User blog:Dargoo Faust/Aang vs Edward Elric

'Who needs guns, when the real ''weapons are the earth, water, air, and energy around you? '''The elements have been allies and enemies throught history. Fire lighting the way to invention, and mindless storms swiftly tearing all that was built apart. These fighters are the embodiment of this fact, wielding ponds of water and cobblestone roads as a deadly aresenal.

Aang, the last airbender and the youngest Avatar, bent against the villainous Fire Nation.

VS

Edward Elric, the stubborn (and short!) state alchemist on a quest to find the Philosopher's Stone.



WHO IS THE DEADLIEST?!

SEASON 1 EPISODE 8



Aang


"The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since the beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light."

- The Lion Turtle, to Aang

Avatar Aang  is an Air nomad and was the Avatar during the Hundred Years War with the Fire Nation. As the Avatar, Aang is the only one during his lifetime to master all of the four bending arts. Aang was tasked with maintaining balance in the world, and in his lifetime this meant putting an end to the war brought upon the world by the Fire Nation.

Freezing himself after refusing to coming to terms with this fact, Aang left the world without its Avatar for one hundred years, and The Fire Nation nearly conquered all other nations and committed a mass genocide of the Air Nation. After being broken free by Katara and Sokka, the three ventured out to find a way to teach Aang to bend the other three elements before the passing of Sozin's comet, which would let Firelord Ozai slaughter and conquer the Earth Kingdom's last line of defense.


 * -| Weapon - Airbending Staff=



Echoing his nonlethal approach, Aang utilizes a traditional airbender's glider that conventionally also functions as a long bowstaff. The wood is crafted to enhance Aang's already impressive airbending skills, and as a glider it allows Aang limited flight as long as its wings are intact. While it does increase Aang's versatility and Airbending force, the staff is still made from wood, and isn't more durable than such. It also compliments Aang's fighting style: evasive, fluid, and really hard to hit.


 * -| Bending - Air=



Aang's trademark skill and weapon, Aang is a certified master of Airbending. He most often uses this skill in combat, using it to swiftly disable foes with gusts of air and mini-tornadoes. Aang has used his impressive Airbending to:


 * His signature Air Scooter - which lets him ride on a pressurized sphere of wind over terrain and walls.
 * Creating shields of pressurized air that can contain small explosions.
 * Creating Gusts of pressurized air.
 * Creating small tornadoes that can carry people into the air.
 * Drastically increase his speed by lowering air resistance alongside gusts of wind.


 * -| Bending - Other=

Outside of his airbending, Aang trained in the other four elements as the Avatar under various mentors. Organized from least to most proficiency.



Water

Aang can maniuplate water into high-pressure whips, create river-sized waves, and trap his opponents in blobs of H2O. Aang quickly mastered the art as soon as he saw it, quickly reaching Katara's level within days.

Earth

Aang was originally hard pressed to learn Earthbending - the blunt, powerful movements of the art contrasted the fluid, evasive Airbending he was used to. Yet, under the tutelage of Toph, he was able to create a rock armor, sinkholes, projectile rock, and move large pillars of rock.



Fire

Aand is actually more proficient at firebending than with earth, but he often avoids using it the most due to it's aggressive, bloodthirsty style that properly contradicted his Air philosophies. Over time, and with many weeks of training with Zuko, he was able to breath fire and shoot it from his hands. He later increased his skill in it using the dancing dragon style, which allowed him to shoot powerful balls of flame from persise strikes.


 * -| Derived abilities=



Aang has been taught under numerous tutors. From each, Water, Earth, and Fire, he learned a 'special' ability unique to his tutor, which served him well in his final fight with Firelord Ozai.


 * From Katara/Waterbenders: Ice Manipulation: Aang can lower the temperature of water he bends, and can turn it into friged ice. How cold, one may ask? Aang was able to lower the temperature of a wet iron chain to where it was brittle enough to break with his bare hands.
 * From Toph: Seismic Sense: Being blind, Toph had to develop a special Earthbending skill that would allow her to greater perceive her opponents and surroundings. It turns out, this enhanced her perception of the world around her, and allowed her to see objects hundreds of meters away, behind walls. She imparted this skill to Aang, who is able to use the skill to see hidden objects, see behind him, and react much faster to attacks as long as his opponent is contacting the ground.
 * From Zuko: Lightning Redirection: When training with Zuko, both Aang and his former rival developed and perfected the skill in order to properly combat Ozai, who used it often in their conflicts. This allowed Aang to channel his inner Ki into bolts of lighting via Firebending, and redirect lighting that was shot towards him. This ability, however, takes an intense amount of concentration, and is often unreliable and dangerous.


 * -| Aang in action=



Couple of notes before you watch: Everything before Aang enters the Avatar State in this battle is applicable, save for firebending, which was enhanced by Sozin's Comet. Everything after that, and the firebending, is not. (See Notes)

Notes:


 * This will be Aang from Season 3, right before his fight with Ozai. What does this mean? He won't have complete control of his Avatar State, and has to be in a life threatening position for it to activate. Elric would probably be able to combat the Avatar State, albeit with much more difficulty.
 * Energybending is also not applicable, as Alchemy is not a product of bodily energy, just a manipulation of the energy around oneself. Suffice to say I don't think Aang can close Elric's Door of Truth, but I'm fine hearing arguments against that.

Edward Elric


"A lesson without pain is meaningless. That's because no one can gain without sacrificing something. But by enduring that pain and overcoming it, he shall obtain a powerful, unmatched heart. A fullmetal heart."

- Edward Elric

Edward Elric was accepted to be a State Alchemist at a surprisingly young age, very much in part due to the face he could preform transmutations, manipulation of the matter around him, with high proficiency and without need of a transmutation circle. This potent ability, like most things within the Fullmetal universe, came at a cost. At a young age, Edward frantically looked for a solution to help his ailing mother, and in desperation turned to the darker sides of alchemy after her death. His tango in the dark arts left Edward without an arm and a leg, and his brother as an animate body of armor, but opened his "door of truth" and gave him this ability.

At the present, Edward and his brother search for the legendary Philosopher's Stone, which can preform any transmutation of alchemy and bypass the rule of equivalent exchange. Slowly but surely, they begin to uncover a plot formulated by the villainous Father and his deadly Homunculi on this quest. They pair up with unlikely allies like Roy Mustang, Scar, and many others to stop what could be the end of the world.


 * -| Weapon - Automail=



One of Edward's most reliable weapons is his Automail arm and leg, which provides extreme superhuman durability in the area, enough to punch through a wall with minimal damages. Additionally, because they are made of nonorganic material, Elric can transmute it's forearm into a sword, which is his most common go-to weapon of choice. He is an expert swordsman (Armsman?) as a result, and can deal devastating melee attacks even without the transmuted sword. The same, although less practically, applies to his automail leg.


 * -| Alchemy - Fullmetal Arsenal=



Elric was dubbed the 'Fullmetal Alchemist' for a reason: Edward's specialty in alchemy was his ability to turn the stone around him, and his automail arm/leg into an entire arsenal. The limit to the type of weapons Elric can make in this fasion doesn't have a defined limit, and the most complex weapon he was able to create with his trademark ability was a large cannon from a cobblestone floor. Some other examples include:


 * Turning the forearm of his automail into a small sword.
 * An iron spear from the ground.
 * Creating a bladed spur on the sole of his automail foot.
 * A wired trap from his automail arm.
 * The aforementioned cannon.


 * -| Alchemy - Other=



Alchemy is as about as subjective as an ability as one can get. The limit of the ability (for someone who has opened their Door of Truth) is often up to their knowledge of chemistry, and often needs to be thought out if they are not practiced beforehand. Edward often resorts to manipulating the flooring of whatever environment he is in into giant spikes and animate hands. If that doesn't suffice, Edward can get crafty, but it will take him time to think up a solution (For example, in his fight with Greed he had to figure out the carbon composition of Greed's ultimate armor before he could disable it). Some uses of Edward's general alchemy include:


 * Riding pillars for extremely fast vertical and horizontal movement.
 * Creating large, animate hands.
 * Forcing large spikes of the floor around him.
 * Creating pits to trap his enemies
 * Creating walls, pillars, and shields of whatever material is around him.
 * Shooting spikes and shrapnel of whatever material is around him.

Don't be fooled, Edward is capable of transmuting materials into anything as long as the exchange of energy is equivalent (for example, he can't turn a small rock into a working machine gun), but takes some time to figure out complex methods other than those above. He also has never preformed a transmutation of Air, and has only transmuted water twice (Turning it into pure Alcohol and heating it).


 * -| Derived abilities=



From his encounters with Greed, Scar, and Armstrong, Elric has expanded his arsenal of Alchemical abilties, casually encorporating them into his fighting style.


 * From Scar: Destruction Alchemy. By creating an alchemical reaction without a product, Edward can essentially vaporize solid matter he preforms alchemy on, which has torn through metal and stone easily.
 * From Greed: The Ultimate Armor. Realizing his automail was made from carbonfiber tubes, and that Greed's alchemy functioned off of the carbon of his body, Elric was able to create the armor around his arm, which made it virtually indestructible and able to block attacks from Pride. By also applying it to his Automail sword, Elric can cut through solid stone and metal with ease.
 * From Armstrong: Stone Gauntlets and Spikes: More of an alchemy style, really. Elric is able to shoot projectile stone spikes he transmutes from the ground by 'punching them', and form stone gantlets around his hands for further protection.


 * -| Elric in action=



Other examples:

Vs Scar

Vs Father:

Vs Greed:

Notes:


 * This is the Manga/Brotherhood Edward.

Bending vs. Alchemy
Since this battle is strongly dictated over which of these arts are better utilized, we're going to look at what each manipulation of the elements has over the other (regarding Aang and Edward respectively).

AANG'S BENDING:


 * Requires full movement of the body (more so arms), otherwise it is hindered, or rendered unusable.
 * Does not require contact with the material it is manipulating.
 * Can only manipulate fire, air, water (Aang can't bend blood or other bodily fluids, however), and rock/stone.
 * Cannot manipulate metal (Aang, specifically).
 * Larger feats of bending require more control of the body and more energy.

EDWARDS' ALCHEMY:


 * Requires contact with the material, for the most part (Has a fairly large range).
 * Requires access to both hands (Edward cannot preform alchemy without his automail).
 * Cannot be used directly on other Humans (Turning an arm into a rock and vice versa).
 * Needs knowledge chemistry, and the composition of the materials being transmuted (Which Edward has extensively).
 * Cannot transmute unless the exchange of energy is equivalent (for example, a small rock cannot be transmuted into a machine gun).

X-Factors
*If Aang were to enter the Avatar state, both of these would be 100 respectively.

Experiance (Combat)-

Aang constantly fought against all sorts of benders and nonbenders in his joruney, fighting earthbenders like Bumi who mimics Edward's manipulation of stone and countless Fire Nation warriors wielding swords, spears, etc. However, Elric's been practicing Alchemy and fighting longer than Aang, if just by an inch, since Aang's journey spanned less than a year. Edward has also fought against alchemists who could manipulate water, fire (explosions), and various alchemists using the stone around them as an arsenal. Edward's metal manipulation will catch Aang off guard, and Aang's airbending will catch Edward off Guard, so the surprise factor is also mostly even.

Training-

Edward trained for much longer than Aang, but was mostly self-taught, and was taught only under one mentor for the vase majority of his training. Aang was taught under various mentors with widely different takes on combat, personality, and fighting style. This helps give Aang a more fluid and adaptable style, while Edward is more straightforward and slightly predictable in pure combat.

Tactics-

I was going to call this intelligence, but I don't think that's a proper word. Nor is creativity. This is essentially between how fast Aang or Edward will be able to think of a battle plan, as developing a counter to the other's abilities is well within their capabilities and can help decide the fight. This goes mostly to Edward, who was able to, in less than a couple of minutes, was able to develop a strategy to stop Greed by just observing his alchemy's style. Aang adapts to situations fast, but he lacks in developing a proper plan or organized attack in combat.

Physicality-

With bending an alchemy in play here, pure strength isn't looked at as much here. Aand is faster than Edward, and more versatile (with flight slightly in play here), but Edward can also use his alchemy to maneuver around a closed fighting area much more fluidly. Edward is much more durable than Aang, taking blows from Father and being able to still fight. Aang focuses himself much more on evasiveness and hardly relies on his durability, if at all. His earthbending can act as a nice line of defense, but his flesh and bones aren't anything special. The gap in versatility is larger than durability, however, giving Aang a slight edge.

Brutality-

Go figure, a fight where brutality actually matters. Aang will not kill Edward. Aang will be very hard pressed to highly injure Edward. Aang will focus mostly on incapacitating Edward. On the other hand, Edward can kill if absolutely necessary, and casually uses strong force to injure his foe including stabbing and slashing and crushing. Just to clarify how much Aang is against killing and maiming, he was reluctant to kill or even maim Ozai, who was willing to kill Aang and countless innocents and bragged about the genocide of the Air Nation directly in front of him.

Setting
The Wulong Forest

With rivers of water, pillars of stone, a slight breeze, and a temperate forest, the Wulong forest hosts everything a manipulator of the elements needs. As the White Lotus and Fire Nation forces prepare to meet, and follows Ozai's ship into the now-burning forest, only to come across a very confused, slightly short man in a red cloak.

Voting Rules
Make it detailed, and follow Will Wheaton's law.

VOTING ENDS APRIL 30th.

Battle
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