Cure For The Common Cold

Althanas suffered from a disease. It festered right in the very heart and soul of the planet and spread to every living thing. A plague overtook the world and nobody seemed to every realize such an illness had befallen the once glorious orb.

The disease that infected Althanas was stupidity.

Nearly every person had moments outright wrought with idiocy. The Ixian Knights decided not to conquer Corone with an iron fist, the Golden Dawn disappeared every couple of weeks before they could even get off the ground, and even Misery Business was viewed as more brawn than brains by the majority of Althanas. Zack Blaze saw this sickness that infiltrated such important organizations and set out to give the patients a good old fashioned cure.

He would recruit the meatheads and train them to become just as intellectually strong as he was. With enough solders of strength, Blaze would be able to roll through a country no problem and accomplish something the Ixian Knights never wished to achieve. He would play the planet as though he were a puppet master and everybody else was a marionette. Every breathing thing would learn to fear the Three Stock, Misery Business, and Zack Blaze.

The arena for his exhibition match was a reflection of Zack's own thoughts on this. All around him stood and sat diseased people. Coughs and hacks echoed throughout the small markets and sweat dripped from the soon-to-be dead people. The Eiskalt Mastermind covered his mouth with the cloth of his hat to avoid inhaling the same air as the plague filled plebes. Soon, his opponent would arrive and the founder of the Three Stock would be able to give him both a physical and educational lesson. He bounced up and down as he awaited the latest addition to his roster.

Another meat headed jock who would one day be revered as a genius.

((Closed to Jack Frost))

Jack Frost stepped through the door not knowing what to expect. The letter had arrived with no name, just simple instructions and the promise of gold at the end. Being a sellsword this was all he needed in order to show up at the mysterious Three Stock. As the door shut behind him he glanced around. The air held a sickly green hue to it as several husks of human beings meandered about.

“What a fucked up little arena you seemed to have picked for us.” He muttered loud enough for his opponent to hear him as he rose his hand to his lips. “Tell me, why have I been summoned to this…rather sick little fantasy of yours. Do you have some greater purpose or are we simply here to kill each other for good fun?” His words leaked between his fingers in a cloud of fog.

The Frozen Butcher of Salvar unsheathed his mythril longsword with his free hand and scowled under his gloved hand. A peasant moved to reveal his opponent bouncing slightly as he readied himself to go. This seemed to be a game to him, not a contest. Jack planned on teaching him otherwise.

"Why have you been summoned?" Zack placed a hand upon his heart as though he were shot through the chest, "Jack Frost, you misunderstand me completely. First of all, you were not summoned, but chosen. Out of all the people I could have invited to my little corner of Althanas, I chose you to be one of the first greeted into the fold. Misery Business would love to have a person of your considerable skills counted as one of their own, and I felt the need to test out said skills myself."

A commoner stumbled past the street fighter, a frail old woman clothed in a brown robe. The brawler sneered at the break in his vision and pushed the back of the decrepit woman. She fell to the ground with a loud thud and convulsed a bit upon the dirty earth as a cloud of dust rose up from her twitchy body. Zack looked down at the elder and spat upon her. A group gathered and gasped at the ill treatment of the geriatric but Blaze simply rolled his shoulders as though he were ready for a brawl.

These were illusions he created after all, it was not like they mattered in the grand scheme of things. He smiled as he looked to Jack and saw no reaction from the sell swords face. He gave no surprise that the brawler knew his name or that he treated 'someone' so poorly. Perhaps he thought of these people as mere mirages as well, or maybe he just did not have the patience to care.

"The reason you were chosen, dear Jack," Zack spoke but never finished the sentence as he instantly disappeared from his opponent's line of sight. In an instant, the street fighter was behind his foe, his right hand thrown out towards the back of the frost mercenary's neck. "Is because you're an idiot!"

Jack immediately spun around as his opponent finished his sentence. He narrowly sidestepped Zack’s punch, watching his fist sail past his face. ‘He smells like…peaches and apricots?’ Jack thought to himself. He scowled as he jumped away from Zack Blaze and spat.

“You don’t waste any time do you?” Jack hissed brandishing his sword. He focused in his gaze. ‘If he can teleport distance doesn’t matter too much, I just have to make sure he doesn’t land any hits.’ His eyes shifted from his foe to the environment. The fog was obscuring his vision, and if the warriors couldn’t see well ranged attacks would be useless. It was all going to be up close and personal.

“All eyes on me Jackov!” Blaze roared as he sent a massive fireball the mercenary’s way. The frozen man hissed and snatched a grungy looking old man and tossed him in front of him and watched as the man burst into flames, stopping the motion of the attack.

“You’re pretty quick to call me stupid…” Jack growled as he snapped his fingers. He pulled the moisture from the air and formed a long crystalline sword of ice in his free hand. “It’s fucking on” he dashed forward closing the gap with ease and spun gracefully taking two slashes at the man, his icy sword aiming for his chest, and the mythril blade slashing at his throat.

The callous attitude young Jack Frost had for the illusions of the arena made Zack smile. Someone with such apathy would fit right along in the street fighters army of obedient, sentient muscle heads. Many more villagers huddled around the elderly gentleman that now smelled of burned hair and flesh while some good samaritans even tried to make an effort to put out the last flame remnants with blankets. As the commoners tended to the increasing number of fatalities, Jack dashed forward with an azure blade.

The ice was exactly the reason why Blaze chose the cold blooded hot head into his fold. With the control over water, and more importantly moisture, the brawler had someone who could one day be on par with Ashla Icebreaker. The mere thought of the Eiskalt princess made goosebumps rise upon the skin of the master manipulator. One day, he would smash the heir's head in with his own fists, and prove once and for all he was a better fighter than she could ever hope to be. That would be a long time from now, however, and Zack knew he needed to focus on his current opponent.

The dual blades tried to strike at two different areas; the mercenary wanted to end the battle quickly with a fatal blow from the outset. He jumped backwards as the first slash with the ice sword flew by and met with air, he ducked during the second slash and the attempt to run his neck through with the dagger. He smiled as he reared a fist behind him from his crouched position. Close combat was exactly what Zack Blaze needed to win the match quickly. As Jack tried to recover from his three hit strike, the brawler jettisoned up with his fist. The warriors patented Scene Stealing Uppercut would most likely launch the frosty foe into a nearby disease ridden hut if it connected.

"Stupidity and idiocy are two different things, frosty balls. Stupidity can not be fixed, but I hope to cure you of your being an idiot!"

Pain shot through Jack’s face as the punch connected. Stars lit his vision and…the background turned to red? The sellsword did not have much time to contemplate the odd phenomenon as he flew through the air and crashed violently through the roof off a nearby hut. Groaning he rolled over and assessed his situation.

The hut was small, barely big enough to house three vagrants lying down, but had its purposes. Quickly the frozen fighter grabbed a shard of splintered wood and smashed his way out of the back of the shoddy shack, putting the wreckage between him and his foe as it collapsed. Grinning he huffed out a breath of air and drew three ice spikes from its moisture before sending it flying backwards towards where he thought his opponent was going to charge. With that taken care of he took his splinter of wood and stabbed into a nearby bystander’s throat and pulling it out, making sure it was coated with the victim’s blood.

Time to see how quickly this plague could spread through someone.

The street fighter placed a hand above his eyes as he whistled at Jack's airborne form. A smile stayed upon his features as he brought the hand down to give himself a small round of applause for the move. The crowd wandered past as though his battle were no more important than a grain of dust upon the ground.

"A perfect shot by Blaze," he spoke in a soft voice, his tone nearly a whisper, "and with that it looks like he's well on his way to making the par four for this course."

He could he rustles from the small house where his opponent was forcibly inserted and raised an eyebrow. Chunks of wood, straw, and what seemed to be icicles flew out from the house and screeched towards the street fighter. Zack's eyes widened as he threw three small uppercuts in rapid succession from one another and fireballs to counter the frozen attack. The flames did a good job of shortening the ice shards to smaller, dagger sized projectiles as they flew out from a cloud of suddenly formed steam.

He bobbed and weaved through the trio of ice like projectiles and began to run towards the hut from whence they came. As he managed his form through the large hole in the hut, he caught the sight of his opponent as he assaulted an illusion. "That's the ticket, Jackov! You're using your surroundings! There is hope for you yet!"

He jumped into the air, his feet aimed towards the shoulders of his opponent. Blaze's hope was to literally run down his opponent and leave him prone on the ground. With any luck, the fool would stay down and learn how a real brawler battled.