Every Single Step {The Mongrel v Logan McCloud -- CLOSED}

[Logan]

Logan's aggression was at an all-time high and he needed to relieve some of the pent up frustration. The favorite choice for taking care of such was the Citadel, always the Citadel. There was something to fighting a foe one on one and going all out, especially with the knowledge even if he were to die he would be revived by the Ai'Brone monks.

With a smirk, he twisted the doorknob leading to his chosen arena which was a throwback to one of his favorite battle arenas from his past. He slid through the door with a bounce to his step, and as his feet touched the tiled floor he grinned wide at the sight of the two large sliding glass doors. The entire panes opened before him as he got close. He took a step back, and they closed. The psion knew the magic involved in such a contraption had to be immense.

As he passed through the sliding glass doors, he moved up to a couple of rows of counters upon which sat devices he learned of long ago. With the right sequence of buttons pushed, a hidden drawer would spring open and make a 'cha-ching' sound. If he were lucky enough, gold pieces would be his prize. He quickly pressed a bunch of buttons over and over until eventually the drawer sprang open revealing no gold pieces. Logan pocketed the few pieces of paper in the drawer and then closed it. The paper was worthless, but he figured it might come in handy for some purpose later.

Making he way down one of the sixteen aisles, he paused as his eyes fell upon the all too familiar plastic swords. For some reason in that arena the swords at his sides were useless, but the plastic swords hanging beside him were quite useful. He grabbed a couple and ripped them from their cardboard prisons and slid them into the inside of his trenchcoat. His eyes bounced around, and then stopped at an array of tiny brightly colored building blocks.

He knew from experience they made fantastic caltrops if spilled out on the floor, so he grabbed several packages and tossed a couple hundred of the blocks all over the floor of the aisle. If he was lucky, his foe might trip on them or injure themselves. Brandishing the plastic swords, he crouched down behind the end of the aisle and laid in wait.

[The Mongrel]

Radasanth.

Home.

It was good to see it again, the outline of blocky buildings against muddy farmland. It was good to walk its cobblestone streets, to slip around the docks and ghettos like a part of the night. There had been too much running in Raiaera, too much of Pode's deadly forest, too much of Pode herself. There had been too many accolades amid too many sneers. Now officially claimed as a member of my brother's house, I was technically a noble. But that would never change that I will always be a blighted halfbreed.

When given the chance to change that, to become the pure high elf whose life would be much better, I ultimately decided that if I wasn't good enough for them as I was, they weren't worth changing for. But the "honor" of having been the one to strike the final blow to that lying witch had taken its toll. I was recognizable, for one thing.

For another, I'd killed a would-be goddess. Part of me thought I was invincible. Probably Illara. The other part, probably Zarae, thought that was a dangerous attitude to have. So I needed to get my ass kicked.

The safest place to do that was the Citadel, where the mighty went to test their strength. I could have someone do me the favor of kicking my head in until I remembered that in a world of the powerful, I'm still just a mongrel cur.

I removed my green contacts before motioning to the monk that I wanted a room. No matter how well you'll be revived, you don't want shards of glass embedded into your eyeballs. He looked me up and down. "Your weapons will be useless."

I frowned; my weapons were part of my hands. But better forewarned. I nodded, and he ushered me into an arena.

The strange place was set up like a store, except the lights were strange, and so were the objects. Rows of chattering machines and aisles of toys lined up neatly within the smoothly-tiled area. What the hell is this place? Some sort of toy store?

I passed the money machines, looking at the belts that led to them and the alcove in which a person could stand. A button beneath the register read "Alarm!" I breathed, braced, and pushed. All lights cut out, except for flashing blues, and a shrill ringing exploded through the air, cutting through my skull like a knife.

Take it, filter it, ignore it. That wasn't going to be easy, but it would also be distracting to my opponent.

I hurried to the aisles, looking for weapons. Strange swords made of flimsy material - I took one. Strange bows and arrows that were even flimsier. The heads seemed to be some sort of empty rubber half-balls. I took some of those. I still didn't see anyone, but I didn't want to be the last one to the party, so I clambered up the shelves and hunkered down on top. I looked for any heat signature, arrow nocked and ready for action.

[Logan]

Logan lay in wait, patiently thinking over the plan in his mind. At least until the ear-piercing siren wail of the alarm and the sudden onset strobe of the blue lights. Each forced the psion to breathe deep and tune out everything but his singular goal, to find and eliminate his opponent as quickly and efficiently as possible. Perhaps they too were caught off guard, and were disoriented by the sights and sounds of the unfamiliar.

The psion glanced up at a mirrored surface in the corner which showed him a good view of the entire aisle in front of him, and the area to either side. The one thing it did not seem to afford him was a look at his foe, who remained an unknown factor, at least for the moment. A couple of deep breaths preceded him sprinting from his hiding spot to one a couple of aisles over.

A small house made of a plastic material and colored in bright pinks afforded an excellent cover as he attempted to sneak his way inside. Well, it would have if the entrance was just a wee bit too small to fit through. Instead of offering the perfect cover, it became an unfortunate hindrance. He practically wore the plastic house, which if he was lucky might offer some resistance to the many magical bits of mystical merchandise his opponent might consider for use.

[The Mongrel]

There you are. My mouth pulled up into a smirk. Human, obviously. Only a human or an orc could make enough noise to be heard over a blaring alarm. Of the two, only a human would try to hide in something much too small for him. The orc would have just knocked over my shelf and been done with it.

Somehow, I suspected that the human would make more mess than ten orcs. It was just their way.

I leaped from my original perch to the next aisle to get a better vantage on the stumbling, bumbling creature. His head and shoulders were lodged firmly in a dollhouse. "Careful, there. Some little girl will get very upset if you break her dolly's tea set."

I loosed my arrow into the biggest, tenderest unprotected spot. "And you do know that if you're having high tea, the table setting is completely different than for casual tea, do you not? Have you even been invited into the parlor?" I shot another arrow, this time at a window. I didn't intend to hit him with that, but he was already in a ridiculous position. Might as well rub it in.

[Logan]

One advantage a moderately-small plastic toy house had over wooden houses of the same style was lighter weight. Logan was able to swing around at the first words, and the entire house swung with him. His face protruded from a small opening used as a window, and he grimaced half-hunched over. His opponent got the drop on him, and he muttered an incoherent curse under his breath.

As the makeshift arrows took flight, he swung the house to and fro, his upper body swaying back and forth like an enraged serpent or dragon. The plastic swords he intended to use were worthless inside the house, that was until he managed to secure them in his hands and push them through the other two small window openings. Sure, it wasn't the most agile of armor, but it might prove effective if he used it just right.

Taking the offensive, Logan thrust his upper body forward a few times toward the creature who he still had no name for, then twisted to one side and flailed the plastic sword wildly in front of him in hopes of gaining a small bit of distraction. All the while, he focused his essence on her windpipe, slowly suffocating her from within. It would take quite the jolt to break his concentration or to break her free.

[The Mongrel]

I felt the invisible hand clamp down on my throat, starting to slowly squeeze. For a moment I tensed; I'd been strangled nearly to death only recently, at the hands of the Red Witch herself. I tried to breathe in, but it burned my lungs. I was going to have to stop this challenger quickly if I didn't want to suffocate - and I DIDN'T want to suffocate.

My left hand gripped Elendethoa, the legendary sword that had slain the Forgotten One, and I willed it to activate.

Another me appeared below, slashing at the caster's face. She wasn't real, neither was her weapon, but she would serve as a distraction.

I launched from my perch the second she appeared, drawing my false sword on the way down. I tumbled and twisted in the air, landing lightly behind him in the barely-lit aisle, and I stabbed upward, trying to get into the dollhouse and his vital organs. I'd take any sort of ass kicking, provided the opponent was capable. It was what I'd come for. Any kind of ass kicking... but not strangulation.

[Logan]

The distraction definitely worked, long enough for his opponent to leap behind him. Logan couldn't quite reach the imaginary foe, though, so he had to turn sideways so his one arm could actually reach it. In doing so, as unfortunate as it may have been for his foe, the psion effectively parried the toy sword thrust without realizing it. The faux foe felt quick real to the psion, looked quite real to the psion, acted quite real to the psion, but as it began to actually land a blow or two, he realized it was nothing more than illusion magic.

The thrust at his backside, which quickly had become his actual side, bounced off the plastic house much as one would expect a plastic toy sword to bounce off a plastic toy house. The psion attempted to sieze the opportunity, and wiggled his toy sword to and fro aiming for the face of his true opponent. If the blow hit, it would spell the end, surely. He readied for a counter, though, just in case.

[The Mongrel]

Wild flailing. He'd neatly joined the fray with the illusion, and with me he was flailing, just like a faun would do in an alligator's lake. I have more than half a century of experience, I am one of the top members of one of Corone's most wide-reaching criminal networks, and he dares wriggle like a child? He dares?!

I clenched my toes, flattening the ridges on the bottoms of my boots, and slid backward, withdrawing my sword. I saw my opponent ready another attack, crouching low and readying his blade, but he was moving at the speed of humanity; slow in the moment of need. Maybe next century he'd be timely. Of course, he wasn't going to last that long.

I kicked off, charging him at speeds a galloping horse couldn't match. He stood, ready to meet me in mortal combat, but that wasn't my intention. Halfway into my charge, I swung my sword, flinging a melange of bouncing rubber balls and marbles at his face. The blue lights flickered with the alarm's blares. Loud and dark, bright and quiet.

In one of those moments, I was up and over the shelves, in an aisle with so much armament the Alerian army would be envious. All of it was obnoxiously colored and fake, naturally, and the ammunition looked like sponge, but the laws of reality were different in the arena.

Waste not, want not, as the humans say.

I started arming myself.

[Logan]

Logan was only mildly prepared for the onslaught of balls and marbles, barely able to steady himself as he wiggled this way and that among the most annoying of attacks. He wouldn't be able to muster much more offense so long as he remained stuck in the toy house, and so, as he saw a flash of his opponent flying expertly over the top of the aisle, he rammed the house into the same side of the aisle she just leaped over.

The plastic sides of the house buckled and broke apart, finally freeing him into the openness of the store once more. The two were on more equal footing, and the psion was fairly certain he could best her if he truly put his mind to it. He slinked to the end of the aisle, readying ten of the small robot men and setting them free down the aisle. It was a diversion, but he was only half-hoping she would fall for it. What would be the fun in an easy kill?

[The Mongrel]

Gears grinded beneath the sound of the alarms, making high-pitched, desperate whirrs that nonetheless sent chills racing down my spine.

Fuck no. I am not dealing with this Alerian shit today. There were times I couldn't even deal with my life-long mechanical spider, Oscar. I slid to the other end of the aisle in an instant, and there I found a net full of large balls. What the hell. A quick yank sent them flooding to the robots, and I scooted to the next aisle, one that was littered with a mix of blocks. It was good enough.

I held there, rifle aimed toward my front, peripheral vision watching my sides, and pistols at my hips. Wasn't this what humans liked? To go out in a blaze of glory?