2v2 Argentum Astrum Vs. Morituri te Salutant

[Christoph]

This battle will end in Three weeks. Best of luck to both competitors.

[Chromanon Rockskin]

"Keep away from the windows!" Chromanon shrieked as another one exploded in a shower of glass and dust. A diamond mist floated in the sunbeams that snaked through the broken shards of the window edges. The building itself, a large warehouse filled with unmarked crates and barrels, was shaking. The kendergoyle could feel the foundation below her bucking and shaking as if it were in a seizure, the screaming and groans of the walls and rooftop even more evidence of the pain that the building was thrown into. Through it all, the little kender felt cheated.

She had never had the intention to bring the tournament to a war zone. In fact, she'd expected an arena not unlike the last one that they'd been placed at. Cheering crowds, and the sweat and heat of bodies pressing in as the tensions spiraled up and around them; that was a tournament to her. Instead, she'd come through the door and found herself on an intersection of cratered streets. The horizon beyond the silhouettes of rooftops was in a blaze, fires and billows of thick black smoke obscuring the heavens. She'd only had a few moments to stare in wonder and confusion as a few bruished and bloody people pushed past her in their mad dash down the street before the cannon shots started.

She could almost feel the tension in the air shift as the iron balls went whistling overhead, the boom and thunder of the explosions creating a bass wave that she could feel in her very bones. Sides of buildings were struck, stone and wood raining down, and Chromanon had done the only thing she could think of. She took cover in the warehouse right in front of her. After all, the doors were already open, and the walls were strangely unmarked even though all the buildings around it were falling under fire.

When she'd come in, she could have sworn she saw the shadows of others moving through the aisles of stacked crates, felt eyes stare at her through the slats and expanses of the strangely lit room. Had Dagon already arrived? Or perhaps, they were her opponents, just out of sight and ready to get the first attack in. Even though another cannon landed in the street outside, the shatter of glass letting her know that another window had been reduced to an open space among the bricks, she steeled herself for battle.

This was an arena made for survivors, and no one knew better than Chromanon how hard it was to kill a kender.

[Abomination]

It was a scene of rolling, green fields. A strong breeze blew through the grass, passing over the rushing stream and over the hill beyond it. The stream itself flowed very quickly, and it looked like anything that fell in would find itself displaced in very short order.

Further down the stream, beyond the battlefield of the first round, a hand was resting on the ground near the stream. It was a hand colored in a very light shade of pink, and the arm that was connected to it was in the stream. The hand was motionless for a while, with steam coming off the newly-formed skin. Another hand burst out of the stream, splashing water all over the ground. Now, both the arms were in motion, and they pulled an equally-pink body out of the water. Homun rested on the ground, his body free of any wounds and afflictions he suffered in the battle. His memory was hazy. There was... a wagon... that hit him. Then, it got blurry until he found himself nearly falling to pieces. Finally, something enormous hit him and flung him into the stream. That was what he knew, but what to make of it was entirely impossible. However, he knew that it was his partner's fault; Tobias Battalion's. He vowed revenge, at any cost.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The scene around him was confusing at best, yet he didn't question it. All the events that were transpiring around him were completely blocked out of his mind. None of the injured, the soon-to-be-injured, nor the uninjured had what he described as a 'white outline' around them. The white outline was important, because only his opponents could possess them. Only those strong enough to consider assimilating. He had no capacity to notice the warehouse that was exempt from the carnage, yet he noticed the child-like figure entering it. He only caught a brief glimpse of her figure, but it displayed a very noticeable white aura. Perhaps he saw something else in the figure, but the aura was real. It surpassed the simple outline, and went into full-blown glowing that was a sign of real power; someone that was clearly stronger than himself.

Still, he could not find himself grinning as he usually did. He walked along the stone road, completely oblivious to the people moving around him, to the explosions in the distance, and to the bits of shrapnel coming dangerously close to decapitating him. A small building to his right burst into flames, its windows immediately shattering and sending their bits flying at Homun. Not even looking at it, he raised his hand so it blocked the shards aimed at his face, and they stuck into his palm. The blast blew wind and glass across him and flung his hair across his face. The sweet ecstasy of pain, the shards sinking into his skin, then pushed out again through the force of his strange body. His mouth hung slightly open the whole time, showing the top portions of his carnivorous teeth. The wounds in his hands started healing slowly, and would be gone within minutes.

Coming to the warehouse, he walked inside. It was a well-lit area, with stacks of crates and other cargo around. Immediately upon entering, he saw a... child? It was a small creature for certain, yet the aura around her gave her a much larger height than his own. In the same vein of praising her alleged power, he also lambasted her appearance. After his encounters with his partner Tobias, he had come to hate children. To find another one here, in this tournament supposedly for the best, was more than frustrating.

After all, there was another thing that sobered him lately, a thought that threatened to contradict his very existence and motivation: Some assimilations had more disadvantages than advantages, ergo they were not worth it. He knew that his assimilation in the last round was one of those, and that it almost got him wiped out entirely. So, when presented with the opportunity to assimilate another child, should he take it? Would he be able to stop himself, after seeing this aura? These were the thoughts that made him quiet today, dulled his usual tenacity, and cast a light of doubt into his mind. He couldn't bring himself to make the first move for once, he had to wait.

Not bothering to mask his gritty, beastly voice, he asked, "Is this it?"

His hand found its way to his sword's sheath and drew the blade, pointing it at his... opponent.

"Till death do us part."

[Papa Dagon]

The only enjoyable smoke was the kind after a long drag and, sadly enough, the shaman’s stash of herbs had run empty for some time now. From a distance, Dagon had only seen the sky warped by heat, a sight not so uncommon in the warmer days of a Coronian summer; yet, after surmounting an unusually steep hillock, he fell witness to a scene of dread. Smoke, smoke and smoke. The field ahead was naught but choked in smoke, a shroud that climbed up the blue, spreading like a murky infection, spreading like a cancer. At its origin, he saw roots of licking flames, devouring the beaten paths of a village, roaring atop the shingles, crowning the trees in vicious red and gold.

And, at its heart, he saw people run, people fall – people suffocate.

The springs in his legs unwound and Dagon hared down the hill, holding his crummy top hat steady on his dreadlocked head with each downward, bounding step. All thought of his earlier goal, of the tournament where he was headed and the match he was to fight, had slipped out one ear under the force of a moral wallop. On the outskirts of the hamlet was he assailed by a wave of scorch, windows and walls bursting on all sides as unseen round shots tore into brick and glass.

More booms in the distance, more strident songs of plummeting iron, more screams as he stepped farther inside to find anyone stuck in dire straits. There was a loud explosion at his heels; dirt and hard chunks pelted him from behind, but the sheer force of the blast wave was what had sent him tumbling. Dagon spun midair to land on his back, the ground punching all the wind out of his lungs. Cursing and blessing, the shaman wheezed, wasting no time to get back on his feet.

“Spirits below! Where are all the damned people?” Dagon was flummoxed by the sudden absence of screams – screams were, after all, testimony of life. He felt that the observation had some profound meaning, but the man damn well knew this was no time to philosophize. What was important right now was the fact that he’d jumped into the frying pan, expecting to save a few villagers from the a slow-cooking demise, but would soon suffer that very fate for a big handful of nothing at all. Had they found shelter in their homes, or beneath the earth in hidden shelters?

Soot had turned his face from dark to black, the charring heat had cracked his lips and the smoke, oh the smoke was finally getting to him, and all the puffs of tobacco he’d taken in his life would not change this fact. “I’ll die surrounded by fumes, and I won’t even see any rainbows. Ah, samfi mon Kalfu, when did you turn your back on me?” Though the spirit of misfortune gave him no answer, the shaman gambled the last minutes of his life that the bastard was now smothering a laugh. Dagon would never know, but his bet had been dead right, and that had won him twice the wager.

Unfortunately, that meant a death twice as slow.

In front of him was a lone warehouse, doors left open, standing tall and untouched by the ravenous hands of fire. Not a single thought was needed to throw himself into the building. As soon as he hit the slick flooring, he felt a coolness spread directly on his skin, through the burnt patches of his shirt and long coat. Grey wisps seeped from his clothes, foul-smelling plumes of singed leather and perhaps singed skin, but he was still moving – or, at the very least, twitching. Dagon struggled on all fours, taking full benefit of the somewhat cleaner air of that reigned storehouse. In all honesty though, he’d have traded a hundred of those mouthfuls for the sweet kiss of a single cigarette.

Looking up, his thoughts fled once more: no train of thought could withstand the likes of Chromanon Rocksin. For one thing, the mere sight of the kender was so mind-bogglingly potent that it alone gave him a deathly headache – and she hadn’t even spoken yet. But no, that had only been the initial shock of seeing her, and as it vanished he saw the rise of the one, true question: ‘Baron take all, what is she doing here?’ This kendergoyle, who he’d come to know affectionately as Chroma, was his colleague in Argentum Astrum, a secret cabal of wandering mages. She was also his teammate in the tournament which he had previously all but forgotten. She was, lastly, not supposed to be here.

‘Was she?’

Only then did he saw a pale man, blond of mane and red of eyes, stand not far from the black-haired child. Dagon’s brows furrowed at the sight of his drawn blade, pointed tauntingly at the kender. With that, a theory came to him, one that was none too pleasant: if Chroma was here, and if this man was here to oppose them... ‘Then this is our arena… and in a village ravaged by fire, the tournament unravels.’ Only minutes ago, he’d seen from afar a group of children scarper in all directions, faces and clothes bloodied and marred by the cuts of shrapnel. He’d seen lone limbs about the crash sites, strewn here and there in piles of burning rubble. Even here, the smell of sizzling blood could reach and burned fat wetted his chapped lips.

There, amidst a broken square of dusty barrels and unlabeled crates, Dagon stood at last. He swore, stretching his lips so wide they bled and revealed gritting teeth. “This… is bloody twisted.”

[Toy Soldier]

Two arms of chocolate complexion firmly held the body of a friend as his severely wounded companion struggled to further cling to this realm of vitality with every bone, tendon, and muscle in his small, lithe frame. The mouth of the dying one gargled blood, unresponsive to the crimson liquid flowing out of his mouth like a hot waterfall. Sweat caused by involuntary shaking as well as the intense flames that licked seemingly every aspect of the town drenched the injured boy and further dampened his torn bloodstained garments.

“Hold on Mikey! Hold on!” Such was the plea that the child’s brain urged its vassal to yell, despite the futility of such actions. However, the laconic statement was clearly due to the panic, fear, and sheer terror that claimed the orphan’s heart and body as their new domicile. How did all of this happen so fast and so suddenly? Surely these were inquiries that Tobias desperately desired to seek answers for.

After he’d entered the Toy World at the conclusion of the first round battle, Talisman Grail had him open a gateway to yet another location that he’d pin pointed on the large map nailed to the wall in his study. The young orphan was learning to ask very few questions and simply did as he was told. Much to his astonishment, the black door portal led him to Grassy Tree, which was a town adjacent to Woodsy Green, the town that Battalion hailed from as well as the host for the battleground of the previous round.

The enigmatic nature engulfing his Toy World companions in addition to their hidden motives bothered Tobias, but all such concerns were erased when he was playfully tapped on the shoulder by a fair skinned, rosy cheeked, blonde haired boy. “Remember me?” A bright and youthful smile revealed that his teeth varied in size. Several thin and small molars mixed with larger canines set the young one at about two years Tobias’ junior.

Tobias didn’t have the best memory, but he never forgot the face of a friend. “Mikey!” Battalion dropped the handle of his wagon and greeted his Oak Grove Orphanage comrade with a long over due hug. Pleasantries were exchanged, and Mikey told Tobias that the social workers from Oak Grove had brought a few of the children into town to do some toy shopping. The young mage reminisced over the fond times when he had been apart of those excursions. But foul memories of his wrongdoings within the orphanage soon plagued his mind, and a sour countenance overtook him. “H..How ‘bout we go get some ice cream from Mr. Sandy Hands Shoppe!” Mikey concurred and ran off without bothering to reconnect with the chaperoned group that he elusively dodged. Back when Tobias still roamed the halls of Oak Grove, him and Mikey were always the rebellious ones.

But everything came to an end here.

Like a sudden storm, dirt roads of the small town quaked like a light earthquake. Windows not securely fastened in their sills shook slightly. Street chatter ceased as puzzled expressions washed over every denizen of Grassy Tree. Silence carried through the ambiance, but ominous wind broke that as it struck wind chimes loosely hanging at the corner of residential roofs.

*Ting*………*Ting*………….*Ting*……

The soft jingles soon brought in the storm that doused the town in flames. An amalgamation of heavily armed soldiers emblazoned with the Coronian Empire’s seal on their armor marched through streets, kicking up dirt and detritus, setting ablaze anything that was animate or inanimate in its path. Resistors that somehow managed to avoid a fiery death were treated to a healthy dose of steel that dropped bodies instantly.

In the chaotic sea of screaming, fleeing bodies, Mikey and Tobias were separated. However, such momentary severance served as the death knell for young Mikey who caught four crossbow arrows in the chest. Tobias would’ve met a similar fate had he not dove to the ground when he did. But there was no time to worry about his own well-being. Unfortunately, no amount of prayer or supplication would free his friend from the looming clutches of death. Mikey Kearls died in Tobias’ arms with a face that would be forever frozen with terror.

Kneeled in the roads, caked in kicked up earth, a shocked Tobias lifted his head upward, resting his eyes on the sign of the nearby Mr. Sandy Hands Ice Cream Shoppe.

“We were almost……there. We were almost there!” Already on the brink of losing his mind at the beginning of this entire ordeal, the death of his longtime ally pushed him over the edge. Grasping Mikey’s soulless body, the orphan dragged it and slumped the corpse into his wagon. The cadaver sloshed around in its leaking red fluid as it quickly filled the four-wheeled contraption. “You were supposed ta' have some….ice cream.”

The blank, hollow look in Tobias’ eyes told of one that became dead to the world, sloppily pulling a corpse via his wagon through burning debris and over maimed, bloody appendages. The fleshly obstacles were of no concern though. “I’m gonna' get you some…..ice cream Mikey. Just you wait!”

It seemed as if nothing could stop the child’s senseless voyage to the ice cream shop, save a quick end from one of the rampaging soldiers. However, a glimpse of a hooded and masked figure in the distance caught the boy’s eye. This ominous figure stood motionless and apathetic as he observed the destruction like an evil god, pleased with the fresh sacrifices before him. “He’s behind this!!!” Tobias hadn’t recognized this foe, but saw that some of the bloodied soldiers were reporting in to him. Wildly he chased after the newfound enemy all while yanking the wagon from behind him. But buildings collapsed nearby, thus truncating the straight path to the shrouded adversary. Instinctively, the child turned in the opposite direction, weaving through the flaming chaos in an attempt search out the masked leader. He wasn’t sure if his detour was bringing him closer or away from him, but his fury refused to allow any thinking that would’ve deterred from his path. Instead, he was equipped with a one-track mind that demanded the finding and execution of the enemy that brought such destruction upon Grassy Tree.

After some time, Tobias came to a warehouse. Strangely it was one of the very few buildings relatively untouched by the blaze. Under alternative circumstances, this would’ve been marveled as nothing short of a God sent miracle, yet in the eyes of a crazed and vengeful youngster trained by Eluriand song mages, he saw this edifice as nothing more than a bastion for the evil that’d blanketed this once peaceful municipality. Some figures scurried about in the more obscure parts of the depot but it didn’t matter. They were all villains as far as Tobias was concerned.

“GeNoCiDe……………….”

[Max Dirks]

I've been asked to step in and judge this round.

Homunculus and Toy Soldier win.