Skulduggery Pleasant VS Randall Flagg

[Monarch_Laciel]

Skeleton Detective VS the Emissary of the Crimson King

Randall Flagg

Base Skulduggery Pleasant .

To even things up ever so slightly, with Randall's higher AP, I'll also give Skulduggery the Scepter of Ancients, Deathtouch Gauntlet, Godkiller weapons, Book of Names, and an active Merryn Sigil Invisibility Orb thing and magic-sealing handcuffs (actually, he carries those around normally, doesn't he? I should add that to his profile)

Speed Equalised.

Flagg: 2 (MrKingOfNegativity, Zensum, Delta3000)

Skulduggery: 0

Inconclusive: 0

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

You missed a G.

Forreal though, I think Flagg has the right advantages going into this. The old 'stop breathing' trick obviously isn't going to work, nor will Flagg's mind reading or mind manip, but a lot of other things seem to be in his favor.

• Transmutation is going to be a problem if Skul's 'self-Transmutation' doesn't involve turning himself into an animal and back again, and Flagg has opened with his own transmutation in the past.
• Flagg tangles with expert gun users on the regular, so he'll have no problem dealing with those here. He also has plenty of ways to get rid of whatever weapons come into play. (TK, transmutation of weapons into bananas, enchantments that'll force guns to misfire, etc) Bullets are never getting through his barriers, and in the worst case scenario, he has no problem just catching them.
• Flight won't mean much once Flagg turns into his raven form, and he happens to be more than capable of using his magic while morphed into an animal as well.
• I don't see resistance to bodily possession in Skul's main key, and Flagg's commands can essentially give him control of an opponent's entire body. (Like he did with a gun store clerk in the recent film, despite the latter still clearly having enough control over his mind to tell Roland 'It's not me!')
• If Flagg is allowed out of Skul's sight at any point in this match, the latter is going to have a lot of trickery to deal with.

I don't know enough about Skul tbh, so I'll wait for other opinions before I say my vote. I can also go into how Flagg tends to use his less offensive powers when the time comes.

EDIT: The second G has now arrived.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Skul's transmutation involves turning himself into an indestructible (by verse standards) statue. He can't move, can't think, and doesn't know whether he'll turn back to human in a few minutes or a few decades.

Bodily possession? Skul resists both mind and soul hax. Unless it works by telekinetically making his body move around or something, I doubt that's flying.

I dislike arguing on my own threads, but I'm also like the only person on this wiki who knows Skulduggery Pleasant, so ...

His elemental manipulation lets him do a few things. He can control air to mimic telekinesis or create forcefields. He can throw fireballs and shoot flames like a flamethrower. He can manipulate water or moisture in the air, making things wetter or drying. He can cause small tremors in the ground (not really useful here) or manipulate the earth to pass through it and reform it behind him. And turn himself into a statue of course.

Mind Manipulation lets him issue simple commands to people if he knows their given name, though having a taken name negates that, and considering how many names Flagg's had, that isn't flying.

If he gets pissed off / desperate enough he can release a shockwave of darkness from his chest capable of shattering all the bones in the Black Cleaver's body, though he wouldn't do that willingly, it would just happen on instinct. However, once the darkness is out, he can control what it does.

Invisbility orb basically projects a small one metre or so radius aura around itself that makes anybody inside invisible.

Handcuffs make the wearer unable to use magic, so if he snaps them on Flagg's wrists he'll negate his powers.

Skulduggery's clothing is all made of physically and magically resistant materials.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

I get what you mean about the whole 'debating on one's own thread' thing, but such tends to be the case with less-used characters that only a handful of people know about on here.

About the handcuffs; does he need to physically put them on someone himself? Or can he just make them appear around people's wrists at will?

Also, how do they stack up against attacks? Are they any more resistant to trauma than a normal pair? And do their negating powers give them resistance to any magical attacks?

Also, how good is Skul at dealing with tricksters? Any experience fighting illusions, seeing through disguises or detecting (pseudo)invisible enemies?

EDIT: Skul's clothes seem important here. What forms of magic have they protected him from?

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

They are likely resistant to magic themselves, and probably made of similar reinforced materials to the clothes and armour, but otherwise I wouldn't think they are much more durable than normal metal handcuffs. He needs to physically put them on.

Skulduggery's fought against plenty of tricksters. His physiology means that illusions don't really work on him (he can't see them if they are physical, and his mind resistance means they can't be implanted in his mind). He's also extremely intelligent, so he could probably see through disguises. He also survived in a universe full of the Faceless Ones without going insane... mainly because he already is. He has fought against invisible enemies before as well, mostly fodder in the first and second sorceror wars.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

If the cuffs need to be put on physically, then he's going to have a hard time making use of them here. Flagg might have some decent close-quarters feats (middle-ends being bone-shattering strikes, among others), but he's not the kind of person to just let someone hostile get close to him like that. Teleportation is just going to make that harder.

No-selling illusions will help quite a bit here (The Walkin' Dude is extremely talented in that area), but Skul is still going to have a lot of tricks to deal with if this fight lasts very long. Any nearby animals, avians, rodents and insects can be controlled by Flagg and used to swarm Skul en masse, and if he happens to escape Skul's sight at any point, he can transmute solitary animals into clones of himself. (though they still retain their animal mindsets) He also used his shapeshifting abilities in tandem with this when he did it, so Skul's probably going to have to track down Flagg in one of his many, many alternate forms if the latter manages this.

Is there anything Skul can do to defend himself if Flagg attempts to strike him down with a cloud-to-ground lightning bolt?

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

If the transmuted animals are still just animals, Skul probably reloads and headshots them all, or smashes them all with a few waves of air. Or roasts them all with fire.

Skulduggery is no slouch in the hand to hand department either. He's been fighting for the majority of his life (several centures), and is extremely proficiant in numerous fighting styles, both martial arts and more brutal styles. As for lightning, he could manipulate the air to block or redirect the lightning strike. Or just tank it. Unless it's strong enough to char him to ashes outright, he'll just keep going. Not like he has a heart or brain to fry / go into fibrillation

Does Randall requrie air? Skulduggery can easily withdraw all the air from Randall's location. It's one of the first things he does. He could also trap him in a field of air to stop him moving, or throw him around into the ground and walls and stuff. Or just keep forcepushing.

And how much experience does Randall have fighting invisible enemies himself?

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Fair enough. Fire and lightning are Flagg's strongest raw AP options, so if he can subvert those, he'll have a better chance. Actually, it's seeming more and more like they'll both be having trouble killing each other as far as that goes.

Also, I'm still wondering what forms of magic Skul's clothes have protected him from. Have they nulled the likes of transmutation, or any other similar body-altering magic?

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Magic that needs to actually go through the clothes gets negated. Fireballs and air pushes from other Elementals are described as "folding around" the clothes, just sliding around it without harming Skuldugerry, as are energy blasts. There was also this one guy named Tesseract who could basically cause bones to shatter instantly on contact with a person (even through their clothing), and the clothes blocked against that.

If Randal can just snap his fingers and turn skulduggery into a bird or something, no the clothes won't help though. Which apparently he can do. Does he do that in character normally?

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

First off, I got edit-ninja'd.

Flagg needs air to breathe, yes. The 'stealing air from his location' and 'trapping him in a field of air' can most likely be escaped via teleportation though (unless Skul has a precaution against that?), and Flagg's own TK gives him the ability to throw his opponent around as well, along with letting him fling objects and collapse certain environments in order to damage foes. I only see resistance to TK in Skul's final key, so I'm assuming that would still be a problem here.

I mostly mention the animals because he was shown controlling massive numbers of them at once across several hundreds of miles of the U.S. country, and because he has the right type of mind to use them as distractions while he sets something else up. If he winds up outside of Skul's sight/range, he can use his Eye to help him do this remotely.

Flagg has his own (admittedly nigh-unquantifiable) wealth of experience in combat as well. The Stand alone tells us that he spent time as a marine, a police-killing criminal, a KKK member and a Viet Cong soldier, and that he was involved in the killing of a Cabinet member. Eyes of the Dragon also states (through his own internal dialogue) that he'd been studying a particular book of spells for a thousand years, and since Eyes is set early in his career, this should say something about how old and experienced he is.

Also:


...



These ought to give a clear sense of Flagg's transmutation abilities. And no, he doesn't hesitate to use this on enemies.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Skulduggery's got no way to stop teleportation (apart from slapping the shackles on). That being said, he has fought a few teleporters before, so he isn't going to be caught off guard if Flagg tries teleporting behind him or something.

Skulduggery's resistances are kinda hard to quanitfy between tiers, because really the only thing that changes is he stops using Elemental Magic and starts using Necromancy. So I'd think base Skulduggery would still have some level of resistance to it. I'm 90% certain someone has tried to telekinetically pull Skulduggery apart in base. Might have been the Faceless Ones doing it actually, and he was still managing to not be pulled apart instantly, unlike people like poor Mr Bliss. And Baron Vengous (who's power makes people explode by glaring at them [Jiren's got nothing on 'im]) couldn't actually cause Skulduggery to explode. He made him stumble, but considering everyone else Baron glared at ruptured into small chunks of meat and bone, and Skulduggery just stumbled a bit, that's still impressive.

Killing a ton of animals is still well within Skulduggery's abilities. Burning with fire, crushing with air, emaciating them by draining water, opening fissues in the ground to create distance, etc.

For experience, not all of that was up close combat experience, some of it was just being old and studying, but I'd say their still probably pretty close in combat experience.

Additionally, how does this Third Eye of Flagg's work? Because Skuldggery was undetectable and untrackable to the strongest psychics in the world, who were able to mind screw Darquesse (admittedly when Darquesse was briefly dazed and distracted).

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Regarding his teleportation, Flagg is one of the few characters (that I have run into, anyway) who isn't stupid about using his teleportation. He doesn't teleport-spam around enemies like a Wesker player in MvC3; he simply uses it to avoid danger whenever necessary, as well as to create distance. Given how he's probably not allowed to just teleport to another location and go about his merry way, the most likely scenario is that he'll teleport away from the initial danger, get his bearings, then strike from the sky, the top of a building or some other location where he has the higher ground.

The TK Skulduggery seems to have resisted in base is impressive, not gonna lie. Flagg normally just uses it to collapse ceilings, send objects flying at people and pull up debris/whatever else to block mundane attacks (as well as create his barriers), but he has lifted Roland off his feet and swung him around at least once before, so if he tries that, it'll probably fail.

Flagg's Third Eye is an almost-literal third eye that he can open up, send out and use to search for people. He does seem to rely on psionics to help him lock-on to others when he doesn't already know their location, but if he's already aware of where Skul is, he could just use it to gaze in that general direction.

In the comic adaptation of The Stand, it looks suspiciously like the Eye of Sauron:




In the DT prequel comics, it just looks like a cyclops eye opening in his forehead. It achieves the same effect, though.

 

[RegisNex1232]

Just to add a few things regarding telekinetic resistance and mind/soul hax/manipulation resistance on Skulduggery's side.

For the former, he couldn't resist the Faceless Ones' pulling apart his body and leaving him to put himself together over and over again (this being done while the Faceless Ones are taking turns possessing a damaged mortal body, implying that they're not at their full strength either).

For the latter, in the new novel Resurrection, a new book in a new series set in the verse, Skulduggery had his aura/soul corrupted by an Adept called Azzedine Smoke. Smoke's magic allows him to corrupt people by touching them physically, and this can last for a few days, though Skulduggery was able to resist it faster then most sorcerers normally would.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

In regards to the Faceless Ones, he wasn't able to shrug it off, he was still getting pulled apart. But everyone else who the Faceless Ones yanked apart (Bliss and Cleavers) were basically immediately turned inside out, while Skulduggery was only being slowly pulled apart.

His soul resistance is on the page. In addition to what you said, he also shrugged off Smoke using all his power on Skulduggery at once to try to corrupt him in a couple of seconds

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

@Regis:

The first bit seems important. Would this mean no resistance to TK at all, or simply weaker resistance than initially thought?

The latter is impressive, but Flagg doesn't have soul manip, and Skul's mental resistance is already established here for the most part.

EDIT: Ninja'd. Also, I'm lagging like shit right now...

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

He was resisting it though. Everyone else the Faceless Ones used TK on were ripped apart immediately. Skulduggery though, it took time for them to pull him apart. It's even stated that his consciousness holds his body together or something, in book 6 I think when Darquesse comes out against the Jitter Girls

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

[comes back from killing the Lagosaurus rex]

I'm not sure if either of you guys have the books to draw quotes from, but I feel like the context of this scene in question might be helpful here. So far, all I'm really getting is that Skul showed resistance to telekinetics who may not have been at full power when they were attempting to TK him. Though again, I know little about the character/his books beyond what's on the profiles here on the wiki.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Faceless One TK against everyone else:

"The Faceless One lifted an arm and Bliss was lifted off the ground. The Faceless One curled its hand and Bliss's body twisted into bits of pulverised bone and shredded flesh"

"A trio of Cleavers lifted into the air, and their bodies folded back on themselves and caved inwards. Their remains dropped, forgotte"

"The female Necromancer attacked from behind... the Faceless One extended its hand and her body turned inside out"

Faceless One TK against Skulduggery:

"He grunted and rose into the air... Valkyrie watched in horror as an unseen force began separating his bones from each other, centimetre by centimetre"

So no, he isn't straight up immune to it, but its a hell of a lot slower than against everyone else.

Also, I found a great feat for Skulduggery which is probably an outlier:

"Skulduggery stood, looked at the Faceless One... He snapped his hands against the air and the air rippled. The Faceless One hurtled back, disappearing into the portal"

Admittedly there were some other factors at play here, like the portal having a gravitational pull dragging the Faceless One back, but the fact that Skulduggery was able to affect it significantly at all it considering other examples of magic pretty much just slid off of it.

Although, I just found another quote where the Faceless One threw Skulduggery off his feet with a wave of its hand, so it seems he might only be resistant to actually being pulled apart, not being thrown around. That would be consistent with Darquesse's explanation of him holding himself together in Book 6, where she says ...

How irritating. My (electronic) copy of book 6 has vanished. I'll see if I can find the quote somewhere else later.

In the meantime, this is the quote on Lord Vile's resistance, but considering the only thing that changes in their powers is Lord Vile stops using Elemental Magic and starts using necromancy, Skulduggery should be able to do it too.

"Kitana waved her arm and Vile flew backwards, smashing through the wall. She reached out with both hands, straining, and Vile contorted amid the rubble. Magic twisted the spaces between them, invisible to the human eye but oh so obvious to Darquesse, who saw things much more clearly. Kitana was trying to tear Vile apart. It was fascinating to see, this girl with so much undeserved power going up against a weaker but more skilled opponent. And she was trying so hard, bless her. Her teeth were gritted, muscles were straining, and sweat was starting to pour down her red face. She was putting everything she had into this, but Darquesse's brand-new partner still managed to hold himself together. What an impressive creature he was."

What's impressive here is that she is explicitly stronger than him too.

So yeah. He can stop himself being telekinetically ripped apart. Being thrown around magically though, he has no set resistance too.

That being said, his air manipulation and flight would let him counter Flagg trying to smash him into walls and the ground, and let him do the same to Flagg.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Ah, I see. Good feats nonetheless, and the air manipulation does seem like it might have a slight edge over Flagg's more traditional telekinesis and flight via raven transformation.

I do think I have enough for a vote now, though. I feel like Flagg eventually takes this, but going by the evidence, it's going to be a tough battle for sure. Both of them have some really interesting ways of evening this out.

Skulduggery Pleasant:

• Air manip/flight combination outstrip Flagg's TK and animal forms
• Animals would be a persistent nuisance at best
• Experienced in dealing with trickery similar to what Flagg likes to pull out, and can no-sell Flagg's illusions
• Physiology nulls many of Flagg's best powers, including attacks that would one-shot other beings
• Likely more adept in melee combat
• Mind manipulation and telepathy are useless against him in this scenario

Randall Flagg:

• Teleportation allows him to escape from many of Skul's best incapacitating options, as well as stay out of Skul's melee range
• Generally greater versatility (albeit barely imo), as well as several abilities that would make him harder to target
• Numerous spells that can eliminate firearms and equipment, and has more than enough experience against gun users to effectively counter them
• Far superior range which he can freely abuse
• Telekinetic barrier stuffs Skul's more basic elemental attacks
• Transmutation has no counter, is effectively an immediate mission-kill, and is something he uses fairly often (at least five times for various purposes in canon, three of which were combat-centric)

Mutual:

• Experience (Both have literal centuries of it)
• Unpredictability (Both have abilities that the other seemingly hasn't dealt with before, as well as unorthodox means of combat)
• Mobility (Both have ways to fly and reach higher ground, and can use magic while doing so)

Basically going 6/10 in favor of Flagg due to range, power variety (by comparison), teleportation and transmutation. It'd be a damn spectacular fight though, I can say that much.

P.S.: I need to read Skulduggery's books at some point. This sounds like the kind of series I would have fun reading.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Coolio

Don't have much more to say on the subject. Nice summary.

Flagg: 1

Skulduggery: 0

Inconclusive: 0

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

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[RegisNex1232]

As someone who does own all 9 books, I can say that this is taking things without context. Against the Cleavers, Bliss and the Necromancer, the Faceless Ones were just killing them without playing around with them. Literally, the first FO comes and turns Bliss inside out when he punches it to no effect. The same goes for the rest of them, as only the Sceptre killing 2 of them and everyone using their all to send an injured body back to its home dimension is what stops them from taking over.

For Skulduggery, that took place in Dark Days, where the FOs took turns possessing Batu's body to hunt him down, torture him endlessly and then take him apart and leave him, so that he could put himself back together for the next day. They weren't interested in killing him. To them, he was just an interesting toy to play with for almost a year in story. Note that he couldn't do a single thing to resist them.

In that very example, Valkyrie's Necromancy and Air magic has little effect on the Faceless One in Batu's ruined body, only causing a small distraction as it just stood there and observed her as she interfered. She does hurt it a bit with a big shadow spear, but it just stands there and looks at itself.

Dark Days Chapter 11

"Valkyrie bolted into the circle, her Necromancer ring grabbing the shadows and curling them around the Faceless One's left ankle. She kept running and yanked the shadows with all her strength, but the shadows went taught and her legs flew from under her and she crashed to the ground. The Faceless One hadn't budged. Its blank head turned, and it let Skulduggery drop to a groaning heap. Valkyrie threw his remaining arm to him as she got up.

The Faceless One observed her without moving. She'd experienced this reaction before, eleven months ago... She snapped her palms and the air rippled and slammed into the ruined body before her. The rags it wore fluttered up, but the body stayed still.

The ring was cold on her finger and it drank in the death this city had seen. She focused the shadows and hurled them at her enemy. A spear of darkness flew into the torso cavity and tore out through the back. The Faceless One staggered and looked down at itself."

She does nothing to it with her attacks when it just stares at her and the only one with some effect leaves it staring at the wound in the same area where the FO pulled out all the tentacles from, ruining the body.

As for Skulduggery pushing the FO into the portal, here's what happens when he does the same earlier against a healthy FO that isn't getting sucked away.

The Faceless Ones Chapter 38

She ran on, emerging from the treeline in time to see Skulduggery battling the Faceless One. He pushed at the air, but it was no use - the air just rippled and folded around the Faceless One harmlessly.

The FOs are immune to nearly all magic save the Sceptre's bolts and the God-Killer Weapons, and Skulduggery pushing an injured body possessed by one back through a portal when it's trying to resist the pull is pretty meaningless in context when trying to compare him to a FO. Never mind that mages in the SP verse aren't naturally resistant to air magic unless they themselves can use it to for defense.

For Vile's feat, it's something that can only be done when Skulduggery can use Necromancy which he couldn't earlier, due to lack of contact with his armour, which had all the power. He gets in touch with it in Mortal Coil, but only transforms in Death Bringer. It's not something normal Skulduggery can do by himself with air magic (resisting someone else's TK).

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Well, to be fair, I suppose Skul's ability/inability to resist that form of TK seems to have little bearing in this matchup anyway. Flagg doesn't exactly use his TK for 'pulling people apart' in that sense. Not necessarily saying he can't; he simply doesn't do that while IC. I suppose that's still useful information for the future, though.

Did you have a vote at all, btw?

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Bump

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

For Vile's feat, it's something that can only be done when Skulduggery can use Necromancy which he couldn't earlier, due to lack of contact with his armour, which had all the power. He gets in touch with it in Mortal Coil, but only transforms in Death Bringer. It's not something normal Skulduggery can do by himself with air magic (resisting someone else's TK).

Not true. Nothing says he was using necromancy to hold himself together. Just that he was.

Also, Skulduggery can always use necromancy. He just doesn't, because its linked to his Lord Vile persona. He can still do it in base without turning into Vile if he is pushed enough.

 

[RegisNex1232]

Not true. Nothing says he was using necromancy to hold himself together. Just that he was.

Also, Skulduggery can always use necromancy. He just doesn't, because its linked to his Lord Vile persona. He can still do it in base without turning into Vile if he is pushed enough.

Except that he doesn't use any other forms of magic save Necromancy as Lord Vile, so it's a pretty reasonable assumption to make.

You're mistaking aptitude for Necromancy with being able to do it. Yes, he has the talent for it due to being ambidextrous in magic (having talent for Adept and Elemental magics), but Necromancy requires an object where all their power is stored for use. One can't do anything without their objects (see every Necromancer when separated from their objects). Skulduggery couldn't use it from Books 1-5 as he never had access to his armour until the end of Mortal Coil, where the armour follows him to his fight with Tesseract. He can only use it in base when using someone else's object of power (when he first showed the aptitude by using Tenebrae's object to save him).

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Not really. He still has all his other natural characteristics. Holding himself together telekinetically is something he does all the time with zero effort. Because seriously. He's a skeleton. He has no tendons or ligaments to hold him together. It must be telekinesis or some similar power holding him together. Even if you say "I guess that's magic too", it's still something holding him together. Regardless, it's irrelevant for this debate as Randall doesn't use TK like that.

As for necromancy, he literally used it to break the Black Cleaver's bones in book 8 (or 9?) without being in Vile mode. Cleaver rips off his arm and goes to kill him, Skulduggery unleashes a wave of darkness that cripples the Cleaver and then goes on to have the darkness fetch his arm for him "like an eager dog" (or a quote something along those lines). It's when China sees him and works out who he is. And he was either using the armour stored in shadow form in his rib cage, or he wasn't using his object at all. First one is more likely, but the point is that he still has the armour with him. Also, I'm pretty sure Melancholia didn't use her object when she got symbol amped (not accel amped). She was just so powerful she didn't need the container. I think.

 

[RegisNex1232]

He's being held together because of Necromancy. Nefarian Serpine, his arch-nemesis had a red right hand which if pointed at a person would kill them in agonizing pain, which he learnt from Tenebrae as it was a Necromancy trick. Tenebrae guessed that he was going to use it on Skulduggery, so he altered a few things he taught, so that if Skulduggery specifically got hit by it, it wouldn't outright kill him (in order to protect Skulduggery because of his Necromancy potential). It would preserve his soul in his body, which is what allowed him to put himself back together and return, for a brief while as Lord Vile, before becoming the skeleton we know today. It's all said in Death Bringer.

It was Book 8, Last Stand of Dead Men, and he could do that because Vile's armour was with him, inside his skeleton ever since the end of Mortal Coil, book 5. Pre-Mortal Coil, he had no access to the armour since it was first hidden, then found by Vengeous in Book 2, then stored in the Sanctuaries before Skulduggery's subconscious activated it in Mortal Coil and it began moving around on its own in Death Bringer. After Death Bringer, he has control over it, and keeps it in a case with him that he carries around sometimes (other times the case is locked away). I'm not saying that he can't use Necromancy at all, only that he needs his/someone's object of power to do so. Also, unless he lets Lord Vile take over, he can stay in control, like the first time he used Necromancy in front of Tenebrae.

For Melancholia, Craven used sigil magic to prolong and loop the Surge, which normally gives mages a permanent power boost and locks them into their form of magic, and stored the power inside Mel's own body. Sure, it's not exactly an object, but it still counts as one. She's probably the only real exception to the rule. Wreath for example couldn't use Necromancy until he got another cane to replace his broken one.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

I know that's all said. Doesn't change that something is holding him together. Something that lets him resist Kitana telekinetically tearing him apart. It's never stated he is using his armour or shadows or something to hold him together, and seeing as he is normally being held together, it's clear there is some TK resistance going on.

I never said pre-mortal coil Skulduggery could use necromancy without his armour. In any case, this is skulduggery as he is at the furthest point, so this skulduggery can use necromancy if he has to. Why were we arguing this point again?

Thanks for explanation on Melancholia. Suspected it was something like that.

 

[RegisNex1232]

The force holding him together is his soul + Necromancy magic. It's not something he does actively, since no one knew about his case except for Tenebrae. I'd guess his skeleton is held together as it would naturally (like those you see in biology classes), and magic keeps his soul alive.

This was about Vile resisting Kitana's magic, which I (not very in depth) said was because of Skulduggery's Necromancy (which he could only use with his armour). What I meant to say at the time was that it's only when he's in Lord Vile form (which is him at his strongest, due to his high Necromancy potential + being undead) as otherwise he's weaker and as resistant to TK as any other mage, which is not at all (see all the times someone removes his arms whether by force or TK). Regardless, if he's allowed Vile, then I guess it depends on how strong Flagg's TK is and whether he can overcome Vile's power. Otherwise, Randall might be able to pull him apart (will check up on this when I can).

No problem, I've got all the hard copies so I can just look it up easily.

Now just so that I can actually debate this VS, I'll just check up on Randall's abilities.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

He's in base, e.g. not Lord Vile, but necromancy is still in his arsenal. It's just not something he'll use offensively unless desperate.

 

[RegisNex1232]

I wonder how would Skulduggery's air wall (where he creates a wall of solid air to trap people, push them away, etc.) interact with Randall's TK/magic? I suppose he could use something to block it from reaching him but would he sense it happening as he would only see Skulduggery waving his hand. It could be an OCP that Randall might not see coming and give Skulduggery the win, as he's pretty sneaky when he wants to be (The sparrow flies south for the winter ).

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

Isn't it "the sparrow flies south ''for ''winter"?

 

[RegisNex1232]

Isn't it "the sparrow flies south for winter"?

You saw nothing.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

If an air wall can block Flagg's TK, then the reverse would most certainly be true of Flagg's barriers stopping Skul's air pushes. The 'can he see it coming?' angle also works both ways; would Skulduggery 'see' a TK (or lightning) attack from Flagg in time to defend himself before being hit at least once?

If neither of them opens up with this (Flagg probably won't, even while IC), there's a chance Flagg might be out of Skul's effective range before such an attack can become a factor, and he would still be able to send out attacks of his own due to his far superior range with magic.

Or Flagg could just prevent all of that from becoming a factor via turning Skul into a dog the moment he realizes the latter isn't just some normal human in a snazzy suit/hat. Or even before he realizes that, since he's never really cared about one-shotting people even if they appear to be mere humans armed with guns. (See the scans I posted above)

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

I don't think you understand MrKing

No one ever seens the sparrow flies south for winter coming. Ever

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

.╠Â.╠Â.╠ÂI╠Â'╠Âm╠ ╠Âm╠Âi╠Âs╠Âs╠Âi╠Ân╠Âg╠ ╠Âa╠Ân╠ ╠Âi╠Ân╠Â-╠Âj╠Âo╠Âk╠Âe╠ ╠Âh╠Âe╠Âr╠Âe╠Â,╠ ╠Âa╠Âr╠Âe╠Ân╠Â'╠Ât╠ ╠ÂI╠Â?╠Â

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

No one explain it

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

>'No one'

There's only one other person here.

 

[Monarch_Laciel]

There's only one other person here

He qualifies as "one" then.