the barrier. Richard nodded his head slightly,

"These spikes will go through my body. I will not feel them. I will not die." he raised an eyebrow, "Once again. Try not to get impaled."

Richard, despite his metallic and otherwise emotionless appearence, was still afraid of ghosts. It had started, years ago, when his father locked him in a room with a wraith for a whole night. The angry spirit had attacked relentlessly, with a sword of all things, and he'd only just survived the encounter. Richard's eyes narrowed at the spirits around him,

"The dead. Should stay dead." he muttered to himself before shrugging slightly, "They are useless to you. They pose no threat to me. I am but animated metal. I am not living as of now."

With a grand wave of his wand the floor began to glow an light blue. He cast the ghosts a few glances,

"Evictatus." he intoned slowly. The glowing increased and suddenly the stone of their arena had turned to what looked like water, making Richard sink like a stone. At the bottom of the now fluid-filled arena, he waved his wand silently and the calm waters instantly began to spin and churn as he made a vortex beneath it. The water rose out of the ground to spin around in the air equally, all of it still contained by the shielding spells made at the start of the duel. Richard nodded a little,

"This is not water. This is a fluid of my own creation." he waved his wand slowly, like a conductor, "It contains no water. It is also twenty times more easy to dissolve gases in it. You are spread into the air. The air will be absorbed into the fluid. The fluid is an acid. You will die a slow death or surrender."

"Do i sense fear Romain? Have i finally found your one weakness? The dead." He threw back his head in laughter, letting it fill the entrance hall. "Well my friend they don't call me Hades for no reason. You heard of the god of the underworld?" He asked his laughter still heard in his words.

"I don't need them to hurt you, them just being here is pleasing enough." He smiled waving his wand so a few poltergeists hovered below his ready to catch him as he turned back to human form. And that he did landing lightly in the hands of his ghosts. He waved his wand creating a bubble to lock in some oxygen for him to breathe. "Go ahead Rich, let's see if your liquid is as good as my fog." He smiled closing his eyes as a thick dark grey fog appeared. He opened his eye which had now turned a pale grey. He tilted his head to the side letting the fog fill the whole protective dome making it impossible for anyone but Hades to see.

"Fight this one Romain, your water can't stop me because my fog isn't air." He laughed feeling the hands of his fog caress his arms.