Redemption Bracket: Amber Eyes Vs BlackAndBlueEyes

[Silence Sei]

Battle begins tonight at 12:01 AM Central Standard Time! Whose Eyes will be left puffy and unusable?! Begin!

[BlackAndBlueEyes]

"But Maaaaadison," the chubby, freckled blonde walking behind me groaned, "This place is creepy. Like, it's giving me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies."

"Put a cork stopper in it, Nell."

The two of us were walking along a dusty old path in the deep recesses of Concordia near Radasanth, kept in line by the lush vegetation and thick trunks of towering trees several hundred years old. Ahead of us lie the decrepit ruins of an old fort, the crumbled stone walls long ago blasted through in a seige lost in the pages of history. Beyond the densely-woven canopy overhead, you could hear the birds chirping in the beautiful summer sun.

"I just don't see why you have to keep agreeing to participate in these silly little fights, is all." Behind me, I could hear the rustling of metal inside the cloth sack Nell had slung over her shoulder as she adjusted the weight to make things more comfortable for herself.

I turned my head around briefly, catching her gaze out of the corner of my eye. "Because, dear, every good scientist, wizard, and tinkerer knows that you can't just try something once and expect the results to be satisfactory." I swung my mechanized right arm around in the air, jabbing lightly at an opponent that wasn't there.

"That man... thing on the beach caught your punch as if it were nothing," Nell huffed. What she said was true; my last opponent was perhaps a little bit too much of a match for me, but you wouldn't ever catch me admitting that out loud.

"But that's why we continue to experiment the capabilities of my arm, to see what it can and cannot do," I flatly pointed out. I had gone through great lengths to acquire my knowledge of artificing, and paid dearly for it both mentally and physically. I needed to make sure that my ill-gotten gains weren't for nothing, and I figured that shattering skulls and caving in rib cages in one of the many combat tournaments that popped up on Althanas was as good an excuse as any.

The blonde muttered something I couldn't quite make out as we continued down the dirt forest path. Several minutes passed before we were in the entryway of the old, abandoned fort. The insides were, thankfully, not as torn up as the outside walls. Whereas the perimeter was torn to hell, the interior simply looked as if it had been raided—that is, there was shit all over the floors but at least the structure appeared as if it wasn't going to collapse on Nell, myself, and my opponent, which is a nice consolation.

I stepped over an upturned wooden chair as I made my way into the foyer. Someone, one of the tournament's organizers perhaps, was kind enough to put fresh candles in the candelabras to provide some lighting in the old fort. I scanned my surroundings for a bit, to familiarize myself with the place in preparation for my upcoming scrap. Against a far wall, I noticed a wooden bench that was still somehow intact. Before I could open my mouth about it, Nell had already noticed and and had made a bee-line for it, looking to rest her weary feet after a long morning's walk lugging my repair kit and spare arm parts.

I took a deep breath of the stale air in the dead fortress, and walked over to the bench—nearly tripping on some debris in the process—and sat down beside my assistant, waiting for my opponent to show up.

[Amber Eyes]

Sorry to do this to you BABE, but I'm pulling Kyla from the Magus. Good luck with the rest of your battles!

[Max Dirks]

BlackandBlueEyes advances to Round 2 of the Redeption Bracket!

Amber Eyes has been eliminated.