The Final Cage

[Ther]

(Roster: Molotov, Christina Bredith, Arsenic Ruin, Izvilvin, Rheawien, Witchblade, Walter, Dissinger, Abenaki, Komosatuo, hushpuppy, Storm Veritas, INDK, Ter-Thok)

No long introductory post this time. Just a FYI with the final cell: it is 30 feet wide, 70 feet long, and 30 feet high, and it rests on a dirt floor.

Also, do NOT post in this thread until 12 A.M. E.S.T. All posts from before that time will not be considered in the final score.

[Dissinger]

“Seth, you awake?” Liliana asked softly.

Seth groaned as he sat up on the cot. Bloodied towels were conspicuously placed about the room and seemed to match the hole that was on his chest. As he groaned she fingered the flesh and the edge of the hole, where the steel shards had punctured flesh. He sighed as he said softly, “Like a slate of cheese. Put on a stick and eat…”

“At least you still have a sense of humor,” Liliana said as she kissed him.

“There are some that might question that actually,” Seth said dryly as he kissed her back hugging her.

She sighed as she said, “They put you in the final cage. Guess your show really attracted people. I’m just worried that you’ll be hurt again.”

“Pain is temporary-“

“That doesn’t mean you have to seek it in some twisted sense of penance Seth,” Liliana cut him off. She looked him in the eyes as she sighed and cupped his cheek, “I know this is who you are, a man who tries to hide that he isn’t human. I know a little about it now, Darith shed some light, your father was one too wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know, Darith didn’t like to talk about my father,” Seth replied as he lay back, “And he certainly didn’t like talking about his past, neither did my mother come to think about it. Both of them seemed more keen on living today rather than reflecting on yesterday-“

“Which seems to run in the family,” Liliana said as she pressed a finger against his lips. He seemed ready to say something and she knew the argument before she whispered, “For now just rest, they’re brining in the contestants in a couple of hours and I don’t want you fatigued from dying the last time.”

Seth sighed and closed his eyes as he grumbled, “Then don’t disrupt my sleep.”

~*~

Now his fingers looped through the links as he gave them a hard tug to test their might. He knew that it would be soon that the contestants would fight, it seemed the last few were entering, and he saw the crowd gathered, ready for blood. Sighing as he closed his eyes he whispered softly, “Gods help me if I see that damn elephant one more time.”

[Witchblade]

So she’d made it to the next round.

Even though she’d died, she’d impressed enough people to make it to the end. Oh, wasn’t she just ecstatic knowing the humans had enjoyed her fight and her death. Didn’t it just bring joy into her heart knowing they’d like watching her struggle and eventual defeat. Yes, she was in complete bliss and paradise right now, floating on a f*cking burning cloud that was going to smash into a stadium full of people! Yes, f*cking paradise. If only she could hear the real screams of all those humans fleeing in terror and being burnt alive, then she’d be in paradise.

A choir of singing monks praising the Thayne and love to all the world would just complete her life right now, until of course she slowly killed each and every one of them.

She was in a mood for carnage, she wasn’t pissed at the last round and her defeat therein, she’d lasted long enough. Witch just wanted blood, plain and simple. She wanted it in rivers, she wanted it on her weapons, she wanted it on her skin and she wanted it soaked into her very clothes. She just wanted to watch people bleed and enjoy it like every human piling into the stadium was going to enjoy it.

Taking in a deep breath, Witch looked around at the cage meant to house fourteen warriors, fighters, gladiators or people who just liked punishment. Really she didn’t know what to call the people who participated in this maddened event, including herself. Downright crazy, psychopathic killers, yeah, that sounded pretty good to her.

This cage was slightly bigger than the rest, of course there were more people in it and if she’d thought the last one had been hectic she knew she was in over her head in this one. Of course, having the advantage of more people around her gave her the use of human shields and speaking of that, the human she’d used as one in the previous cell had advanced too. So had the elf-bitch who’d killed her and Izvilvin. The human who’d poisoned her hadn’t, which she was slightly disappointed over. She’d wanted to settle things with him.

Leaning against the cool mesh of the steel cage, Witch watched the people in the stands. No fighting had begun so the humans were milling about and talking to one another, still they sounded like a constant buzz in her ears. If this was the last time she’d ever been in ‘civilization’ this was a last time too many. She wanted away from the crowds and she wanted out of this damn cell already. She hated feeling like an animal in a cage.

All the fighters were in the cage and the door was locked behind them, the turning of the key in the tumbler a resounding sound in her ears. Nothing that couldn’t be broken through, steel was weak; she could probably tear through it with blind strength alone or use her magic like she had last time. She was just not into being locked up this round.

“Friends, I bid you welcome once again!”

Witch sighed as she heard the familiar voice of Mendan Kinnity booming over the buzzing crowd, who quickly silenced themselves. His last speech had been never ending and Witch was not in a mood to listen to that babble anymore.

“As those of you returning to the final round of The Cell know, my name is Mendan Kinnity and I am the director of the Swift Hart Theatre! Unlike my previous speech this will not be as long or as poetic, I am here to thank you for coming and to thank those who participated and lost in the previous round of The Cell. Each warrior died bravely…”

Witch tuned him out right there, “Each warrior died bravely, my ass.” She didn’t know what matches he’d been watching but quite a few of the people in her cell had been backstabbed, literally and she hadn’t exactly died very ‘bravely’ either. She’d been poisoned and then stabbed through the heart by a crazed elf that was jealous over the fact that she knew Izvilvin. Clearly they had marital problems she did not want to get into the middle of.

“…And with that let the final round of The Cell begin!”

Ohhh, the lambs to the slaughter were off! Only she wasn’t stupid enough to step into the middle of the cage and say to every person in here ‘hit me!’ Instead, she was going to calmly keep her ass planted against the mesh on this side of things and wait for the right time, or until someone was stupid enough to attack her first. Either way, she was going to get her blood bath and as long as she wasn’t the one bleeding she was fine with it.

[Lavinian Pride]

They say revenge is a dish best served cold.

All it took was a bit of flesh, a tantalizing scent, and a couple of hurried kisses. It was amazing how quickly guards liked to forget that they had a job to do, especially when they wanted to get something else. The target had been a boy barely past his mid teens, and the prospect of the Lavinian showing him a good time had gotten him to give her easy access. As soon as they were alone in the room the thorn was pulled and before the boy even knew what hit him, had neatly slit his throat. Idly she wiped it on the boy’s shirt as she said softly, “It’s a pity, you probably were my type…”

Moving quickly she closed the door and began to change clothing. She slid easily into the meager chain mail shirt the helmet being carefully placed atop her head. The pants were a bit too loose on her, which didn’t bother her in the least. Using her hair to fill in the gaps in the helmet it held in place precariously. Using a bit of rope she tied the pants tightly, and cinched the rope. However, she needed one last thing, her dagger belt.

Carefully slinging it over her hips she sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror. Grimacing she said softly, “Definitely not going to work.” She then looked at the boy and saw a belt of many pouches. Nodding she carefully took the belt before she carefully slid the daggers inside the pouches, trying to keep her thorns accessible. As she completed her set task she moved through the arena her gate even and steady as she carried the fallen guard’s spear.

Finally reaching the arena, she moved swiftly taking the position amongst the guards patrolling the area surrounding the cage. She could see him, the bastard was just standing there, testing the cage, and it would be so easy. A thrust of the spear right to the chest, which she could see exposed through the hole from its last penetration, and the job would be done, over with, nothing more. However, she knew she had to wait.

Following the guard patterns she watched carefully, she wanted Seth to be broken down, to be fatigued, to be on the ropes before she would take him out of the tournament. It was unfair that she be forgotten over the spectacular Dahlios death. She had been robbed by pain, pain that wasn’t even hers to begin with. She had also been robbed of three hundred gold, something she did not take kindly to. Seth had cost her pride and money.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and she was about to dish it out to the Demon.

[Ter-Thok]

There are some things the ears of man are not meant to process. There are sounds that can bring about a screaming madness with just a moment's exposure. And then, there are those sounds whose true relevance does not become apparent until much, much later in the viewer's life; sounds that seem to mean nothing at face value. But many years later, the viewer will be sitting in a rocking chair, perhaps surrounded by loving grandchildren, and feel a chill run down their spine as they remember.

It was such a series of sounds that was emanating from the tunnels far beneath the seats of the arena, in a little room where urgent business with one's downstairs partners was attended to. A series of hollow, porcelain bangs echoed slightly through the door, ignored by the throng outside, followed by a rather high-pitched voice. It said, "Stop-" bang, "Twitching-" bang, "You-" bang, "Son of-" bang, "A-" bang, "Prostitute!"

Something dropped to the tiled floor behind the wooden door, into which was carved the crude likeness of a male human. It was followed by a scraping, as skin on stone. "Oh, for crying out loud..." the voice said again, followed by a wrenching, metallic sound. The unmistakable clicking of hooves followed for a few moments, then several dull thunks. "Geez, finally," the voice breathed, with a sense of finality.

The men's washroom door swung open, and the demon Ter-Thok, standing less than three feet high, stepped out triumphantly, holding a brass sink faucet covered in blood. He tossed the stained metal cylinder backwards, hearing a slight groan as it bounced off the head of the poor man who had been fool enough to drop his guard (and trousers) while the demon was around. The man was now relieved of his coin purse, several important documents he had, oddly, kept in his pants, and most importantly, his monocle. Ter-Thok clenched the disc of glass proudly in his left eye, and decided to take advantage of his newly acquired funds to make a quick run to the concession stand before the fight started.

Unlike most of the other combatants, Ter-Thok had managed to squeeze out of the last round unscathed. Quite the opposite; he had even made a profit on those collectible trading cards. However, it had been somewhat unfulfilling. The demon hadn't gotten to stab anyone, or electrocute anyone, or anything. His attacks had been limited to failed swipes, falling bars, and running away when the amphitheater caught fire. This was part of his motivation for cornering a rich man in a bathroom and mugging him; the other part was an acute desire for food purchased with someone else's money.

With a massive turkey drumstick clenched in one hand, Ter-Thok made his way out to the arena, occasionally removing a massive chunk with his razor-sharp teeth. Eventually, the crowd thinned, and the click of hooves on stone became the crunch of hooves on dirt. The demon grinned, excavated a piece of meat from his teeth with his tongue, and stepped through the doors of the cage. Looking around, one eye's view distorted by the one-size-too-large monocle, Ter-Thok extricated his ElectroProd from behind his back, flipping around the settings.

He strolled towards the center of the rectangular dirt floor, and spun around, involuntarily scowling as one eye held the monocle in place. He floated up into the air, telekinetically tugging a thin platform of dirt up with him. "Well?" he inquired, somewhat condescendingly, "What are you rejects waiting for? Let's start the murdering...thing."

[Abenaki]

I should be dead... Jada was thinking, the fingers on his left hand picking absently at the swathe of bandages wrapped around his abdomen. He was only partially aware of the cage and the assembled combatants around him, his mind struggling to unravel his mysterious second...no, third chance at life. In the back of his mind he was replaying the end of his battle with Xanith, the first man he had ever truly fought. Xanith had killed himself in the Citadel, but when the arena had dissolved around them Xanith had been unhurt...

Yet, this arena is no illusion, the warrior was thinking, and my wounds are real. So how is it that I still live?

"The Great Spirit smiles upon you." Confidence replied silently. Of all the voices and emotions roiling around in Jada's head, Confidence had temporarily taken command. "You have proven yourself a great warrior! Confidence continued, swelling Jada's chest with pride. "You have proven yourself worthy to fight amongst this gathering of the World's greatest champions!"

The voice named Doubt, who often sat in the back of Jada's thoughts, would have normally rebutted the claims of his self-assured twin at this point. Doubt might have noted the ease with which Jada had been dispatched in the last round, and pondered the competence of whatever judge had decided to send the under-armed, under-armored, and under-experienced warrior on to the finals. Doubt would have normally pleaded the case of self-preservation, and would have fought tooth and nail to sway Jada way from his current course of action...

Yet, Doubt remained silent. Locked away with Jada's questions behind the wall Confidence had built, Doubt sat with his chin in his hands, waiting for victory or another death, whichever came first...

"The Great Spirit smiles upon me." Jada whispered under his breath, repeating Confidence's words as his better-equipped opponents began to stir around him. The door was locked, the introductions made, and the storm that was his foes was brewing all around him. Jada gripped his only weapon tightly in his right hand and backed close to the wall as he waited for the first crack of lightning to break the strange calm that had fallen over the arena…

[Molotov]

Molotov wasn’t sure what to make of this new cage. Unlike many of the others who had made it this far, the mutant didn’t have all that much of a recovery to make. Save for the slight cut on his face, the mutant’s arrogance had hardly been tested in Cage number one. He had bested all his opponents quite easily, and to see that two of the cage’s lesser fighters had advanced with him struck him as particularly jarring. Zieg dil’Tulfried and Dan Wilmhearst had both failed to advance, while a blonde dilettante and foolhardy hero had taken their place. Most importantly for the mutant, there had been no room in this final cage for his ally Damion Shargath.

“How could these sods be so bloody blind,” the mutant thought irritably. “They pick a ponce who can barely fight without pissing his pants and a little bird who likes to scream at her sword. Bloody makes me wonder if there is something wrong with me.”

Veiled in this irritability was a fear for Molotov. The two people who had advanced along with him had both been his enemies. They had allied against him earlier in the cage, and now Molotov was going to be stuck fighting them alone if he wasn’t careful. Without Damion Shargath, Molotov knew he was going to need to find someone else in the cage to befriend. And now that he looked around, he didn’t find all that much that really attracted his attention.

“Lot of pretty birds in here…” Molotov thought. He hated that. While eye candy was certainly appealing to the spectators, it limited the mutant’s options. Molotov had realized in the earlier cage one of the quickest ways to attract someone else’s ire was to step in and attack a girl. There were too many would be heroes in the cell that were looking for a quick lay just as much as they were looking for the crowd’s approval. Somebody would invariably come to a woman’s rescue.

“Better to side with a bird then,” Molotov muttered cynically. He tossed his cigarette from his mouth to the ground and then spit on the ground. “If I can’t bloody beat them, then I’ll join them.” The mutant also wondered if an alliance with a woman wouldn’t help him keep the young knight away. A kid looking to sow wild oats wouldn’t want to annoy his little blonde.

Eventually, Molotov would kill them both. But for now, he needed to make sure that he engaged them on even terms. He hung back at the walls of the cage strategically, surveying the people around him. A rough man testing the strength of the cage had particularly caught the mutant’s attention.

“So someone has a bloody elephant…” he mused. “Maybe this really will be interesting.”

[Izvilvin]

Death was unlike anything Izvilvin had ever experienced, and yet it was not. It was simplistic and complicated at once, truly difficult to describe in words.

In a sense, it was simple blackness and a lack of awareness. When he had fallen by Rheawien's blade in the cell, Izvilvin's thoughts had ended and the dark took him. He was only dead for an hour before revival, but in that brief time he had found that is was possible to think, reflect, and remember. After that, being dead was not very different from being in the mines of Kachuk, where he had spent a hundred years hidden away from the drow of Alerar.

Experienced or not, Izvilvin did not want to face death again, regardless of whether or not he'd be revived by some strange magic. It was something that frightened him.

Through some means, he had found himself once again within one of these large metal cages. It seemed that some of the tournament higher-ups had decided his little feud with Rheawien was something the crowd really enjoyed, and sticking him in the final would appease the people. Izvilvin wasn't sure how he felt about it. The first cell was interesting and challenging in its own right, but at the same time it was traumatic and painful. If he'd had time to think about it, the Drow might not have wanted to enter again.

This cell was larger, and there were six more combatants than there were in the previous melee. The prospect should have made Izvilvin more tentative than before, but the first cell had been a learning experience for him. His eyes were a little less anxious, his hands a little more relaxed and his posture a little more composed. He had grown, and not in some insignificant way.

Rheawien, he had noticed a moment before, was once again stuck in this horrible mesh cage with him. But unlike earlier, his eyes did not dwell on her for more than a fleeting moment. Izvilvin would still not fight her, but he would never again run to her side to aid her. She had severed something that had been strong, and it was all in the interest of this idiotic game they were playing. She was a fool, and yet Izvilvin could not find it in himself to hate her.

A pair of sai were then in his hands, plucked fluidly from his belt with some simple movements. The weapons were restored just as he'd been, so there were thankfully no more bent prongs from the impact against the skeleton Krugor's skull. Izvilvin couldn't possibly pick a single target yet, but he'd decided Witchblade just might be his only ally here. Needless to say, keeping her alive was in his best interests.

The crowd erupted in a roar. The Cell's final was beginning, and it promised to be the bloodbath the audience was craving. More fighters meant more blood, more death, and more screams of rage. It was to be a great day for the city, and for those who wagered their money upon Izvilvin Di'Lolth.

[Komosatuo]

I shouldn't be here.

He was out of place. A fly trying to mingle with killer bees. He felt alone, a target, cannon fodder for the greater guns of the cage. Dirt where there should be water.

He shivered and closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts and calming himself. He couldn't, for the life of him, remember what had happened in the first cage. He recalled entering the cold mesh of death but that was as far as he got. He supposed that perhaps it was for the best for he could have died in there. Remembering your death was perhaps the worst punishment a man could experience and he felt a little special that his own had been forgotten.

He shook visibly and inhaled sharply as he tried to gain a hold of his frayed nerves. It was a futile effort, his body continued to shake and his breath began to flow shakily in and out of his lungs. He could feel his lips quivering as the air moved across their pink surface and he hastily clamped his mouth shut. As if the shaking was bad enough, here he was getting quiver lipped over a cage fight.

You have to get a hold of yourself Komosatuo. This is not the place or the time to turn into a quivering ball of flesh.

He inhaled sharply through his nose, the stinging air racing through his nostrils painful bliss as he centered his thoughts, discarded his fears and focused on his task. If he had died in the last cell then he must strive to survive in this one and if not, then perhaps remember. For in order to learn in life, you must learn from your mistakes but in order to learn from your mistakes, you had to remember them. Perhaps, in remembering his death this time he could learn how not to die and thus correct a mistake.

His eyes opened and the interior of the cage filled his vision. Thirteen individual warriors occupied the cage; none of them he recognized. A memory tickled the back of his mind when his eyes came to rest on a young man but he pushed the thought away. He couldn't be distracted by distant memories here, he needed his mind clear. He needed it to be calm.

His fingers twitched as he swept his gaze around the cage. He thought it looked bigger than the last, must have been because there were fourteen people all told inside. Then again, he couldn't remember specific details of the last cage so he couldn't say. They both could have been the same size, or one could have been smaller, he didn't know.

He didn't know. . .

Someone was talking, yelling really to get over the constant hum of the crowd, and from what little Komosatuo heard it was to say that the second and final cell fight was about to begin. This was it then. The time had come.

He took another deep breath, flexed his hands and closed his eyes for a moment. Calm came over him like water overflowing a pond, washing over all that was around it, cleansing the taint of life and earth and in its place leaving, nothing. Calm grew from this nothing and enveloped him, restoring his frayed nerves, stilling his quivering lips, stopping his twitching fingers.

He opened his eyes and sighed deeply. He shifted his weight and let his back rest against the mesh of the steel cage. A smile grew on his lips and he crossed his arms.

He had decided, the ultimately, sit this one out for a while.

[hushpuppy]

The dozen combatants, flecks of black like seeds splayed from a burst fruit, were inconsequential from this high above. Looking down from the sky, everything melded together, lines blurring and colors shading into each other until the entire world and its selfish societies were nothing but spots on a tabletop. Time was meaningless from such height, and a man's journey from birth to death stretched out to a breath's length of eternity that mocked human pretention. This was not from a lack of perspective, but rather a final grasp of totality. If a pair of eyes looking down from the clouds felt this way, imagine how God's view must translate.

A single seagull floated in the sky above, quivering in the wind, silent but for the whistling of feathers in the wind, wings straining against the world tearing at it in every direction. With beady black marbles for eyes, it looked down at the tiny spots below, hovering and waiting. An ampitheatre surrounded the cage below. How crowded, and yet how alone the combatants in the Cell must have felt down there, standing in the dirt, eyes at their backs and fronts, daggers at each other's throats. Lazily flapping twice, the gull rose slightly and began circling, streams of air tossing it slightly, pushing it up even as the ground below beckoned with its own grasping energy. It wheeled wide and slow, gaining momentum as it let the earth pull it down, moving in tightly, wings tugged violently by the force of its descent.

As the bird came closer to the cage, it spread its wings, flapping violently, if spasmodically, and slowed to a stop. The wing was slowed to a breathy whisper here, and the gull could barely keep its body hanging in place. Dropping heavily, it grasped at the cage below, and barely managed to hang onto the metal bars, nearly slipping down and falling to the unforgiving ground below. Unsteadily, it clutched the steel mesh and righted its body, feathers knocked asunder, breathing heavily, but perched fixedly.

One could barely notice the furry lump astride its back, burrowed in the feathers between its wings.

[Rheawien]

Pavel Enders wasn’t a personal friend of Mister Kinnity, but that little detail faded in comparison to the laden coffers that jangled with gold pieces. There was more then enough in them to make an anonymous donation to the battle organizer and his chintzy theatre organization. As a direct consequence, Pavel Enders – also known to Rheawien as Pavel the Fucking Shylock – got a complimentary place in the first row of the bleachers, almost close enough to smell the dirt of the cage floor. It made the sallow-faced man smile. If he was lucky and his insurance played it as arranged, by the end of the day he would taste Rhea’s sprouting blood and see her face cringing in deathly pain. Next to him, the fat, dumb-faced grotesque was holding popcorn in one hand, the other protruding the index finger and poking at the slimy contents of his oversized nose.

The crowd was already warming up, cheering for the combatants, but far from the elated roar that was bound to start the very second the final fight officially started. Juxtaposed to the mass, the pair once again looked insipid, business-like, like a pair or referees that weren’t allowed to have feelings about the whole matter. But there were emotions boiling in their eyes. For the muscle-bound brute, it was excitement that was hidden, mostly from the eyes of his boss. But in Pavel’s eyes there was ominous anger, a tension of expectance that made his fingers tap ceaselessly on the wood of the bench.

“So, this is a done deal, boss?” the fat thing asked, putting in a mouthful of popcorn into his mouth with the hand that just prospected for whatnot in his nose. A wrinkly hand knocked him hard enough to spill half of his popcorns.

“Idiot. How many times do I have to explain it?”

“Sorry, boss. It’s just that this... this... elf man doesn’t seem too impressive to me.”

Suddenly, one of the combatants saluted the audience and the crazed people responded heartily. They knew her from the last round. Four she killed before dying herself and four meant gallons of blood and a plethora of agony and death. And that was what they paid for.

“Shut up. She’s here.”

***

The crowd loved her. Her little escapade in the first round gained both sympathy and adoration amidst the fans and countless time she was approached while resting in the infirmary by nitwits that wanted her autograph. She mostly scolded them away, threatening to send them away with a scar as a memorabilia, but deep down inside, she was flattered by the attention. She was their executioner, their provider, their dealer of blood and guts and tears, and they returned the favor with affection inspired by bloodlust. So now, when Rheawien stepped into the cage and lifted her katana towards the surrounding mass, she got the largest confirmation of the worthiness of her efforts.

Strangely, during her recuperation times, she wasn’t visited by one person that she knew would pay her a visit, one person that she knew wouldn’t be glad to see her alive and passing through the first round. The loanshark was nowhere to be seen, despite the dire threats that were made prior to the first round. A part of her hoped that the man let the whole matter drop, but that optimistic part of her was one hundred percent foolish. Men such as Pavel Enders didn’t let things slide. He had something brewing and she knew she would have to be watchful in the final battle for some kind of treachery.

Still, instead of keeping a low profile and measuring the other foes with studious eyes, the roar of the mass was like a wind beneath her wings, ruffling up her feathers and lifting her high enough to lose sight of the logic and reason. Rhea knew that the love of the crowd was a frivolous thing, a scale that tipped this way and that at the slightest misstep. They loved her now. Would they still feel the same way if she died within the first minute? Of course not. That’s the way the fame worked. When you got on top, all you really could do was stay there as long as humanly possible and roll down when the bigger, meaner fish took over.

Rheawien spun her blade and bowed courteously.

“Let the fight for the top of the hill begin.”

[Storm Veritas]

All wound up for one big swing at the championship, and I suppose you can’t win from the sidelines.

It was a gruesome realization that he would have to run headlong into the fire. Whoever there was in the cage, whoever was left to sit and scratch and claw with, they were all lethal. Not a single pushover in the whole lot, and more than a few familiar faces. Damon, the puffball, the demon thing and he had all moved in from the last round, where he was fortunate enough to escape serious injury. Of course, as he avoided injury, he did so by biding his time and engaging in as little combat as possible.

Sadly, he’d be afforded no such luxury today. In order to win, he’d need to be active and wild, spread his own breed of hell throughout the entire arena. The crowd would certainly approve. When the suit-adorned traveler was ushered into the ring, he saw it in their eyes. Wild, reddened, and battle hardened eyes, thirsty for a day off and some action. These weren’t the executive upper crust of Lornius, but rather the sun-bleached and time-broken blue collars. People like the ones he grew up around.

Pitiful, ambitionless pricks that I despise.

They hooted and hollered as he came in, a strong concentration of boos dominating the few perfunctory cheers of those who perhaps didn’t know him so well. That, or people that appreciated an opportunist. Storm had never fancied himself a villain as much as someone that new the value in loosening the slack of a moral code in the service of the greater good, or one’s own desires. After all, he felt that he would answer only to himself, as one with gifts such as what he had needed to answer to no god.

Those idiots who speak of gods will answer to me.

He took his place in the beginning, alert, alive, and enjoying only a small mouthful of whiskey to dull his nerves and keep him from being overstressed. His straight black hair pulled back taut against his head, and he smiled as his long, gloveless fingers flickered back and forth at his hips. He was the gunslinger again, daggers at the ready and more than a few plans frolicking through his head. Spotting all the assorted terribles throughout the cell, he was ready.

Come and get it, motherf*ckers…

[Arsenic Ruin]

I felt the ice thaw on my face. My body was moved about before I was given an official resting place. I was hardly dead just holding on as best I could to the edges of consciousness. The battle in my mind was far deadlier than the battle I was going through physically. Lack of air left me slightly in a dazed state, my eyes would open but nothing would register. I saw a blurred mix of faces, still seemingly staring through that spectral vision produced by the ice, coating my sight in a thin film that was hardly pleasant. But it faded with time, but for now I would just sleep fade back into my hovel which was hoisted up in my own mind above the barren lands of my imagination.

My mind worked over strategies, hearing muttered and incomplete sentences about Molotov and the blond passing into the final cage. Along with my own name, but the doctors say I might not be able to participate. To hell with that my mind said then my eyes jerked open. Looking around I looked into a mirror at myself, the same ol’ face but when I moved my whole lower abdomen wrenched with pain. I wince then stagger, hitting the ground with one hand, the other curled tightly around my midsection. But with another thought of not participating I found the strength to pull myself from the ground. My equipment was laid out on a chair; I had my trousers on along with my boots. But my tunic, shirt, armor, and sword were resting on that chair. Before dressing this pain needed to be dealt with. So I went to work, survival was the key, so I wrapped myself in bandages, shock absorbing thick bandages. The pain would still mill through my body but not as badly, or so I hoped.

Now on to dressing, within the next fifteen or so minutes it was about dressing effectively. Trying out several methods only ending up in further irritating my pained midsection, I slipped on my Iron plated chest, and shoulder armor, under which was my tattered shirt, and gloves for my hands. I held my sword tightly around the middle of the scabbard inclining my head forward as I said a small prayer. Asking for my mother, and fathers blessing for me to do well in this tournament, I knew both would be watching or would at least hear word of me passing into the final round. How could I let them down? So with a pained body, and my head raised high I ambled out of the medical tent. As I tried to make myself look as presentable as possible, the closer I heard the crowd.

Then I found myself inside the cage, the pain was on the back burner, all I could feel now was the adrenaline. Pumped with energy I opened my mouth to let out a sigh after inhaling deeply. Rolling my shoulders back as a wave of pain flushed through my chest, I had to convert this pain into malleable energy. I have to prevail; my shameful performance within the first round would hardly be acceptable. So I would have to watch for sudden moves, anything that would provide me a reason to move to dodge. I am the hero of this tale, so lets act like one and go down valiantly.

[Dissinger]

They had all emptied into the arena, Rheawien, a shock form his past. Storm Veritas from the Brotherhood, but with the exception of those two, he knew no one. The threats he had perceived in the last cage had killed themselves apparently, and now he had only these two new ones. As he thanked the gods for the mercy he had been given he stretched his tensed muscles looking at various people who seemed keen on sitting this one out.

He snorted in derision, today was a day of blood now. He realized sitting out was the stupid thing to do. In the end all it led to was saving a little bit of energy to deal with the massive headache of others. So, when Kinnity gave his speech he merely rubbed his temple feigning a headache. The reality being that it was an action to take people’s minds off his other hand, which was slowly pulling a lung popper from its place upon his belt.

It was then that the diminutive demon stepped forward demanding that the murdering begin. Seth chuckled hearing the crass words of the man, but ultimately he sighed as he waited for someone else to take the demon on. It wasn’t that he was scared, no, it was because whoever fought the demon first was at a disadvantage. While no one was acting, it was because they were in a rather precarious position. Whoever struck out first was the target, and everyone else was just fodder.

Perhaps that is why he held the lung popper a bit longer, perhaps it was the need for a twin, which he drew as well. The end of the story however was Seth had drawn the second, and was sizing up on his targets. There was a man with a Mohawk, who seemed to fit the description of the person who finally made the Gisela finals, all that time go. Raising an eyebrow he considered who would have ever made it that far had a strategic mind. He would have to be wary if that was the man.

Liliana meanwhile was watching the cage when something struck her, she was feeling Seth, but far stronger than she had in years. His presence was whole, where as earlier it had been far less prominent. He shone out much like the others in the arena now, rather than the dim candle amongst the stars. As she frowned she scanned out over the area, wondering just what was going on.

“What did you do Seth? How did you get strong again?” She said softly.

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin was the first to break out of the stillness. He could only wait so long to burst into action, and as soon as he did, the crowd began to cheer. There would be more carnage than any one person could keep track of in this final cell, it was the perfect distraction from everyday humdrum life on Althanas.

The man across from him was his chosen target. The human's black hair was tossed away from his face, and looking at him, Izvilvin had the sense that the man was at least competent with his weapons. He had that calm, cool gait about him that a warrior possessed. The Drow hoped he would not be disappointed.

Feet stomping gently against the thin layer of sand that covered the steel floor, Izvilvin closed the gap quickly, his strides full of vigor and his eyes set. He would not be taken apart as he'd been before. The experience of the first cage had taught him much about this sort of battle. As much as he needed to focus on one person at a time, he needed to take as many chances as he could to do away with a fighter. Only the cunning would survive.

Izvilvin threw a sai before he got within fighting distance, hoping to either take the man in the chest with the weapon or simply distract him. A replacement was quickly in his hand, and the Drow was upon him, slashing from opposite sides with each sai, to try and slash the throat of the human between the main prongs of each weapon as they attacked in unison.

((Attacking Storm <3))

[INDK]

Damon wasn’t sure what to make of the finals. The boy had known that more than one person would be selected, but this was the first time that Damon was going to be in the middle of a battle without Ashiakin’s help. That made him particularly nervous, and had it not been for the stranger that Damon had met before the battle had begun, he might have decided to voluntarily offer his surrender in this round.

However, that was not the case. Less than an hour before he was supposed to report, a strange man had slipped a small note to him. There was a bit of gold contained in it, along with the promise of more. In addition, there was a small note, one that Damon now decided to review just before the battle started.


This is a simple offering of the rewards we’re going to lavish on you if you do as your told. There is a person in this final cage, Rheawien Lightbringer, who does not deserve to be this far. We know of your history with her and remind you that there will be no elaboration necessary. You know the kind of things she is willing to do. Keep that in mind when you think about this offer.

Damon had accepted the task. He felt it was the least he could do for Althanian security. Though the boy had been offered no formal way of responding, he had been told that there would be people among the spectators paying attention to what he did to the former Baneblade. Damon knew that he would have to fight both Asuka an Rheawien now, but it mattered little to the boy. Having found loss such a bitter pill to swallow in the earlier round, Damon had decided that he was just going to be content with setting himself something he had termed an attainable goal now. Taking care of Rheawien was just that.

“And if I win somehow, that’s fine,” Damon figured. However, as he moved along the perimeter of the cage, Damon knew that it was unlikely. There were too many warriors of great fame here, including the demon who had bested him in the last round. Perhaps beating Rheawien was all he could hope for without Ashiakin’s guidance.

Unsheathing his longsword, Damon offered not a single syllable as he approached Rheawien. While it was likely that the former Baneblade knew of his intentions from the solemn look on his face, Damon had made no offensive gesture towards her before he struck at her neck with a high horizontal blow.

(attacking Rheawien)

[Christina Bredith]

Christina awoke some time after the first round in the hands of Corone’s finest monks, many of whom had been given the task of healing the Cell’s poor combatants after they got bloodied up. Christina was, of course, one of those poor victims placed in the powerful healing hands of the warrior monks. Her initial reaction to waking up, however, was surprise at the fact that she was awake at all. It came slowly at first, and for the first few moments her mind was a complete blank. Nothing filtered through her head except the boring patterns of the ceiling, at which she stared lazily. Then the memories snapped back to her like the crack of a whip. I… didn’t die? But Damion had attacked her with such fierceness. He was so deceptive, blocking her sword and then slamming the butt of his halberd into her head with the same fluid motion. Everything went black! Her body was numb! That had to be death, right?

But all evidence pointed to the contrary. Here she was, lying in a comfortable bed wrapped in silk sheets. There was no mistaking the fact that she was awake. This room is way too ugly to be heaven. That was all the proof she needed. In her mind, if she was going to die, then she would be floating up to the big department store in the sky to shop for boots and nail polish with her mom for the rest of eternity. Now that’s heaven! This… was decidedly too disappointing to be the afterlife. Or maybe all angels really were just balding old men in brown robes. What a disappointing thought. Was this what she’d have to put up with for the rest of her lif—er, the rest of eternity?

“Ah, you’re awake,” one of the angels said as he hovered over her. Christina rolled her head slightly to the side to get a better look at him.

“You don’t have any wings,” she groaned through her exhaustion. “Were all the stories just a bunch of crap?”

The angel looked at her with a furrowed brow, displaying much confusion. “I… do not understand, miss.”

“Well, you’re an angel, right?” Christina raised her eyebrow and looked up at him a bit more intently. His confusion gave her a little bit of hope. “Angels have wings.”

The angel’s expression softened, and he laughed slightly. Shaking his head, he said, “Yes, but I am not an angel. I am a monk, and you are not dead.” The revelation widened Christina’s eyes and brightened her smile. She sprang up from the bed, nearly knocking the monk – apparently not an angel – out of the way. Pain? What pain? She was alive! She had a new lease on life! She was going to be more careful from now on, that much she knew. She was going to – “Hurry.”

She was going to hurry? Well, that didn’t make much sense. Hurry towards what? Christina looked at the old man and simply asked, “What?”

The monk gestured towards the door of the room, which was open and revealed a crowded hallway outside. People of all shapes and sizes were filing through it, headed towards a uniform destination. Christina looked back at him quizzically. “The finals. You need to hurry to the finals,” he explained. She looked at him with wide, surprised eyes.

“I—I made it?” The question only hung in the air for a second. The monk had been about to respond, but Christina was already bursting out again. “I made it! Oh, I’m gonna make that guy pay!” She swung her legs to the side, ready to hop right out of the bed. Her face was the epitome of excitement. The finals! The finals of her first tournament! Even if she didn’t win, this was a huge honour, right? Christina leapt from the bed and ran over to the opposite wall, where she could already see her clothing folded and her sword propped up. She was actually mostly naked right now, but modesty was the last thing on her mind. Besides, they were monks; this was probably the most action they’d get in fifty years. Once she was fully armed, Christina felt as one with the world again. Rosebite was safely in its scabbard, her mother’s uniform was wrapped around her body, and she was ready to kick some ass.

So much for a new lease on life, eh?


* * *

It was so surreal, being back in the cage a second time. This one was larger and yet fuller than the last one – Christina could count thirteen other heads in here with her, and only a couple of them were even vaguely familiar. She saw trenchcoat-boy off to one side; apparently Molotov had advanced too. But what about— Hey, there was her knight in shining armour, the young Half-Drow who saved her from getting her head aerated by the mutant’s icicle. It was nice to have a friendly face here amongst all this scary competition. But seriously, what about… Her silver eyes flashed from face to face, but none of the thirteen was Damion! Was she to be robbed of her revenge? How cruel!

But suddenly, Christina realized this was the ultimate revenge. She had advanced to the finals, even though she had nearly died, and he had not, even though he had technically defeated her. Could it possibly get any better than that? If he had actually advanced, then Christina would probably just have gotten smacked down a second time; that’s not really her idea of revenge. This, on the other hand, was so sweet, it almost felt sinful. A victorious smirk played on her pretty red lips, and she placed her hand on Rosebite’s pommel. Even as the others began attacking each other, she would wait patiently to strike. Now this is heaven.

[Walter]

A man had entered the Cell not too long ago, a black-haired vagrant who only had a knife to his name. That man, Jon Walter, had managed to secure himself a spot in the finals. He'd done so while he was being dragged, thrashing and biting, all the way back to the main hall by a throng of men in robes who were tasked with preserving the peace and following the will of the tournament administrate.

Jon had died during the first round. To be frank, everyone had been pushing up daisies by the time it was over. But Jon had been the one person who couldn't be recovered by the powerful healers assigned to preserve the fighters of the Cell. A circle of monks waited for an hour, surrounding the cage, until the wounds on Jon's corpse simply vanished and the body revived itself.

"That is a very curious power you possess. We wish to be able to observe it." One of the monks had later explained to him. The vagrant's temper had finally cooled, and he was in a listening mood.

"...Whatever." Jon snapped back. "Am I going to get to fight again or what?"

The man sitting across the table from Jon broke into a surly grin. "We can certainly offer you that oppurtunity," he answered. "If you could put your gift to use during the match, that would be even more delightful."

Reluctantly, Jon shook on the deal. And now he stood again, shaking in anticipation. The Final Cage was beginning. He'd taken his time for a moment, gathering together the few ideas he had in mind this round. His knife was out again, and had been polished for the occassion. Jon thought himself ready.

But was anyone else ready? He was surrounded by 13 other people, and almost nobody had broken into movement yet. There was a tension that needed to be shattered first, and then the fists would fly. But Jon wasn't the catalyst. Instead, it was the drow he had managed to get a few "good licks" on in the previous round. The dark elf had dashed out of his own side toward a man across from him, the end point only a few placements away from Jon. It was enough to send the vagrant stumbling away from his spot on the cage like he'd done the first time.

The drow had reached his target, some tall black-haired man, and Jon found himself launching toward them. Last time he had jumped on the drow's back; this time he was going to tackle that black-skinned freak to the ground from the side. That really was his entire plan... except for the minor stipulation he had in mind.

(tackling Izvilvin)

[Ter-Thok]

Hans, contentedly nestled in the rafters high above the arena, carefully unwrapped the foil from around a chocolate bar, and inserted it into his central mass. The chocolate began going runny at the edges, and the ooze smiled happily. He was jarred from his confectionary ecstacy by a loud beeping; Hans scrambled, grabbing the small square of translucent blue plastic that he had set on a lump of drywall, and pressed the button on the top. Ter-Thok's face appeared on the screen, looking slightly upset. "Hans," the demon said, "Where are you?"

"OH, HI BOSS! HANS UP IN RAFFERS, LIKE BOSS TOLE HANS TA HIDE."

"Good, good. Were you able to get into the cage last night?"

"OH, TOTE LEE, BOSS, HANS HAD-"

"Great, awesome, whatever. Did you...bury the, uh...acorns?"

"YEAH, HANS BURY DOSE. DEM ACORNS GONNA MAKE PRITTY TREES SOMEDAY. OH, HANS ALSO BURY THE BOM-"

"Hans! Shut up!"

"OH. HANS SORRY..."

"Don't worry about it, Hans. Maintain communicator silence until I call you again, comprendes?"

"SURE TING! HANS BE QUIETER THAN DEAD CAT. HANS HAVE PLENTY CHOCOLATE, AFFER ALL."

Ter-Thok closed the communications window, and brought up a second window. A timer appeared, counting downwards, with an "abort" button underneath, and a button labelled "now" next to it. The demon grinned, shoving the SpacePDA&#169; into his pocket. Apparently, the competitors had taken his advice and launched straight into an offensive. Anxious to get in on the violence, Ter-Thok let himself drop to the floor, scanning the room for anyone who deserved to have his ire focused on them. He saw the weaselly gentleman who had set the previous arena aflame, but someone had already launched an offensive against THAT particular oil refinery. The young boy who had created a tornado of lasers in the previous round was also an unsuitable target, for obvious reasons.

Scratching his head thoughtfully as melee began around him, the demon spotted what appeared to be a human female, with hair the color of...mustard. Or possibly one of those albino snakes. She had a sword, but in all honesty, how dangerous could she be? Ter-Thok trotted over towards her, craning his neck upwards to examine his pray more effectively. She may have been twice his height, but the demon was not one to let such things impede him in his quest for violence. Hefting his ElectroProd carefully, he analyzed the situation for a split-second, then swung the electrified spear at the back of her knees with a cry of, "LISTEN UP, BITCH!"

(Attacking Christina)

However, unbeknownst to the combatants...approximately six feet under the soil, clutched in the skeletal hands of one of the ancient inhabitants of Corone (whose spirit was probably upset at a tournament ground being built over his burial site), was a chemical bomb the size of a hippopotamus' head. The timer clicked down from 3:49 to 3:48.

The only trouble with a contingency plan involving explosions, was that the planner was almost inevitably to be found among the results; often in very small pieces.

[Witchblade]

Things were starting off rather slowly. It seemed no one was anxious to run into the fray and get a little dirty, or bloody really. An odd looking demonic creature demanded that the ‘murdering’ begin as he put it and he quickly got his wish as Izvilvin attacked some rather handsome looking fellow with slicked black hair, a boy attacked Rheawien and then the demon himself attacked some blonde chick. Things were starting to heat up, the blood was going to start flowing and the cries from the crowd were already ringing through her ears and into her skull, pounding against the walls.

No one came after her though and Witch did not see anyone interesting that she felt she wanted to attack. There was a human with an odd hairstyle she’d never seen before and a boy who looked like he was about to wet himself in this place. Witch had no idea what two children were doing entering the cage, but at least from the one attacking Rheawien she sensed power, but from the blue haired one she sensed pain and nervousness. He probably wouldn’t last too long, but then again, looks could always be deceiving and she knew she should not be jumping to any conclusions.

Someone broke from the mesh wall by her, a figure launching himself towards two already engaged parties. Witch’s eyes narrowed as she saw it was the human who’d attacked Izvilvin in the last round, and from behind, just like he was attempting to now. She thought he would have learned his lesson when she’d stabbed him in the back herself and then further when she’d used him as her personal human shield, clearly it was not so.

Acting quickly, Witch tensed and sprang from her position against the mesh of the cage. Rubber soles digging into the cage floor as she ran towards her target. Her hand reaching behind her and removing her Titanium blade from the sheath on the small of her back. She could have sent a telepathic message to Izvilvin to warn him, but she was confident she was faster than the human and she didn’t want to distract her ally. Telepathic messages could be jarring when they came from seemingly nowhere, even though he’d heard them before, and the last thing she needed was for her only ally in this cage to mess up and end up a bloody stump like he had before.

How she wished she’d been able to kill Rheawien for that one. But the elf was behind her now; this was a different battle in a different cage with different people and different enemies.

Right before the human reached Izvilvin, Witch reached him first. Using her speed she inadvertently did the same thing the human had planned for Izvilvin and lowering her shoulder, attempted to knock him back from his target and into the mesh wall. Let that jar his brains around in his skull, maybe knock some sense into him.

(Attacking Walter)

[Molotov]

Molotov was certainly surprised by the way that so many people in the cage seemed so nervous to jump onto the offensive. “To think of all the half cocked ponces who run this planet searching for adventure, and none of them could bloody be here…” the mutant thought sarcastically. He tried not to let it bother him. The fact was, Molotov was afraid of seeming like the Cage’s biggest threat by going out on the offensive earlier. Casually, the mutant turned back towards the rugged man who had mentioned something about elephants earlier, and noticed that this man seemed considerably more interested in talking with one of the spectators than actually getting involved in the fight.

“Seems like a clever enough person,” Molotov thought. Of course, first impressions weren’t always the best, but from what he’d seen, the mutant got the impression that this stranger was particularly hard for a number of reasons. Not only was the man particularly rugged, but also considerably older than most of Althanas’ adventuring generation. This meant a great deal to the mutant, because age was a luxury very few fighters could afford.

This was a problem for Molotov. The mutant knew that they had both managed to attract each other’s attention. That meant one of two things. They would either ally or destroy each other. Molotov knew that he couldn’t afford to take on this man as an ally. Even among fifteen plus fighters it would be unlikely that an alliance would go unnoticed. Molotov had learned that lesson in the last round.

He thought back to the mention of the elephant. So far, there was no sign of an elephant anywhere in the cage. A quick scan of the stands revealed no sign of a large pachyderm either. Molotov grinned. He could suddenly envision an effective but hollow promise. With that, the mutant took out his packet of cigarettes and offered it towards the older man.

“Sorry to interrupt you talking with your bird…” Molotov said. “But I wanted to offer my services. I’ve got no real enemies here, and don’t want to make some… I heard you talking about an elephant earlier. If he comes, I’ll take him out, just for a bit of security… how’s that sound?”

(Talking to Dissinger)

[Abenaki]

It seemed like everyone started moving at once, a dozen or more bodies lurching into motion with weapons bared and blood in mind. Jada licked his lips nervously as his eyes darted around the arena, trying to follow every hint of movement in a cage that had very suddenly fallen into chaos. His mouth had gone dry, his heart was racing, and his breathing was quick. The blade of his weapon quivered by his side as his anxious grip turned his knuckles white around the hilt. Trying to keep track of his opponents in the last round had been challenge enough for the young warrior, and now he found himself attempting to monitor the intentions of more dangerous fighters in greater numbers...

However, it became apparent rather quickly that none of his opponents had Jada on their minds in the opening seconds of the battle royal. Most of the movement flowed away from the warrior and his side of the cage, a majority of the commotion all gathering in the same general area where four or five warriors were on a collision course with one another. Jada found himself relatively alone, safe for the moment. He could have, ideally, stood there and waited for most of the tumult to pass before diving into the fray...

...But, he didn't...

Waiting for an attack that hadn't come sent the adrenaline coursing through the young warrior, pushing his heartbeat to the limit and tensing every muscle in his body like an enormous spring. That energy had to be released somehow, and Jada unleashed it in the form of a frenzied battle cry as he charged across the arena in the direction of another man seemingly left out of the greater battle. A man with the oddest hair color Jada had ever seen…

Kicking a cloud of dirt towards the man’s face, Jada swung his sword in a vicious arc from right to left at chest level…

(Attacking Arsenic Ruin)

[Walter]

Jon had become too focused. When he started running across the dirt, his peripheral vision practically vanished and he only saw what was directly ahead of him. Through that tiny window of perspective, Jon only saw Izvilvin throwing his sai and reaching his opponent. The black elf had been within spitting distance, Jon's legs pushed for the last bit of distance when something rammed into his side. Hard. Completely unprepared, the vagrant kept moving as his trek was sharply diverted into the side of the cage, which he rammed into with a loud jangling crash.

With a surprised squawk, Jon bounced off of the mesh, throwing his arms behind him and wobbling as he tried to maintain his footing on the dirt. His arms had red criss-cross lines, as he'd thrown them up in the last moment of realization, trying to protect his face. The man was unhurt, but definitely jarred - his eyes lost focus as he spun around, staring at the blurry blob that had run into him. It took him a second to recognize who it was as his vision cleared; the broad with the stitch-lips.

Jon groaned as he stepped away from the cage wall, ignoring the fight between Storm and Izvilvin right next to him. That bitch had been the greatest pain in the ass during the first cage; stabbing him in the back and then using him as a shield against a goddamn flurry of ice needles. Running into the cage wall had knocked some sense into Jon all right; he didn't immediately rush to take a piece out of her. Jon realized he couldn't fight Witchblade in a fair duel and hope to win. He needed something completely unexpected.

Check this, bitch! Jon spun around, yanking at his muddy, travel-worn trousers until his ass was in plain view. The flesh was almost white as pearl, but there was a deep brown keyhole-shaped birthmark on his left flank. Jon held the flash just long enough for her to get a good look. Then he pulled his pants up, whirled around and leapt toward Witchblade with his knife in hand, aiming to stab right through her breast.

(Flashing and then stabbing Witchblade)

[Arsenic Ruin]

You lost me at ALALALALALALALALA!



I was lost in thought, well not really just sizing up the competition; I saw Molotov and made a mental note to pay him a visit later. The heat was picking up due to the rustling of all those bodies. Mixed with the sun beating down on them, and the sand would be more than enough to create that oven affect. But then my calm reverie was ruined by the atrocious bellowing of an oncoming combatant. My hand dropped to my sword as I looked towards him grinning. Eyes scanning his body, making note of his rate of approach along with his outcry was more than enough to make me laugh slightly.



*“Sila ol."


I muttered under my breath shaking my head. Soon though dropping my weight off to the right I side-stepped the warrior, his foot kicked up dust which I quickly shifted left again I squint my eyes just in case. My sword swinging around to situate against the small of my back hanging at an angle, watching the side rise I instinctively grasped the hilt with my right gloved hand. Pulling the weapon upward to block the coming sword, the weapons clashed making an X, but with the stopping force of my weapon I had a chance to change the momentum. Pressing subtly forward to distract my opponent from my leg which I slipped behind his own, and with a feign back to draw the fool in I applied pressure.

The timing of which was likely to go through, so in a secondary precaution I grasped the hilt of my weapon with my left hand. My hands drawing the sword up the length of my opponent’s sword, nestling the blade against the opposing weapons hand guard and blade. Twisting it down like a cork hoping to flip the bottom half of my opponent’s weapon outward, and make a slash of my own to the hasty warrior’s right shoulder.

Now I knew what I looked like approaching Molotov with such a fool hardy attack, maybe this insight has come from experience in the previous round. More over maybe I was growing stronger. Lips curled as I powered my way inside with the slash; if it connected it would open more than a flesh would the weapon aimed for a slit in the armor which exposed the shoulder. Confidence flowed through out my every move, my sword dare not waver for it had no reason to.


*“Satiir l' tril d' ussta killian.”


I spoke matter of factly it seemed, my lips evening out to a frown as I realized I had slipped into speaking Drowish instead of common. Dah would be proud to hear me speaking that language, I assume he fells like he failed to teach it to me.


-------------------
Translations:
*Bring it.

*Taste the bite of my blade

[Storm Veritas]

((OK, Izzy attacked me, Walter attacked Izzy, and Witchblade attacked Walter. I will have Izzy miss, and have asked his permission to bunny him dodging Walter’s attack. Best I can do to avoid powergaming here. Don’t like it, too fuggin’ bad. :P))

It all started quite quickly, the chain of events spiraling wildly upon each other as the battle began and grew so rapidly. He saw the first one coming, a slight young newcomer with dual weapons. They looked like overzealous forks to Storm, who had never seen such impractical looking things in his life. Steadying his feet, he was more than ready for the assault.

Apparently this motherf*cker doesn’t know who he’s dealing with. Bring it, bitch!

The attack came with a straightforward nature, fast enough and not necessarily daring. A fork was thrown at him, one of the moves he used to employ back when he was green and foolish. He smirked at it, the dagger in his left hand effortlessly flicking the projectile steel to the sand beside him. The boy was dead in the water now.

No, son. Hell no! NEVER throw the blade, never! Who taught you that shit!?

The boy lunged forward, an overzealous slash assault if ever Storm had seen one. Rookies always went for the kill. The boy was light, nearly 40 pounds his lesser, and odds were that Veritas would stop him, stuff the attack, and chew through him with a barrage of feather light slashes. The daggers were freshly sharpened and ready to eat; this was their opportunity to dine in flesh.

Of course, logic and probability were foreign to Althanas, and the importance of the Cell to Veritas’ illustrious but relatively fledgling career and what should have happened leant no guidance to destiny. He stepped back to absorb the shot when his foot caught on a hard pack of sand. Of course it caught; luck could defecate on him in no other fashion. He was shooting backward with the boy over him, one hand on the wrist of the youth whose fiery eyes belied whatever fear he may have gathered. Perhaps it was the taste of success that inspired him, but the wiry mage sensed no fear of the Serenti champion upon the face of the youth. Besides, Storm was falling back, and things looked dire.

In a flash of his periphery, another assailant. This time, an unnamed man, some peasant looking thug came hurtling from the corner of his eye, a man in tatters soaring past the boy. Storm fell back in the midst of the struggle, a quick fleeting thought through his head as he considered what could have been salvation.

Well, shit.

The boy fell to the ground on top of him, but the lack of balance gave Veritas a small window. A twist of the hip, and the two were thrown on the ground. The boy was tossed aside only slightly, Storm falling to the ground, rolling hard away from the lad. Perhaps the man in rags would help, perhaps not. Another flash, and there was a woman on the so-called helper, and yet Storm had no time to repay what he assumed was a favor.

He was scratched up and scraped in the brief tussle, but escaped relatively quickly. He looked quick for the boy’s other weapon, not able to locate it around the sand floor. Shit. Advantage may have been gone, but he was Storm Veritas. The lack of respect from the youth would do little to tarnish such slow-tempered arrogance.

’Cuz I’m the whole f*cking show, baby!

The daggers were in his hands, his wrists spinning them independently of his brain as his steely gray eyes bored a hole in the boy. There was nothing elegant about his counter. Driving hard off his left foot, he leapt simply, his left hand extended straight forward in a simple stab. Behind it, his hip was already turning, the second blade in the strong hand ready to whip overhead and close the deal. When the second dagger hit, he thought, it would be time to repay that favor, and move on to eliminating some of the more well-traveled enemies.

((Slight bunnies here and counterattack to Izvivlin. Again, apologies for some liberties that I had to take to respond. Feel free to bunny my character as needed, non-fatally of course. If there’s a big problem, PM me and I’ll see what I can do.))

[Witchblade]

It was insulting, disgusting and downright rude all at the same time. Never in all her years of battling against any sort of creature had one of them the audacity to…to moon her! The Half-ling couldn’t believe her eyes, not only was the human not taking this battle as serious as he should be but he was mooning her. Had he lost his mind, did he think it was funny, was this somehow going to distract her from wanting to kill him? Hell no, it just made her want to kill him slower, it made her want to strip the flesh from his body piece by piece then wrap her fingers around his throat and choke the life out of him, all the while watching the light fade from his eyes.

Disgusting, filthy human creature.

No wonder she could barely stand the species.

At least she had thwarted his attack on Izvilvin, who was now in a mess on the ground with the other human, one who seemed much stronger than the one she was engaged with. How she wished she could be attacking him instead, he would at least put up a good fight, this one had proved in the last round that he couldn’t hold his own very well. Still, the half-ling had to be careful not to underestimate, anything could happen in a battle, especially when one suddenly got cocky about their position and thought themselves better than the others.

Growling, Witch was about to grab one of her throwing knives and aim it directly for the exposed flesh of the human when he pulled his trousers up and wheeled on her, his dagger flashing in the light of the sun. Reacting on instinct rather than thought, Witch brought up her arm and the blade of the dagger jarred against the Titanium plating of her armguards. Metal clashed, muscles tensed and the human’s blade stopped sliding as it lodged against one of the spikes embedded in the Titanium.

Smirking, the half-ling wrapped her arm around the human’s. A quick thought, a gathering of energy and the charged energy around her hands burst into flame then quickly ran up her arms. A dancing, blue fire encircling her arms and creating a nice heat against her flesh and armguards though she knew it would do much more to the human. Then using her strength the half-ling attempted to pop his elbow out in one direction it was not meant to go. And with the human’s body wide open, Witch took the opportunity to thrust the blade of her dagger into his gut.

Oh, yes, she was going to kill him but she was not going to give him the quick and merciful death he would probably be begging for by the time she was done.

[Izvilvin]

((Bunnying approved by Storm))

Izvilvin tumbled forward, falling headlong over the black-haired human. The nuisance of a man from the first Cell, who had stabbed Izvilvin in the back and foot, had made his presence known. The warrior wasn't sure if he was happy for the opportunity to fight him again, or furious that he had been chosen as the target. Was there some magnetic pull to the Drow, pulling all ill-intentioned fighters to him?

The flexible elf hit the sand hard, but he did not remain there for long, using his momentum to roll along the ground and pull himself up nimbly. In fact, he was up just in time to catch the eyes of the human as he broke forward to continue the battle. The Drow had picked an able opponent, it seemed.

Storm came at him with an unimpressive stab, deftly handled by his right sai. Izvilvin caught a flash in the man's eye as his second dagger came from above. Moving quickly, the dark elf swung under the striking arm to get to Storm's side, though he was in no position to bring his own arm around to strike with a weapon. The able warrior he now fought would be quick enough to spin and face him by the time his sai came in.

So he pressed his feet hard into the floor and drove into the man with his shoulder, pushing Storm back a few feet to make room between them. But Izvilvin didn't move in and form an attack. No, the appearance of Jon had brought out some anger in him, some desire for revenge -- the only desire for it he'd had for anyone who was not General Vordutin. If it hadn't been for that stubborn human, he probably wouldn't have been killed in the first Cell.

Pivoting on his toes, Izvilvin turned from the human, who'd become an afterthought in the face of his hatred for Jon. A blue fire erupted between Jon and Witchblade, but Izvilvin couldn't see who it was coming from because of Jon's obscuring form. His approach did not slow even in the face of this magic.

The Drow approached a moment after Witchblade's attack had finished, and he sent his leading hand forward to stab his sai into Jon's shoulderblade. It was the same place the human had attacked stabbed him in the first Cell, and Izvilvin could not think of a more suitable way to harm him.

[Walter]

It had been a crazy-ass plan, mooning Witchblade, and Jon knew it. But there was a tiny devil in him, sure enough, and it was laughing its ass off even while the stitch-lip girly was fending off Jon's knife strike like he should've figured would happen. Even when his knife got caught against Witchblade's arm protector and all Jon could do was grit his teeth and swear, the mischievious ass inside of him wanted to provoke Witchblade a little more. At least it did until their arms were linked, and Jon could see that something else was coming next by the gleam in the bitch's eyes. Shit.

Fire burns. Ye gods does it burn. And when fire appears out of nowhere, on your fucking arm of all places, it takes you by surprise. Jon wasn't expecting fire to suddenly coat his arm like a gauntlet, and the pain and searing heat that fumed from it was tremendous. First the bitch had gotten him hit with ice, and now she was tormenting him with fire.

"Holy shitARGH!" Jon swore in surprise and pain. He was quickly getting sick of fighting the stitch-lipped freak.

STAB

The shoulder attached to the flaming arm had just been pierced. A constant stream of pain flowed, radiated from the shoulder wound, up his neck and down his injured arm. The spilt blood evaporated instantly in the heat of the fire. Jon could see pain as it bubbled behind his eyes, and his vision was becoming cloudy around the edges, focusing solely on Bitchblade. The pain and ichor was welling up in his throat. Hissing like an angry cat, Jon hocked up a loogie full of mucous and boiling black hatred and spat it in the broad's face. Right as she was set to break his arm.

Pain was already welling up in seething waves when it happened. He barely felt it through the burning and the stabbing when a sickening crack announced his arm to be useless, bending completely backwards. Jon didn't feel the pain but could see it just fine, his eyes wide with shock. His only response was a desperate "Screw this!"

Throughout the struggle, Witchblade hadn't gained control of Jon's left arm, it had just been left hanging there. And Jon had more than one knife, tucked away in one of the hems of his dirty trousers. He ripped his wood carving knife out of the hem, adrenaline lending speed to his actions as he brought the weapon to his throat and slit himself from ear to ear, no resistance whatsoever. Blood sprayed and bubbled from his throat as he grinned sickly at Witchblade, his smile faltering and twitching when her titanium dagger plunged into his gut. Jon slowly sank to the ground, lifeless.

He hoped the bitch had gotten a good look. He wished the black bastard had, too. He'd be back for them.

[Komosatuo]

Hmmm, he thought to himself as he casually watched everyone erupt into full contact combat. Could get bloody here soon.

Indeed, it certainly was becoming quite the blood bath out there. One thing still tickled his mind however, and that was why he didn't remember a damn thing from the first cage. Was it because he had died and his body simply didn't wish to remember the deed, or was it because something had happened to him while in the cage, that had caused him to loose short term memory? It was mind boggling really, caught between two possible answers such as those, each right in its own way but at the same time, either or both wrong. He just didn't know, and it was starting to get on his nerves. Almost to the point where he wanted to attack something. . .Almost.

He sighed and dropped his hands down from where they were resting against his shoulders and looked around. Almost everyone was engaged in some sort of fight or another, either in a play of words or by the use of a blade. Quite fun to watch really, and he wouldn't have half minded being on the outside o the cage, rather than in. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, as much as he wished it to be, it just wasn't.

Although, there is the slight possibility that I could get out. He looked around again, his hand coming up to caress his chin lightly with his two first fingers and thumb. He carefully examined all four corners of the cage, the farthest two couldn't be seen very easily so he didn't focus on those for long, but the two nearest ones looked almost as impervious as the rest of the cage itself. There would be no escape via the corners, or the seams it seemed. He shrugged and let his hand fall back beside his waist, content that perhaps it best he not try and escape, as it might draw some much unwanted attention to him, and his position.

Although, he thought as he looked at the mass melee around him, I could use something to do to pass the time. Question being, what exactly was there to do? Well, he could toss a few daggers around, cause further mayhem amongst the chaos. Or he could simply just attack someone. No, still too much attention, although it would be fun. Then of course, there was his flute.

He frowned, a small 'Hmmmm,' emerging from his closed lips and he reached up to caress his chin again. He could do that. In fact, he knew just the melody for this kind of fight, and if it was the right one, than perhaps no one would notice the sudden beat to their individual battles. Thus never really noticing him. It was a tantalizing option. He thought for a few moments, then decided.

Folding neatly into a sitting position on the ground, Komosatuo drew forth his flute and clutched it delicately between his left hands finger tips. He drew apart the sash covering his face just enough to reveal his mouth, the ghastly pale skin beneath cracked and dried. He pushed his bright pink tongue out from his mouth and slowly wet his lips, then brought the flutes whistle like section up to them, resting them on the lower lip. His right hand then moved to hold the remaining section of the flute still not operational. He took a few seconds rest before slowly closing his eyes and inhaling slowly. Then he exhaled and began to move his fingers and hands over the flutes body.

The resulting sound filled the air around him, slowly leaking its way through the rest of the cage until even those at the farthest end could hear it, if only just barely. The sound, the music, was slow. Like the steady inhaling and exhaling of a sleeping child. It was equally soft, as it was loud. It rose in pitch, held for a moment, then dropped slowly, reaching a low point in the tune for a moment, then settled out at mid-range one more.

The music had an unearthly sound to it; a peaceful sound. Something you wouldn't really expect to hear in a pitched battle such as this, but this was exactly how Komosatuo wanted it to start. It represented the calm before the storm, the slow inhale before the big exhale. He smiled as he blew and changed the key, and the speed.

It began to move faster, keeping pace with the fights around it, dancing between the moving feet of the thirteen other combatants of the cage. It shrilled sharply when a sword rose high into the air, descended slowly as the sword fell in a deadly arch, and crashed in a low note when the sword made contact. Komosatuo smiled again, then changed key.

The sound of the music filled the cage and he began to bob slowly side to side as he blew into his flute. He hoped to remain conspicuous during this fight and as he steadily blew into the flute, continuing to produce the fast paced melody befitting this fight, he began to wonder if playing his flute at a time like this, wasn't such a good idea after all.

No sense in stopping now.

He inhaled between notes and continued to blow into his flute, the music pouring steadily forth as he played the flute that would probably end his life, either for the second time, or the first.

[Abenaki]

Jada's skill with a blade was meager at best, his offensive and defensive prowess little more than "hack and slash" and "get out of the way" respectively. Therefore it came as little surprise to the young warrior when his taller, heftier opponent sidestepped easily out of the way and blocked his attack. Over the last couple of battles Jada had become accustomed to the fact that his foes were more than likely to evade or parry his opening swings. The same scenario had revealed itself in his battle with Xanith, the cat in the first round, and now this new opponent. What Jada hadn't expected, however, was for this new opponent to counter his attack at the same time that he blocked it...

That was something that differed from the scenario in the warrior's head...

The blue-haired man's blade ran down the length of Jada's own blade with a metallic squeal, stopping only when it hit the plain, unadorned hand-guard. Jada instinctively moved to the left and tried to back up to avoid the blade as it lowered towards his shoulder and his opponent pressed the counterattack, but something tripped him up. It was his opponent's leg; Jada realized as he lost his balance and tumbled backwards into the dirt of the arena floor.

This man knows what he is doing. Jada thought with a frown as he quickly went to kick his opponent's knee from the ground. The thought filled the warrior with a sudden sense of dread as he tried to picture himself going toe-to-toe and blade-to-blade with an experienced dueler. Being on the ground wasn't helping his chances, but kicking for his opponent's leg was all he could really do to keep the man from pouncing on him with his blade...

[Witchblade]

Witch looked down at the now lifeless body of the human before her. She was pissed and annoyed all at the same time, not only had the disgusting human spit in her face but he’d killed himself. He’d mooned her, attacked her, spit in her face and then killed himself. The half-ling did not even get the satisfaction of killing him herself, still, she was not stupid and had seen the human fight in the last cell and could not fathom why he had suddenly decided to commit suicide in this round. It didn’t make sense. She had other things to worry about right now though, like the eleven other combatants in this cell. A few of whom were already engaged in killing each other.

The crowd around them was erupting into a chorus of screams, yells, chanting whatever the hell it was humans did when they saw someone die. Witch wasn’t even sure if they knew that the human had just killed himself and it hadn’t been her hand to do it. From the sounds of it they didn’t seem to care, as long as there was bloodshed and death they were appeased. Like lambs to the slaughter they were, for the amusement of disgusting humans.

The flickering blue flames dancing along her arms disappeared leaving not a trace that it was ever there and using her shirt, Witch wiped the spit and the blood from her face. Arterial spray had gotten all over her face and chest when the man had slit his throat. Her shirt was already the colour of blood, only now it clung to her. As much as she’d wanted bloodshed, she didn’t want it to get in her eyes and affect her vision. And she sure as hell didn’t want any of it getting into her mouth. Filthy human blood.

Turning to Izvilvin, Witch inclined her head to him, “How about we team up and stain this cage red?”

Her ears suddenly picked up on the sound of…a flute? No, she must have been hearing things yet taking a quick look around the half-ling was able to verify the fact that a man was sitting cross-legged on the ground playing a flute. In the middle of an all out chaotic battle some retarded human was sitting there playing with his freaking flute! And he looked the kind of human who fought on a regular basis, actually reminded her more of an assassin so why in the name of the Thayne was he playing a flute in the middle of a fight!?

Wiping away a few drops of blood that had started trickling down her forehead, Witch grabbed two of her Titanium throwing daggers and threw them at the human. No one was fighting between her and him so they should have a clear path and if not involuntarily kill him they would at least stop his incessant playing. She did not want to listen to the rise and fall of a flute while she was ripping out someone’s intestines. It just didn’t go very well. Not mention the sound pierced her sensitive ears almost as much as the crowd did, especially when he hit those freaking high notes.

[hushpuppy]

The gull tilted its head, observing the carnage unfolding below with one blank eye, shifting from leg to leg and ruffling its feathers in repressed delight. Stabbing and jabbing at each other, the humans had already engaged in their deadly sport, senselessly battering away at each other, drowning in their own blood. A longing to swoop down, spreading more confusion and gore, gripped the gull, but it turned and focused on the stands surrounding the cage. Hundreds of spectators shared in the delight of watching warriors accelerate their inexorable race towards death. Their bristling, impassioned exteriors spoke to what they saw in the battle before them - a facsimile of their own impending doom, fulfilling their own fearful fascination with their deaths while divorced from the soulful terror with which it gripped them.

That rippling, roaring crowd held the gull's interest far longer than the raucous battle in the Cell. Inexpertly taking to the air, violently flapping to stay afloat, pushing against the light breeze, the gull made its way toward the stands. Its flight was more like a confused fly than a bird, zagging and wobbling back and forth, swooping up and down. Although erratic, its path was true, and it floated over the first few rows of the stands, scanning the audience below as best it could. Men were moving, standing up to get a better view, slapping their friends on the shoulder in excitement, spitting on the wooden floor, crying out appreciatively or exasperatedly as their favored warriors made a deft move or a wretched mistake.

One man, burly with a permanent grimace, caught the gull's attention. It held the air for a second, focusing on the fellow's wide face, before swooping down and plunging its beak into his left eye. Blood and fluid splattered across the gull's bleached white feathers and dripped onto the floor as the man screamed in agony, vomit dribbling out of his mouth.

[Dissinger]

"You're more than welcome to it, if he even shows up," Seth muttered to the mutant. While normally loathe to show his back to anyone he stepped away from the cage as he sighed and said softly, "Salt heals all wounds."

The effect was immediate as his kunai began to glow a pale white before they dimmed and went back to normal. The time frame was just long enough for someone to notice and ponder the effects. Still the effects of it would be seen soon as he sized up his targets. He scanned each with equal thought, the two from his own cell then the ones from the others. Finally he sighed as he said softly, "Time to get my hands dirty."

As he began to hear music it started off soft, almost soothing, until eventually it began to rise in tempo and pitch. The pacing was frantic as the notes flew through the air to him. Closing his eyes for a second he opened them, realizing he had to pick a target soon. Part of him wanted to just kill the man playing the flute, realizing that he probably didn't have any hands on weapons and would be the easy mark. However, he wanted a challenge, a true test of skill.

Then the woman in the cage threw two daggers at the man. Immediately he saw his target and locked on as he spun and let both Kunai fly right at the Halfling. A grin crossed his face as he decided if she was going to pick off targets so would he, especially with his throwing knives. While only steel they were imbued with sowing salt, more than enough to make anyone cringe in pain, no matter their battle worthiness.

After they were well on their way he shouted, "So long as we're throwing things, why not get this party started, right?"

(I threw two kunai with sowing salt at Witchblade. Effects of it can be found in my profile under "Have yet to see it.")

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin did get a good look at Jon's grim smile as he slit his own throat. The Drow couldn't really blame him for doing away with himself, considering that two able fighters had decided to assault him at once. It was probably the quicker escape, and the human evidently did not care if he went out the coward's way. The warrior's sai slid neatly out of the flesh as the man fell to the ground, leaving Izvilvin standing surprised as blood dripped from his weapon. The shock didn't last long, and with a quick wipe of his weapon against Jon's back, he was ready to move on.

He didn't really feel fulfilled the way he thought he would, but at least Jon was dead. There would be no surprise attacks from him this time.

His head dropped and rose in a nod to Witchblade's suggestion. He had to admit that the way she suggested they team up was uncomfortable to him. It made him feel like some sort of villain, to imagine himself killing people ruthlessly. It was a brief thought, though, quickly out of his mind as the woman moved to throw a pair of weapons at a flute-playing man. Izvilvin hadn't even noticed the sound until now, so consumed with the battle was he.

He stepped away from the fallen Jon, his eyes quickly darting around the area to check for the biggest threat to him or his friend. Those lavender eyes spotted Rheawien, but went right on by to observe the others. There really was no sense in dwelling on her. Not anymore.

A flash of movement brought his attention to a brown-haired man, daggers in hand and poised to throw. Izvilvin sneered as the man's line of sight betrayed who his target was. The human was looking to take out Witchblade while she was distracted, something the Drow simply could not allow to happen.

He stepped in front of her just in time, his sai working independently. One of the daggers was knocked neatly aside, but the other nearly got through, the blade gliding against the side prong of the parrying weapon. The dagger passed through to graze Izvilvin's skin, tearing a thin, shallow scratch along his hand and wrist, before the weapon fell harmlessly to the floor. He felt it, alright, but was prepared to advance on Dahlios all the same -- then he noticed how much it hurt.

A grimace crossed his face. This was not natural pain. This didn't feel like a normal scratch across his hand, this was a much more crippling, almost making him drop his weapon.

"Uk morfel faer ulu jivviim uns'aa," he muttered to Witchblade, telling her that the man had used magic to hurt him. She could understand him because of the strange psychic powers she possessed.

This man had some power Izvilvin didn't understand. He simply didn't want to face off against him alone, not when he could make such a small scratch as painful as it was. Either Witchblade could help him, or he would pick a different target. Hopefully, the human wasn't set on fighting him, now.

[Ter-Thok]

"Sweet shit," the demon breathed, pulling his swing at the woman's legs short as he caught sight of a human slitting his own throat, dumping what appeared to be gallons of sticky red fluid onto the dusty floor. Ter-Thok grunted, irate that his only attack thus far had been interrupted by such a shocking sight. His erstwhile target not entirely forgotten, the demon jabbed his elbow towards her legs to gain her attention, saying, "Day-yumn, would you look at that, se&#241;orita? That's messed up, over there,"

Ter-Thok started walking torwards the carnage, wondering exactly what motivation a person would have to cut his metaphorical fuel line in the middle of a pitched battle. Seemed to be the easy way out, honestly. He prodded the corpse with a hoof for a moment, then noticed a combatant who had deigned not to participate. The demon grinned, and held up one hand; a ball of flame flared into life in his palm, flickering wildly. He juggled it back and forth from one hand to the other, then tossed it at the be-mohawked man who had, until just then, been discussing something with the man who had thrown the bizarre knives with ring thingies on the back end.

"Hey, Saw-Head! Were I you, I'd pay attention to the situation, and not be imagining that man next to you giving you a display of removing his clothes and, uh, shaking his money-maker! I insult your desire for reproductive acts with, um, wolves!" Needless to say, sexual taunts are not something that comes easily to an asexual organism; but at least he was trying. Ter-Thok began backpedalling, trying to put some other combatants between himself and the individual he had both insulted and assaulted. His hooves kicked up sprays of dirt as he managed to duck, for a moment, behind the gentleman with the flute.

"Nice tunes, amigo," the demon stated appreciatively, "But I don't think the rest of the cage appreciates it," With that, Ter-Thok scrambled up the steel mesh of the cage, endeavouring to reach high ground and gain a better idea of the chaos.

Not to mention put some air between himself and that bomb.

[Christina Bredith]

Patience was the name of this game, Christina knew. She had learned her lesson in the first round of The Cell: she had designated her target and prepared to attack at the beginning of that battle, and immediately she was assaulted by a large spear of ice created by the mohawk-toting mutant and aimed for her blind side. Had her Drow-in-shining-armour not been there, who knows if she would have been able to step out of the way in time? And as a result of all that, she ended up getting into a very nasty fight with the halberd-wielded Damion, which resulted in her very near death. This cage was apparently made up of combatants far more talented and deadly than Damion or herself, and that meant that Christina needed to keep a cool head if she was going to survive. If she rushed in, she’d attract someone’s attention, and that could spell trouble for her.

But apparently, standing still wasn’t the best choice either. She hadn’t realized that, with everyone else buzzing about like chaotic bumblebees (or in one lady’s case, a firefly), someone standing still would also be easily noticed. As such, a minuscule little creature with red skin tottered over to her, and in response Christina merely tilted her head with a smile. She had to resist the urge to say something like, Aren’t you a precious thing?, because no doubt even this pint-size was a deadly and dangerous opponent. He proved it when he swung some sort of strange stick at the back of her legs; in reflex response, Christina began to swing Rosebite in preparation to block the attack.

It stopped short, however. Neither Ter-Thok’s attack not her own deflection ever met. Sweet shit? The woman furrowed her brow in confusion, and as the little demon jabbed her leg with his elbow, she turned in the designated direction. Her face immediately contorted into something of a grimace at the sight of blood pooling on the floor around a body of a man who had apparently slit his own throat. “Oh, that’s nasty.” But more importantly than being nasty, Christina realized that it both increased and lowered her chances of winning: increased because there was one less fighter who could be named victor, and lowered because there was one less fighter for the stronger types to pick on. Not good.

It was time, then, to select a target of her own. Although waiting until every one of her opponents was tired out would theoretically be a good strategy, it wasn’t going to work in a carnage-filled situation like this. Besides, the almighty, unseen judges of this tournament didn’t seem to care much whether you lived or died – it was, quite literally, how you played the game that mattered to them. Standing around wouldn’t earn her many brownie points with them, so she needed to get her money maker into action. But against whom? The Mohawk-headed mutant was not exactly high on her priorities at the time; she knew he was powerful and dancing with him was not in her immediate best interests. Everyone else seemed to be pretty busy, though. Wait a second… Everyone, she noted, including the Half-Drow who had helped her out in the last battle! He seemed to be handling himself pretty well against his opponent, but Christina made a mental note of keeping an eye on him. Allies would be fruitless in this battle, because only one person could come out on top, but at least for a little while it would be good to have a friend in here.

It was then that Christina spotted a little red blot ascending the wall of the cage – the same little red blot that had swung its weapon at her knees before. The creature’s plan seemed clear: climb high and avoid the carnage until everyone’s too worn out to defend themselves, and then swoop in and finish the fight himself. Very sneaky – And totally my idea! Christina lifted Rosebite’s steel blade towards the climbing demon, trailing him with its tip like the sight of a sniper rifle. At long last, she grinned and called, in a mocking tone, “Listen up, runt!” The silver gem near the tip of the sword began to glow, and the orange rune within seared with energy. A burst of blue energy ripped through the air towards Ter-Thok, threatening to crush his little body against the cage to which he so desperately clung. It was nothing personal; this was war!

[Witchblade]

Legendary titles were won and lost in situations like this. One could easily grab the attention of the crowd and dance before their eyes in merriment and entertainment for however long they could hold it. Or one could be snuffed out like the flame of a candle. How fragile and strong it was in the same sense. It could bring light and warmth yet without its source it was nothing and with a quick pinch of the fingers it was no more.

That is what the combatants in The Cell were like. Tiny candle flames, flickering before their mass of onlookers searching for their warmth. Only this time the candles put themselves out, dancing around in their little cage they fought one another for the joy of battle, for the money and for the glory.

Oh, how sweet and short the life of the candle.

The flute-wielding warrior was her distracting flame. The blades leaving her hands and traveling towards him were where her eyes were, instead of all around her like they should be. She was intent on seeing whether or not they hit the mark. Either way, blood or no blood the noise would stop and she would only have to ignore the deafening sound of the crowd. However, someone else amongst this group of fighters had decided to engage her and the halfling hadn’t even realized it until a shadow crossed her path.

Her eyes glanced to the side as she heard the sound of metal hitting metal. Two daggers dropped to the ground and then she heard the words of Izvilvin. He’d protector her, like she’d done to him he’d saved her when her senses had been elsewhere. For that she was thankful and for that she would one day have to repay him for.

Stepping out from behind Izvilvin, Witch looked from the daggers to his hand. They had some form of magic on them but she didn’t know what, all she did know was that this man had clearly dealt more pain to her little Drow than that simple cut should be allowing.

“It will probably fade…”

The Halfling didn’t know that for sure because she didn’t know what kind of magic she was dealing with. Most likely a spell to increase the amount of pain a person felt from a wound. She imagined if Izvilvin had been dealt something more serious he wouldn’t be standing right now. Sheathing her dagger in the small of her back, Witch bent down and picked up the man’s discarded daggers.

“Payback can be a bitch. Izzy, come in for a second assault once mine’s done.”

Grinning, Witch tensed the muscles in her legs and sprang towards her new enemy, running on the balls of her feet. His own daggers clutched in her hands, the halfling faked at attack to the man’s face then quickly drew the blade around in an arch and attempted to stab him in the gut and slash open his leg at the same time.

[Molotov]

Molotov didn’t see the flame coming until it was too late. It mattered little, for the fireball merely cascaded against the mutant’s cloak and dissipated. However, the action certainly caught Molotov’s attention. Too much of Molotov’s attention had been placed on forging alliances and playing politics, and now he found that was something he could ill afford.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, someone in the stands tossed a stick of dynamite into the cage. It was headed straight for the mutant, and reflexively, Molotov caught the powerful explosive. “Bloody hell…” was all he could think. It took the mutant a while to remember what dynamite was, and that was time that he could ill afford spending. He wasted no time on trite talk, especially since he couldn’t understand a word that the demon had said to him. Instead, Molotov took one look at the fuse on the weapon, and immediately began to survey his surroundings. Right there he realized he might not have enough time to think up a plan.

He had to get it away from his hands somehow, but the mutant didn’t know where to throw it. The cage was full of people fighting, weapons being flung about and spells being cast. Any kind of explosion would release an unpredictable amount of shrapnel, and the nature of the Cell would prevent the mutant from throwing the bomb out up into the stands. Even if he were to not be penalized in the tournament, he would be held culpable for murder by the local authorities and perhaps even find the bomb thrown back into his lap.

As the mutant looked at the fuse, he could tell that it was a matter of seconds before it blew. He stammered for a bit, and then grabbed the bomb, knowing that his only chance would be to throw it up in the air. That would be the only way he might be able to escape the situation unharmed.

A drop of sweat fell down his face as the mutant surveyed the cage one last time. If he threw it up in the air, Molotov knew that he was going to have to time it precisely. If the bomb didn’t detonate in air, the mutant knew he would be dead.

Suddenly, the blonde girl that Molotov had fought in the preliminary cage caught his attention. He looked at her a bit longer than he probably should have. “Bloody hell…” the mutant cursed to himself. “This is not the time to be thinking about the birds…” However, her all too common scream belied her intentions, and Molotov now realized that he had a chance to get back at the little red creature who had tossed the fireball at him.

“This’ll be pretty,” Molotov remarked as he tossed the bomb straight into the ray of blue energy, figuring that the beam would carry the bomb straight towards the little red demon.

Molotov smirked. “Take that you bugger…” he said. With an air of triumph, the mutant pulled out another cigarette from his pack.

[Arsenic Ruin]

A step that could be so treacherous, but at the same time ever so helpful, I am the come back kid. Any disadvantage can be turned to an advantage no matter how tricky the situation there is always a silver lining I say. That is the rule I live by in a fight that is the rule I have learned to love.


Act 1: Scene 5 Part 1

“The aspiring knight and the Final Cage…”


I took that step that I mentioned before, and it wasn’t a second to soon. But it was more than the step that proved to my advantage. Even though the weight of my opponent’s body after the trip was a reasonable cause to move it, there was also that nagging reflexive feeling. That pestering fly that buzzes around in your head until you do exactly as it wants you to. Well that fly saved me my leg, just as I brought it up a kick came out towards it. Just as it was three inches above the ground, the kick struck the upper shin instead of the base of my knee. Just as the kick landed, well… the foot was pushed further backwards, causing me to lean forward heavily but that only proved to my liking. A grin creeping across my features, as I ever so eloquently brought my sword down using the forward lean momentum to catch my opponent with his leg extended.

In the time the weapon would come down, I knew a dodge was in order that is why the grip of my weapon wasn’t so tight. That is why my arm was moving slightly at a deceiving angle. A trick of the eyes with that blaring sun behind me, with the distracting noise around me, in the midst of chaos I was in my own reverie a dream state that allowed me to focus somewhat. Though my senses were alive, I could still hardly block out the melodious tune of the dance of death. The song that played with each scuffling step, with each sword as it passed through the air cutting to its target. The dance that proclaimed justification for such malicious acts such as this one, for people of my occupation, yes I felt mercy, and no, I wouldn’t kill him I suppose that is what separates me from the killers that come into this cage for a kill.

It was a fight for survival, I knew it was a fight for my survival but in such cases adrenaline will block out common sense reactions. So that is where the other part of my focus was placed. Driving the weapon downward at that ever so slightly turned angle, so that if a dodge was in order I could easily cut the blade either way to make a change in direction, my lips curled as I aimed to follow my opponent in a simple strike. It was a two attack, the first to get the prey to move, the other to attack the prey when they think they have dodged. Though I also kept the weapon up at a waist level tilt at the pommel just incase I needed to flank and block.

My left hand adhering to the cause of my right which held my weapon, pulling the sword down further which would increase the striking speed, also it would increase the chances of me accurately moving the weapon out of the way, or in the way of an attack.



Touché

[Dissinger]

Set watched as the Drow locked the Halflings strikes. Frowning at the display of speed he cursed as he drew ebony and Ivory into his clutches. Twirling them as predicted he found himself in the midst of a struggle as she brought herself at him, kunai in hand. Blocking both slashes with practiced efficiency he growled lowly, "How nice of you to return my toys, hope you know how to use them."

He flexed his muscles trying to give the illusion of strain as she fought to keep her arms apart before he grinned, the deceit played he brought his body towards hers, before he fought to bring his knee up into the woman's midsection, still trying to use his daggers to entwine hers. He was far from fair about things, thieves often resorting to similar tactics. As he brought the knee up he said softly, "How about a name? I figure since we're dancing and our cards are filled you might as well entertain me."

He was being ruthless as he brought the knee up again in a strike aiming for the midsection of the Halfling. He was oblivious to any plans that might have been in the works. His body was repaired, and his clothing while tattered was functional. This was what he craved; it was his heart and his soul. While he tried to claim he was beyond these primal instincts, he always found he relished the good fights. He relished the crushing of an opponent under his heels, with the virtue of his strength and wit. He had loved the fight against Shadar, but in the end he had died to that damn harpy of his. While the victory was bittersweet, he wanted something to equal the blood and the brutality.

~*~

Liliana sat in the stands her gaze falling upon Seth locking up with the woman. She could see the change form the man she loved into the monster. His moves were clinical and brutal, his mannerisms cocky and arrogant. He was the demon, but willingly, this wasn't the man that had gone on a one year tear through Althanas trying to kill everyone he encountered. This wasn't the man that gave her the scar on her right shoulder when one of his blades pierced her flesh and he nearly killed her. This was the man that had fought the bandits, had entered the Gisela.

Was this what Seth Dahlios had become?

[Izvilvin]

Growling loudly, Izvilvin fought off the pain. In the end, Witchblade was right, for the pulsing discomfort dulled after only a moment. The normal pain of the scratch was actually a great relief, compared to what the Hex Mage's spell had made him feel.

The Drow warrior gripped the handles of his weapons tightly, somewhat motivated by the pain. He wanted to return the favor. Eyes narrowed and teeth clenched, Izvilvin burst forward behind Witchblade, who got to the human and began her attack. The man parried her attacks easily, even countering, but Izvilvin was there a second later to add to his worries.

The lithe elf sidestepped around the man, pincering him. The crowd roared as the battle heated, and the booming sound made Izvilvin's heart pound. It drove him, it made him bloodthirsty. He was becoming one of them, in some vague, twisted way.

A flash of the sai tore through the air, as the prongs of his weapon slashed at Seth's back. The second came in right after, stabbing forward with as much force as Izvilvin could muster behind a single strike. In the recesses of his mind, the Drow was imagining Rheawien in front of him. The sudden battle lust that had come over him was bringing forth his most carnal impulses, the most prominent of which was his desire to kill the woman who betrayed him. His rationale should have debunked the idea, for she was still someone he held dear, but the crowd, the pain... It changed him.

Indeed, he so wished his sai were plunging into the flesh of that bitch. She'd taken his eye in the first Cell, and impaled him upon her sword -- though that was mostly his decision. And for what? Because she was jealous? Because this was a silly tournament? Her need to win had overshadowed the deep bond they had created in Fallien.

It made him wonder just how deep that bond had been to begin with. How deep could any friendship be, if it could be so easily cast aside?

[Rheawien]

The chaos that Rheawien went through in the first round of The Cell was a lullaby compared to the hell that unfolded before her eyes once the cage was officially open to business. Faces and figures – familiar and unknown alike – went at each other’s throats with a solitary desire to bring forth the expected bloodbath. Alliances weren’t fragile here – they were a fool’s hope, a risk that wouldn’t pay off regardless of the outcome. Because, in the end, there could be only one victor and there was no place beside her on the podium.

Because of the frantic every-person-for-themselves action, Rhea knew that it was imperative to spread her energy in a wise, economic manner. In the first round she went all out from the get-go, came out guns blazing in an attempt to dominate and overcome each and every single opponent in the cage. Partially it was because of her cocky demeanor that demanded from her to not only defeat her foes, but to do so dominantly enough to show them that they weren’t her peers. Mostly it was because she wanted to defy the orders to take the fall. But right now, with thirteen rather (thought not overly) capable combatants around her, even her unyielding pride and stubbornness gave way to the logic. It was a logic that in its essence wasn’t too different from any common bar brawl and it said to stay out of the crowd, stay inconspicuous and cut around the edges of the furnace in the middle.

It was a logic that she would follow if it weren’t for one of those familiar faces coming right at her, swinging a sword at her neck. Damon Kaosi was a rather fond memory for Rheawien. Last time the two of them stood face to face, she drove a sword into his back (as strangely as that sounded) and he returned the favor with a cyclone attack that threw her off the fourth floor of a pagoda. Unfortunately, the officials found Damon’s final attack more eye-catching, allowing the elf and his partner through to the final rounds. That fact was enough for Rhea to hold quite a grudge against him, and given the fact that the elf was coming at her with an unhinged horizontal swipe, it seemed that Damon had some payback in mind.

He wasn’t fast enough to catch her with her pants down – nowadays, there were few men that managed to do just that. Without even unsheathing her other blade (and not having time to do so either), Rheawien ducked beneath the high arc, then dashed down the elf’s flank from her squatted position. Once she was behind her back, her right leg fired a kick at Damon’s back, aiming for the small of his back. The attack was neither strong nor lethal, but hopefully it bought her time to do the necessary preparations.

“Down, boy!” she said, her smirk an evident mockery as she pointed her katana at him. Her posture was confident, almost an overkill given the frivolous environment she was in and the powerful opponent she was facing once again. As if to further amplify the meaning of her words, Rhea’s left picked up the whip that stood at her belt, let it unwrap in the dirt below her feet before she snapped it once vigorously.

“I guess we’re picking up where we left off the last time around, oh mighty Aeigs!” Rheawien said, sidestepping around the elven lad like a prowling predator. She didn’t want to give him enough time to come at her again. Instead, she took the initiative, swiping her whip through the dirt and lifting it just in time to aim it at Damon’s knee. She gave the handle a zestful tug, hopefully throwing the boy out of balance just enough to disable a proper reaction to her follow up. And it came blistering fast, her titanium blade coming from above to slice vertically at the elf’s head. She always wondered if it was possible to cleave the man in half.

[Witchblade]

Weapons locked. Metal grinded against metal, strength pushed against strength and her opponent gave a halfhearted strain to bring her closer. The halfling didn’t realize it until too late though and received a hard knee to her gut because of it. Muscles tensed from the fighting couldn’t protect against a blow to that sensitive area. Witch doubled over slightly and ground her teeth together, a small amount of air forced from her lungs.

She saw the second one coming though, just as she saw Izvilvin stepping around the flank of her newfound target. Twisting her body around to the side Seth’s knee made contact with her hip instead of her stomach, though it still nudged her off balance for a moment it was better than receiving two blows to that sensitive area.

“The name’s Witchblade, Seth, and thanks for asking!”

Her mouth sown shut; the words were easily said within his mind, where it was a simple task for her to pick out his name. She’d done it so often to others that it only took a second. The halfling didn’t recognize the name; then again she barely paid attention to the goings in Althanas. She had been in seclusion for over a year and in that time much could and probably did happen that she knew nothing about. If this human’s—no wait he wasn’t human—name meant something or held some kind of significance she didn’t know it.

Twisting her body back around, Witch pressed herself closer to her enemy then reared her head back and attempted to head butt him hard in the forehead using the harder, less sensitive part close to her scalp. Maybe that would knock a few screws lose.

[INDK]

Damon wasn’t one to curse, but Rheawien seemed to bring out the worst in him. “Crap…” the boy muttered, eyes open wide with surprise. He had fought the girl before, and Damon had thought he’d left with a good enough impression of how it was that the half elf fought. Now, Damon couldn’t help but to think that he had been misled. She had been self serving and wicked before, but never so genuinely mean. Damon cringed, a bit surprised by this reaction. It only reinforced his belief that what he was doing was worthwhile, but now Damon couldn’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed.

A quick kick had caused Damon to buckle, robbing him of precious time he would need to otherwise capitalize on an aggressive first maneuver. The boy cursed, hissing a bit in a way that he knew Ashiakin would not approve of. Still, it was quite frustrating. Instead of having an early advantage in what was his work, the boy now found himself backpedaling on the defensive.

“Just don’t let her beat you like she beat you before,” Damon reminded himself. “Ashiakin said it was alright to lose if you learn from your defeat…” He tried to keep a cool head about the situation, but every thought just increased the vigor with which Damon found himself overwrought with emotion. “If I fail, there will have been no honor here,” the boy realized. After the disappointment of the first round, Damon felt as if he couldn’t afford that again.

However, before Damon realized it, a whip had wrapped around his knee. The boy tried to protest, but a quick vision told him that he would have a greater priority to worry about. It wouldn’t be the whip with which Rheawien was seeking to do the most of her damage, but a sword instead.

Knowing that he would have no ability to balance with that foot, Damon used his sword quickly to block the titanium katana. With a quick grunt and a slight smile of satisfaction, Damon met eyes with his foe for but a a second. A slight hint of confidence appeared in the boy’s blank eyes, as if he knew his seemingly quick reflexes would have impressed the half elf.

“Now take this,” was all Damon said as he leapt up into the air. He attempted to spin a full 360 degrees, catching the bottom of Rheawien’s chin with a kick from his free leg.

[Rheawien]

Only half of her combined attack was effective, and not the half that Rheawien desired for. Her whip produced the desired effect, throwing the boy off balance momentarily, but the cheap trick wasn’t enough to break Damon’s focus. His longsword was deployed in a defensive position, making the two blades clash with a sharp, instantaneous clink. That wasn’t what irked Rhea though – she had her attacks blocked before and by less intimidating opponents then the fabled Damon Kaosi. What did dance on the thin edge of her nerves was the smirk on the elf’s face that openly defied her own arrogance. It was a wiseass smirk, a I’m-better-then-you smirk, and it was something that she yearned to erase.

So irritated by this newly-erupted confidence in her foe, Rheawien was utterly unprepared for the counterattack despite the telegraphed announcement. The lithe pointy-eared lad leapt and gyrated around his vertical axis, bringing his foot at the side of Rhea’s face. Her cheek exploded. The pain was so intense that she didn’t even realize she was down in the dirt until she tried to breathe and inhaled the dust of the cage floor. The vision of her right eye was blurred, trying in vain to ascertain the aftermath of the attack from her prone position. Her tongue did the ritual that it always did when she got punched in the face, passing over the line of her teeth and counting them. It came to number four and then dipped into a bloody hole in her upper jaw.

“Bastard!” she muttered, pushing herself up on all fours with her arms and spitting the contents of her mouth. Her right eye couldn’t acknowledge the details of the crimson glob that she expelled from her mouth, but her left could see a bloodied tooth in the dust. “You fucking knocked my tooth out!”

She needed that tooth. Not so much for eating, but for completing the malicious toothy grin that she liked to use from time to time. Now she looked like a foul-mouthed, graveyard-mouthed pirate, sans the parrot on her shoulder. And that was more then enough to infuse the half-elf with enflamed hatred towards Damon. She was mildly annoyed when he parried her attack. Now she was genuinely pissed off.

Her right hand picked the katana from the dirt, her left disregarding the whip for the time being. With the right side of her face throbbing and prone to a massive swelling within the next couple of minutes, ambidexterity didn’t seem like something she would be able to perform. Instead her left reached for the holster on her belt, picking up the pair of glaives that rested on her hip. Rhea held them close together though, so close, in fact, that it seemed she retrieved just one glaive from her belt. With the three weapons brandished, Rheawien pushed herself back to her feet.

“Didn’t they ever teach you to never strike a lady? Especially not if the lady can strike back.” the white-haired woman spoke, her voice retrieving the cool, dominant tone. Her smirk was gone though, ejected from her system together with one of her teeth which left her gums bleeding enough for the scarlet liquid to creep down the corners of her mouth. And she would make the bastard pay for the expunction of her brassy smirk.

Her left was pulled back at her hip, releasing the pair of glaives in Damon’s direction. The trajectory was uncanny though, seemingly taking the two spinning projectiles flying as one towards the ground. But inches before hitting the dirt, her telekinesis grabbed a hold of the glaives, correcting their crooked path and making them levitate above the soil and scud towards her opponent. Ten feet before colliding with the boy, the pair detached from each other, seemingly darting at Damon’s sides. Five feet before reaching Damon, the pair turned at a sharp angle, moved inwards, crisscrossed in the middle and gained elevation, each one now aimed at the lad’s thighs.

[INDK]

The moment after Damon had landed, he couldn’t help but smile. His attack had succeeded, and while he didn’t gain as much damage as he probably would have liked, the boy was pleased enough that he could pull that kind of a kick seemingly out of nowhere. More importantly, it had freed both of Damon’s legs. The boy now stood properly, tearing Rheawien’s whip from his knee. With a bit of a smirk, he prepared for a counter before making any kind of a move

Normally, the boy might have struck first, but there was a considerable distance between himself and Rheawien. Plus, it seemed that the fight was going to be just as much a verbal one as one with weapons. The galling assertion that Rheawien would even consider herself a lady would have normally brought out a gut wrenching soliloquy from Damon about how proper ladies would always use fair play. However, the boy knew by now that a comment like that would have little effect on the half elf. She was completely and utterly shameless.

“You’re no lady…” was Damon’s only retort. He didn’t elaborate, because he was certain the half elf knew what he meant. Now, the boy watched as the two glaives headed straight for him in a seemingly erratic fashion. Damon looked at them for a moment, but then turned around to stare right into the eyes of Rheawien.

‘You got me with these before… but lets put them to the test now…” Damon thought. He didn’t know if this was telekinesis or some kind of targeting projectile. Either way, the boy had no intention of finding out. Still, it would be impossible for Damon to ready another weapon and successfully block both glaives, especially if Rheawien were to summon them up again and have them attack immediately after Damon’s parries. There would be only one way to beat them, and that would be to close the distance.

With that, Damon sheathed his weapon. He put the sword back in its sheath and pulled out a small dagger in its stead. The boy then caught it within his teeth and began running straight for the glaives, like a madman or a tiger on fire. He could feel a sudden bit of excitement from the crowd, perhaps some even from other members of the cage, not to mention complete and utter confusion from practically everyone. Here he was, running straight towards two lethal weapons.

Right before they hit him, Damon burst into song. He then watched as the weapons passed right through him, and continued running until he had passed right through Rheawien. Immediately, he let his body solidify again, using the inertia to give him a quick and violent spin. Eagerly, Damon spit his dagger into his hand. Hoping that his little trick would have created enough shock that the half elf would have been too stunned to reply, Damon made a quick swipe at the back of Rheawien’s neck.

[Storm Veritas]

The fight had continued after he was pushed away from the surprisingly powerful newcomer, people hacking and slashing, bombs blasting and attacks swinging. He had moved quickly, deftly, darting back and forth, to and fro. By staying on the move, he had managed to stay out of the crosshairs from anyone too specific, but at the same time he had emerged feeling a long way from “safe” or “whole”. It was a ravaging thing to merely survive within the cell – and he had the scratches, cuts, bumps and bruises to show for it. Hell, his suit had even been singed at the shoulders – something that would be irreparable.

Well, I suppose I should have known better, but I guess it’s a start.

Looking about, they were all engaged in one form of combat or another. One fellow hume fought off the bizarre temptress bitch as the one who had kicked him away and come at him with the fork-things helped her. Was it Seth Dahlios? Preposterous… rumors about Radasanth had Seth as dead or worse, and the electrical mage had the best sources around. Damon Kaosi was involved with some very scintillating, sexy young thing that Storm wouldn’t mind being leglocked with. The demon thing even persisted, bouncing around and trash-talking all the while, going back and forth with another comely blonde, one who was impossibly tall and thin and sexy. And dangerous. Somehow, all the sexy ones in this town had one incredible power or another.

Whatever happened to the hot bitches that were just good at f*cking and then taking dudes money? Is Sarah the last of the dying breed?

There was one competitor he saw that wasn’t engaged. One dangerous enemy that he could take on, engage with, and wow the audience. He would certainly need to be spectacular at this point. With bombs, attacks, and all sorts of defiant tomfoolery, the others in the large cage were all too noteworthy to easily outdo. Yet the one enemy remained, and he recognized it in spite of its natural camouflage.

Furball. You freak little f*ck.

It was a bird for a second, and he knew its game. He also knew better than to fire a bolt of energy at it – he had ignited the cage in the previous round, starting something he had no plans to finish, engulfing the arena in smoke and flame and death. The bird was savage – attacking one particular fatso with ease and ruthless ire, taking out an eye and bringing the crowd to a gasp.

You’re mine, you flying clay-pigeon looking motherf*cker. MINE!

The cell was an easy enough climb. Kaosi was fast up the wall, and though Veritas was human, he wasn’t much slower. Hands and feet were fluid and smooth, grabbing and stepping and pulling with rhythm and confidence. He had reached a height of some twenty feet when he removed his right hand, hanging hard off the side and brandishing his trusty blade once again. A coil, a pounce, and he was leaping, soaring through the air at the bird.

Flying is FOR the birds, you dumb shit. What were you thinking?!

He was out of control as he sailed down at the swooping thing, flailing a knife in a nearly futile effort at the smooth-sailing varmint of ivory white plumage. A simple miss, and he would soon be looking at the business end of a few broken ribs.

Or worse.

[Molotov]

Molotov didn’t wait to see what happened to the dynamite. The mutant didn’t really care. As long as it was out of his hands, he could move on to other things. Now, he was beginning to find the cage a bit boring. Politics seemed useless, for there wasn’t anyone of the fiber of Damion Shargath anywhere. Though, as Molotov thought to himself, that may have been for the better. The mutant exhaled. This Cell had the potential to become quite boring for him. With the exception of the demon fire that was repelled by nothing more than a garment, the mutant hadn’t been put in any kind of danger.

With that, Molotov scanned the cage, wondering if he shouldn’t pick some kind of a victim. The veteran he had talked to earlier now seemed to be involved in a rather large melee involving a drow and a woman with her mouth sewed shut. “Won’t bloody touch that with a ten foot pole…” the mutant decided. “Too much sodding trouble.” Meanwhile, a couple of the cell’s more athletic fighters were engaged in a battle of telekinesis and variable matter while another man seemed to be falling down in a failed pursuit of a bird.

None of it was particularly interesting.

Molotov looked around one last time, and he knew what he would have to do. He needed to get busy, and the only fight that looked permeable was the one between two less experienced fighters brawling on the ground. The mutant cringed. He didn’t much care for that kind of competition, especially since he recognized one of the two dilettantes. “It’s that bloody ponce that I killed last round,” the mutant recognized. “The sod that stepped in for blondie.”

Fighting him would be particularly aggravating, but Molotov felt like he didn’t have much of a choice. Plus, the mutant figured that he could easily do away with the aspiring knight if he were to only act quickly. Right now, the mutant could tell that the young fighter was more concerned with a present challenge. However, Molotov made no mistake in thinking that eventually, the knight would come back for him. “The bloody honor codes those sods follow demands it,” the mutant figured.

With that, Molotov created an ice spike and sent it straight at the knight. “Never got your name!” he called out teasingly. “Too bad, ‘cause I’m gonna kill you twice!”

[Ter-Thok]

Before he could so much as offer a witty retort disparaging the parentage of his blonde-headed attacker, Ter-Thok felt himself being pressed against the rattling steel mesh of the cage. The demon heard a metallic groan, and an even more ominous cracking as one of his ribs gave way under the onslaught. Flailing wildly at his pocket, Ter-Thok managed to hit the button, ominously marked "NOW" beneath the rapidly counting-down timer.

Six feet beneath the dirt of the cell, the bomb's timer halted; red lights flashed for a few moments, and then there was an immensely confusing explosion. Dirt flew into the air, but there was a distinct lack of fire and brimstone, noticable even by the remarkably compressed demon. Greenery erupted from beneath the ground, branches sprouting, growing outwards in seconds as generations of leaves budded, fell away, and sprouted anew. Ter-Thok felt himself pushed directly upwards, out of the blue ray's path and through the shredding links of the cage.

There were a few seconds of blankness as the demon tried to deal with the sensations of immense pain from his chest, sudden vertigo, and crunching of leaves that had grown up through his pant-legs and out his beltline. One hand clutching his shattered rib, Ter-Thok pulled out his communications device and, with that special variety of patience held only by the heavily injured and doubly homicidal, gave Hans a ring.

The ooze, who had been delighting in finding holes in the ceiling and spitting onto the audience through them, picked up with a cheery, "HOW IT GOIN', BOSS?"

"Oh...good, good," Ter-Thok grunted as a trickle of bubbling, muted green blood ran down his lips and ate through the greenery beneath him, "Say, uh, Hans? Can I ask you a question?"

"BOSS NEVER USUALLY HAFTA AXE HANS DAT, SO HANS NOT HAVE PORBLEM,"

"Good, good. I'd hate for something to come between our professional relationship. But, uh, Hans?"

"YES, BOSS?"

"Why, might I ask, did the bomb I asked you to bury simply cause A HALF A DOZEN THIRTY-FOOT OAK TREES TO SPROUT FROM THE GROUND?"

Indeed, spaced in a roughly hemispherical pattern, a number of oak trees had suddenly grown out of the ground. Hans, confused, peered through a crack in the ceiling to view the miniature thicket.

"UUHHH...WELL, BOSS, HANS DID HAFTA FIX BOMB..."

"What do you mean, 'fix' the bomb?" Ter-Thok said in a choked fashion, one of his lower eyelids beginning to nictate wildly.

"UH, WELL, DERE WAS DIS HOOJ-ASS BRICK TING IN MIDDLE, RIGHT?"

"The compressed explosive agent, yes,"

"WELL, HANS SAY TO SELF, 'DIS PORBLY BAD IDEA. WHO PUT BRICK IN SPLODIN' TING?' SO HANS TAKE BRICK OUT. BUT DEN, HANS MEAN, IT TOO EMPTY. SO HANS PUT IN WHOLE BOX OF DEM LITTLE PILL DOODADS BOSS USE ON TREES. NOT TO MENTION, HANS BURY ACORNS AROUND FIELD TO THROW OFF SUS PISHIN..."

"So, what you're saying, Hans, is that to fix the bomb, you REMOVED THE EXPLOSIVE AGENT and replaced it with a dangerously high dosage of the experimental phyto-hyperaccelerant that I was using to try and grow orange trees?"

"YES, DAT 'ZACTLY WHAT HANS MEAN TO SAYS."

There was an uncomfortable silence as Ter-Thok stared daggers at the still-cheerful Hans. The demon silently closed the channel and slid his SpacePDA back into his pocket.

Now...he simply had to climb back down the tree. With a pantsful of branches and a broken rib. Easy as pie.

[Arsenic Ruin]

There goes that blasted Chilly feeling…


My sword shaken slightly by the fact that I knew something of the worse case scenario was happening. Call it warrior’s intuition, or call it pure luck but I felt those icy eyes of our everyday sodder Molotov resting on me. I gave him that secondary glance as my sword was touching down to the ground missing on purpose the original target. Causing me to shimmy shake left, flicking the blade to spin myself parallel to the ground towards the ice shard. Once again we do this tango of death, I feel the tempo picking up as the projectile hurtles closer towards me. Pulling the once ground ridden blade towards the ice in a mimicking attempt of my first attack in the previous round that got me oh so much attention from our water manipulator.

Iron met ice, sending the oversized, sun bouncing, tooth pick into the air spinning haphazardly towards the top of the cage. Where it shattered into a crystalline spray, light refracting from the shards downward onto the participants increasing the light content. Some would shield or I thought they would. Reallocating my weight forward to the balls of my feet, as I skid along the ground bending my knees holding my weapon out from my side. Prepping for my take off, using that scatter star distraction above as a cover -which would undoubtedly fail- to keep my opponent occupied. I contracted a brief case of the jitters, my right foot stepping awkwardly to produce an off balance, wobbling take off. But the bounce back was more enthralling I was determined not to fail this time. The first round was a stepping stone, this time I was ready.

So as the distance was closed, my sword swung about. Tilting my weight into the coming slash, angling the blade slightly so it cut evenly towards the target, my opponents left thigh. Keeping a grounded stance, my hands on the hilt of the weapon that held a steady course, but at the same time keeping the grip lose enough so I could change into a block. I would have to cover all my bases, but a moment of doubt grasped my heart. Seizing me up like I was nothing more than a puppet on its’ dancing strings, those chords that suspended me in my own mind as I was pulled away from the moment. Working over a diagram in my head, I realized that I had made a grave mistake, a complete frontal attack would be fool hardy, but I was already in the midst of moving.

So to correct my misgiving actions, I tilted the sword sharply forward. The angle catching into the sand right along my opponents right side. As I caught my breath, adrenaline was pumping already I was nervous. No, no, I was anxious. My right hand pulled the weapon long ways, moving myself off to the side, this tactic would draw the eyes and distract the mind. My sword slithered along the ground slashing backwards digging up from the sand almost in a silent yet steady approach. As I flicked my weight the sword attacked, all that was called for was the turn. And I supplied it, the moment my opponent would turn to me, he would be closing the distance for me, the moment his eyes fell from the sword, he would be victimized. The moment the blade touched, I was already on to the next step of my training.

Damnit…I felt the ground shudder just as I took off, just as the attack took place, which caused careful footing and the uprooting of the tiled ground beneath my feet. Stretching those ol’ reflexes again I was taken upward into the air, only to saunter back down. It was advantageous for the simple reason that my ice chunking opponent would be caught in the midst of this as well, if that initial slash didn’t get him this next one would. As I descended right down to the top of Molotov’s head I spun swinging the weapon vertically in several course slashes towards his right shoulder.


"The name is Arsenic, like the acid!"

Dance the dance of blades....

[Molotov]

Molotov looked on eagerly as his projectile was blocked by the squire. The mutant shook his head, marginally impressed. “The ponce isn’t nearly as useless as the last time,” Molotov figured. He readied his adze and watched as his opponent leapt into an elaborate and overthought counter attack that would ultimately be unsuccessful.

The mutant was certain that the counter was gong to fail. Unlike the squire, Molotov had the advantage of anticipation. Even the fast reflexes of an eager boy weren’t going to overcome the obviousness of a frontal attack. Without much effort, Molotov blocked the parry with his adze.

Now, the ground was beginning to rumble and the boy was leaping up into the air. The mutant was caught a bit unawares by this and he might have been in trouble had it not been for the fact that suddenly, a giant tree had sprouted right in the middle of the cage. Molotov staggered back, the ground suddenly unsafe as he hit the steel chains with a hard thud. “Not again,” he cursed, remembering that the squire had knocked him back against the wall in their earlier fight. “This bloody ponce would be in so much better shape if he cut his losses and run…”

Though he would have denied it if asked, Molotov was surprised about having been caught so incredibly unaware by an attack of the squire’s. The mutant had expected nothing more than a pithy charge forward, something weak followed by another few quick parries and then the young squire’s brutal death. Molotov had picked this battle because he didn’t want all that much of a challenge early on, and now he genuinely felt as if he was in mortal danger.

However, it was a fact the mutant couldn’t admit to himself. He had trained diligently in Shanleh, he was an intercontinental murderer, certainly not the kind of person who would be undone by a mere squire. Thus, when the mutant spoke, absolutely none of his misgivings were apparent. “You really are bloody stupid…” Molotov shot at the boy. “Arsenic is a poison… not an acid.”

With that, Molotov knocked the head of his adze against the steel chain, letting it envelop in fire. He watched as the cage was suddenly covered with a whole array of foliage. “Like a sodded orchard…” the mutant observed silently. A collective murmur of confusion emerged from the crowd.

Molotov’s focus was now primarily on finding out where Arsenic had landed on the other side of the tree, and that was a considerable shame. Had the mutant been paying more attention to the crowd, he might have noticed that the one who had thrown the dynamite at him was none other than his old rival Mara Jade.

[Storm Veritas]

As he fell, his knife flailing futilely, Storm took his eyes upon the floor below. It would be less than a second before his collapse, but something caught his eye, grabbing his attention and bringing to light a grand opportunity.

Beautiful.

He was prone as he descended, but loved the look of the whole thing. He turned a shoulder during his drop, aiming it at the back of the neck of the man below him. Had the fracas really drawn all attention away from the lightning wielder? Did they not know who he was?!

The fork-flinger was below him, and a wide smile spread across the face of Veritas. He would plummet directly on top of the overly aggressive young man, and he didn’t think the boy had seen him coming at all.

If he hadn’t seen it coming, he’d feel it soon.

Incoming, Izzy!

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin's attacks were quick and precise against Seth, though he had no time to witness whether or not they did any real damage. The sun was bright in the afternoon sky, but a shadow from above impaired the light, and brought the Drow's attention upward. What he saw shocked him, and he wasn't fast enough to react in a way that would save him from the coming impact.

A few thoughts flashed through his mind in the following instant. Did he try to stab upward and take out the human, not bothering to cushion himself? Did he simply brace for impact? Did he try to catch the plummeting Storm Veritas, perhaps using his own weight to propel himself around in some remarkable display of agility?

In the end, there was only one thing he could do. Turning completely, Izvilvin threw his hands up to slow the descent somewhat, using his fists while still holding on to the sai. All the same, Storm landed on him and drove the nimble Drow to the ground, the impact driving the air from his lungs. The back of his head snapped back and cracked against the ground. It was painful, but thankfully not as bad as he'd anticipated.

Still, he was flat on his back with the bulk of the human on top of him. It was a distinct tactical disadvantage Izvilvin did not plan on remaining under. He ignored the throbbing of his head and the pain in his chest, pulling both of his hands away from the man's sides and then driving them inward to try and puncture both sides of the human's body.

At the same time, he squirmed to get out from under the man. Unless he wanted to be hurt, Storm would likely need to get off of him entirely and allow the Drow the chance to roll away. That was the plan, anyway.

[Ter-Thok]

After what seemed like hours of painful inching down the freshly-grown bark of the massive oak tree, Ter-Thok's hooves touched dirt. He spat out another gob of green, acidic integument and lurched around until his eyes caught sight of that mass of blonde hair. He grinned horribly, blood still dripping down his chin to sizzle against the ground below. "Hmph. Nice try, you corn-headed prostitute. When next you offer your reproductive services for monetary compensation, be sure to inform them of your propensity to shriek ghoulishly about...whales. Yeah, whales sounds about right,"

Ter-Thok, right hand clutching his shattered rib, now certain that one of his stomachs was leaking, held out his free hand as if clasping an invisible orb. The sandy dirt poured upwards from the ground, into his grasp, shaping itself impeccably into an egg-shape. With another grimace, the demon crafted another globe of violet-hued fire in that same hand; after a moment, it faded, leaving a crude, crinkling ball of cloudy glass, cooling loudly as it hovered over Ter-Thok's palm. Once it had reached a temperature which would not blister, the demon grabbed the sphere, lobbing it heavily towards the treacherous blonde.

As quickly as his hooves would carry him, the demon shuffled back towards the tree he had just left. It was not only massive, but entirely healthy; not a single knothole dotted the barks surface, no scarring or tearing in the slightest. It was, however, an exceptional place to hide and breath through the pain. Ter-Thok clambered back onto a high branch, and looked down on the battlefield. With a broken rib, combat possibilities became limited. Potshots would be easier with a gun...but maybe heaving spheres of glass at anyone stupid enough to come close would be effective. The demon summoned another fountain of soil into his hand, and smelted it. The moron who had burned down the previous arena was in range, and could probably use an ornament to the head. Ter-Thok tossed it at him half-heartedly, then coughed up a bit more blood.

(Attacking Christina Bredith and Storm Veritas)

[hushpuppy]

As the burly man crashed to the ground, a curtain of blood flowing down his face and chest, the seagull detached from his eye socket and bumbled to the wooden floor. Crimson stained its body and dripped from the tip of its beak. The few in the crowd around the fallen man who tore their attention away from the battle in the Cell below gasped, leaping back in terror or forward in fascination. Men began yelling at each other, trying to figure out what had struck their comrade down. The seagull shuttered and began squawking, confused, as a small white lump rolled off its back and under the overhang of the wooden bench that the dead man was now slumped over. Men began howling at the bird, chasing it away, some anxiously covering their own eyes, some spitting and kicking at the bird.

Meerplex quivered in the shade of the bench, unseen by the dozens of men clustered around, its titters and squeals unheard. Flecks of blood were splattered across its fur, and it shook with orgasmic joy at meting out death so easily. But there was something else in its squeaks and quivers, something strange, something unknown. It was as if the furball was sweating, ill with a mysterious disease. Expanding like a child's chest, it wobbled back and forth, growing in gasps and fits, expanding until it was almost twice its former size. Groaning pitifully, it grew another half-inch. Then, with a noise like a finger-joint separating, a slurping 'pop', Meerplex shrank as a second furball squeezed out its side.

The birth wasn't wet or messy, and had only taken a second, but it was a birth all the same. This second furball was light brown instead of white, its fur just as long and whispy, its shape slightly flattened at the top and bottom, its hair raising and lowering on its sides like a frightened dog's back. It made a deep, gutteral noise, like a man clearing his throat, and Meerplex responded to its calls with its own warbler-calls, tweeting out the tune of a songbird at sunrise. After a few seconds, as if having come to accord, the furballs rolled out from beneath the bench into the moving forest of legs and ankles beyond. Meerplex and its twin, rolling in opposite directions down the stands, leapt onto the cuff of the first pair of pants they found, and tucked themselves up under the cloth, finding a bit of hairy flesh just above the boot.

Two men, each of average height, one balding, one with a lazy eye, jerked in place, gasping with spasms. The white Meerplex, attaching to its prey, moved through a sea of fog that was the man's soul, pushing the clouds aside, reining them into managable clouds, blown back with winds forged from the flagellation of childhood regrets and frustrations, netting them together, binding them easily. The brown Meerplex pushed into the dank cave of its prey's mind, blasting ossified emotions and memories apart, smashing the stone of an individual's mind and remaking it, slapping stone atop stone into a mental fabrication, a castle from which an intruder could hold fast. Both of the invaded men gave a final jerk, and then relaxed, their arms swinging freely at their side, bumped back and forth by the rushing crowd around them. The balding man looked up and around, his head moving smoothly. His lips began jerking, his tongue moving slowly in his mouth.

"Hoooo...maaaaanns," he groaned, but only got the briefest of glimpses from the men rushing around him toward the corpse. "Feeeeelloooooo.... hooooomaaaaannnssss..." The man with the lazy eye lifted his head and looked toward the Cell, raising one quivering finger towards it like a bird dog. The balding man turned and looked at the warriors, smashing at each other below, and nodded.

Both men turned to the nearest person and swung at them, catching a temple or forehead with their knuckles, screaming meaninglessly, leaping and tearing with their teeth. People began yelling indignantly and trying to break the sudden brawls apart. As the invaded bodies were pushed back, two flashing furballs rolled down their boots and bounced away, landing on nearby boots, rolling onto bare legs, invading and attacking, invading and attacking.

A riot began to spread across the stands.

[Storm Veritas]

He had to laugh at how well his plan had worked. He had to. Of all the brilliant schemes and cunning, skillful attacks he had launched, it was the stupid, fruitless, desperate attempt that actually worked. He felt his weight absorbed in a relatively passive collision with the fork-swinger, and fell to the ground in a thump. His body was tired, beaten a bit, but he still mustered a smile in spite of things.

Perfect.

He managed to press up and scamper back a few steps, aware that his breath had been ripped from his lungs. He didn’t panic; it wasn’t the first time he’d felt those hollow gasps, and with any luck it wouldn’t be the last. Scanning about, the explosion of trees about the arena really gave him a sense of how bizarre this entire fiasco had become. Aside from the fires of the last round, this battle was just downright illogical. He couldn’t gather much, but figured that all bets were off in terms of anything traditional.

Put people on the big stage, and everyone has to get cute. Try out something new, something crazy. Whatever happened to just laying a good asskicking on someone?

Before he could really drum up a thick helping of vitriol, he was assaulted, not even aware of what had happened. He was shot – or so he thought – and fell to the ground away from the impact. A bruised tailbone chirped as he landed, and Veritas rubbed at his head. Dirt…? A nightmare of cow-pie tossing huckleberries filled his mind, but he was blissfully relieved when he saw the demon thing sitting atop the tree. Slinging mud.

Now I’ve seen f*cking everything…

So preposterous was the attack, Storm didn’t bother to attempt a counter. Firing a lightning bolt was his only logical recourse, and it was already quite well established that doing so indoors was a risky venture – to do it within the confines of the cage was downright stupid. The demon thing was left to hover in his tree amidst the foliage, free to fire dirtballs. After all, there were far more dangerous things beside him.

The fork wielder, for one, whom Storm had still not really lashed out at. With daggers in hand, he scanned quickly at the spot where the two had settles after impact. The boy was gone.

Shit.

[Abenaki]

In the chaos of battle, the tides can shift in and out of your favor in an instant. For instance: One moment Jada was laying flat on his back, his mind struggling to find some manner in which to deflect or evade the blade thirsting for the flesh of his shoulder. In the next moment, little more than the blink of an eye really, the blade was no longer busy with him, but busy with a large shard of ice instead...

Jada blinked rapidly several times, his arms crossed over his face and neck defensively as dozens of cold little shards showered across his bare flesh. Each drop of cold was a refreshing pinprick on his skin. The feeling was refreshing on the sheen of frantic sweat that had glistened on the warrior. Ice... He was thinking with a half smile. Totally oblivious to the other combatants locked in their death-dances around him, Jada sat up and took a second to gather himself. Where the hell did this ice come from?

Jada didn't have long to contemplate the origins of the mysterious block of cold that had undoubtedly saved his life. Had his blue haired opponent not been called upon to defend his own person, Jada would have suffered a deathblow at the hands of his heftier opponent. As it were, the blue haired man was dashing off towards another competitor as trees began to sprout up out of the arena floor for no apparent reason whatsoever...

Your not going to get away that easily! Jada thought in the direction of his opponents back as he picked himself up off the ground and brushed away the worst of the dirt that clung to his sweaty body. Gripping his weapon tight, Jada took off after the man who had now disappeared up into the lower branches of one of the trees randomly rising from the once bare arena floor...

As he closed the gap between himself and his prey, Jada saw the man come descending back down out of the trees in the direction of another wild-haired man. Rushing towards the two, Jada launched himself at his first opponent while the man was preoccupied with his new focus. Swinging his sword in another wide, vicious arc, Jada hoped to catch the man unawares and perhaps in the air as he tried to dispatch the newcomer to their duel...

[Rheawien]

The frantic battling around her seemed to reach a new pinnacle with each passing second – much to the pleasure of the crowd – but Rheawien barely noticed anything save the fabled elven hero that stood before her. The combination of the pulsating pain of her gradually swelling cheek and the sheer focus that was needed to control a pair of flying projectiles was more then enough to keep her occupied, making her erase every possible distraction. Because he hurt her, he shook the throne on which she sat up until the point when his foot connected with her fair face, and Rhea wanted to return the favor with interests.

But unlike in Serenti, where her improvised telekinetic attack managed to deal a deathblow to Damon, this time around the elf reacted in a manner fit for an eminent legend. Instead of trying to do the impossible and dodge the homing glaives that her mind directed, the Damon came straight at her and into the path of her ranged weapons. It was a suicide move, a mindless charge of a gullible, inexperienced lad that should’ve known better, and yet her damascus glaives drew no blood. They passed through Damon as if he was made out of vapor, his translucent body a mere ghost that seemed unscathed by her deadly throw. As if that wizardry wasn’t enough, the elf proceeded to pass right through her, making her slice her katana at him and once again hitting nothing but air.

Rheawien’s first thought was that Damon was using some sort of an illusion, an astral projection of himself that was sent to deceive her, but as it turned out, his mischief was much more treacherous. Even as her slice failed and the incorporeal figure passed through her, the ghostly elf solidified again and his blade came at her from behind. The dagger swished through the air, digging through the messy white ponytail and the skin of the neck beyond it. Only thanks to her feeble strike that made her take a step forwards the dagger strike wasn’t lethal for Rhea. Still, blood was drawn again and to add insult to injury...

“He cut off my fucking hair!”

Indeed, her wonderful (though rather unkempt lately) ponytail was a lifeless pile of white hair on the dirt of the cage, looking like an overgrown piece of a wig. Compared to the loss of her hair, the wound on her neck was irrelevant, a minor drop in the river of rejuvenated hatred. Rheawien took another step away from Damon, her left hand releasing the glaives from the telekinetic grasp and passing thorough her new hairdo. Her right pointed the katana at the boy.

“You bastard!!! Do you know how long it took me to grow that?”

He probably didn’t and she wasn’t keen on elaborating in any other way then the way of pain. The pain that throbbed in the right side of her face so prominently that she slowly started to lose sight on her right eye. She needed more focus now, more time to react properly and bring this insolent brat where he belonged; on his knees before her. Her eyes closed – a mere prolonged blink – and once they opened, the world around her once again seemed to slow down rapidly. The sounds were registered and processed twice as fast, the details of the environment noticed and noted in her mind, and in an instant a plan of attack crystallized in her mid.

The index finger of her left hand once again joined the middle finger and together they pointed towards the hair that was attached to her head only seconds ago. With a pair of minute movements of her fingers, she grabbed a telekinetic hold over the massive ponytail that lay on the ground, making it dance and twirl on the dirt. Soon enough, this started to produce an ample makeshift smokescreen for Rheawien, a cloud of tawny mist that seemed to engulf both combatants. In such environment, Rhea hoped her elevated speed would be the factor that would tip the scales in her favor. She made a run towards Damon, then dashed sideways and around his position before coming at his flank with a horizontal slash aimed at his hip. All her strength and speed was behind that strike, a murderous effort with an intention to cut the elf in half.

[Christina Bredith]

Christina barely got the chance to see the effect of her blast. She craned her neck to get the best viewing angle, wanting to make sure that it hit her target. He was such a wiry little creature, only half her size, and so high up – her aim would be severely compromised as a result of that. And wait, what’s this? Someone was tossing something into the path of her blast, either by coincidence or deliberately taking advantage of it in order to get back at Ter-Thok. Why, Christina had no idea – nor did she have the time to ponder it.

Suddenly the floor of the cage began to rumble, wildly, uncontrollably, and above all, unexpectedly. Unprepared for the tremors, Christina stumbled backwards, just barely keeping her footing by grabbing onto the steel bars of the cage just behind her. As it happened, it was an extremely good thing she fell back slightly: if she had not, she would have found herself riding to the top of an extremely quickly-growing oak tree. The tip had sprouted out of the ground right where she had been standing, and even now she was practically pressed up against the cage by the thickening trunk. Thinking quickly, Christina forced herself out of the way, dragging herself to the right and placing herself in the corner of the cage. That also turned out to be a fortunate move: the oak tree had grown so thick that she would have been crushed against the cage had she not done so.

Christina’s body trembled and her silver eyes were wide, not really from what you’d call fear, but just from the pure, unadulterated shock of the whole affair. H…holy shit… It’s not every day you nearly get skewered by a giant tree, and this wasn’t really the situation Christina had in mind for the first time it happened. How did it happen, and why? None of those questions were on Christina Bredith’s mind. Not even close.

The only thing she was concerned about, aside from the sudden floral growth, was that suddenly, the demon was in front of her again. He was staring her down, looking quite wounded. Apparently her Sonic Sable had hit him after all! And yet, that didn’t seem to have quenched his fiery spirit. Here he was, insulting her! Corn-headed prostitute? Christina gasped and looked appalled, grasping a few strands of her golden hair and holding them in front of her eyes. It’s not really corn-coloured, is it…?

But suddenly, those strands of hair appeared not quite so golden – they flickered, however briefly, a strange shade of violet. Christina’s brow furrowed in confusion, and then she looked up to see that Ter-Thok was igniting a strange orb in his hand. Although she had no idea what exactly it was he was doing (to be honest, it looked like he was making a glass egg), she certainly recognized that tell-tale winding back of the arm. Christina was just able to sidestep the attack, and as she did, she gripped Rosebite in both hands and swung its flat against the glass ball like a baseball bat. Her aim was neither good nor very specific to begin with; whether it hit Ter-Thok or some other random person, the idea was just to get it away from her in case it was something far more sinister than just what it appeared to be.

Almost before she could regain her bearings, Christina saw that Ter-Thok was clambering up one of the giant oak trees already. She frowned and gave chase, using her taller stature and stronger limbs to ascend the tree right behind him. Her body was larger and thus heavier to lift, but she had the muscles and agility to support it. “Get back here, you little zit!” As she climbed, Christina kept him in view, craning her neck from side to side to keep track of him even as he clambered over branches that were much larger than he was. Eventually she saw him come to a stop near the top of the tree, and she herself was already half-way to three-quarters of the way up. Continuing her ascent and ready to knock that wiry little bastard all thirty feet to the hard floor, Christina swung her blade and summoned another blast of blue energy, enough to shake the very foundations of the tree limb on which he was perched.

[Dissinger]

(You'll have to apologize the tardiness I have a lot to take into account, and dealt with quite a few things over the last few days...)

Seth grinned as he watched her get uncomfortable from his blows. She even twisted to prevent a second blow, but the result was the same. He had her where he wanted her. As he pulled back unlocking the two of them he watched her forehead come forward with bone shattering force and moved aside letting the head butt move past him, before he spun trying to bring the dagger right into the witch's back.

At least, that was the plan, and as with all things, plans never survived contact with the enemy.

As he moved aside, he felt something begin to tear through the leather of his vest, cutting the material free of his shoulders, and nearly causing it to slip[ entirely off his body as it split the leather, and thankfully only caused minimal damage to the shirt. His mind registered the danger as he kept moving with a deft leap to the side, watching the tip of a strange weapon go right past where his back had been. As he was beginning to growl out his irritation, the heavens opened up to dump one Storm Veritas onto the Drow that had attempted to end his career in the Cell.

Looking at The two of his attackers he immediately let Storm deal with the treacherous Drow as he focused on the Witch before him. Twirling his dagger and ignoring the fact that his vest was more than likely a lost cause he spoke his words tersely, "Lets slow things down a bit, go too fast and you get the feeling Life is passing you by!"

Grey energy snaked down his arm as he thrust his hand forward to slow down the witch. He wanted to pick her apart quickly and move on, his goal entirely on destroying her and moving on. As he hurled the orb of grey energy out he brought his dagger about in a slashing attack meant to trap her in the path of the orb. He couldn't afford to deal with a woman as seemingly agile as this one, and he refused to go down to his first victim. He had a cell to win, it was that simple.

[Lavinian Pride]

Grey eyes observed everything as she followed the pattern of the guards. From the sudden up springing of the forest, to Seth fighting with the women with her mouth sewn shut. Faint memories of Ghuantyrr'stra crossed her mind as she saw the woman, before she dismissed it with a gesture. She had to keep up appearances as the guards continued to walk about the arena. A bird attacked one of the crowds, and it seemed a panic had crossed through it as they moved every which way.

Perfect.

That one word summarized the situation as she carefully made her patrol meander closer to the cage. The door was chained shut; however, it seemed the trees had punctured the roof of the cage. With their abrupt growth it was clear that things were finally in her way, and as she watched the guards run to try and calm the crowd she took her chances. Shirking her helmet free of her body her ponytail fell down her neck the sweat from being under the metal bindings causing it to cling. Still she didn't care as she began her rapid ascent of the cell. One hand pulling up after the other she moved swiftly with trained agility.

It's time to eat up bastard, She thought bitterly as she reached the top. A few people watched as she moved towards the trees and began a downward spiral, jumping from branch until she was roughly ten feet off the ground. Once that was accomplished, she sighed as she began to prepare herself. The first thing to go was the breastplate that had been horribly uncomfortable for the thief, as it fell to the dirt with a loud clang, before she pulled out her daggers. Hiding amongst the leaves she remained ever vigilant waiting for Seth to open himself up to the opportunity.

Briefly she thought about the others in the cell she might throw off with her presence, and didn't care. Rheawien was too engrossed with the boy that had seemed so familiar last cell. Storm was fighting off a demon trying to terrorize him, and Seth, her sweet darling other half, was locked in combat trying to get the best of the sewn-mouthed woman. She grinned as she carefully began pulling out her thorns, getting ready for the final drop. As she placed her thorns in weaves of the belt, aware the belt would fast become useless as the fight went on she gripped the girls tightly.

"Lets hurry this up Seth; I don't want to deal with you any longer than I have to..." She muttered under her breath.

[Witchblade]

Her head butt missed, the force of her skull travelling forward and hitting nothing knocked her slightly off balance so she couldn’t counter or do anything as he moved to attack her wide open back. Recovering as quickly as possible, and surprised that she’d not been dealt a crippling blow when the opportunity had been right there, Witch spun around on her enemy.

She had no time for distractions, though she registered it, she didn’t pay attention, or tried not to pay attention, to the veritable forest that had grown out of the floor of the cage. Or the fact that a human had been flying through the air and had even landed on top of her Drow. She could sense that he was all right though.

As the human spoke words she cared nothing for and launched some kind of attack on her, Witch had one of those moments where a split second felt like an eternity and she was stuck sitting in it wondering, dagger or ball of grey energy? There was no way out of it, either she take the dagger or the ball of grey energy and frankly she knew what the dagger was going to do and didn’t have the slightest idea what that magic was. Not that she wanted to find out either.

The thing traveled lightning fast and as good as her reactions were he was too close to her. Maybe if he’d been a few feet away, maybe if she was just a little bit faster, but it didn’t matter. One hand went up to block the assault of the dagger as her body tried to twist out of the way of the ball of freaking grey energy. It hit her in the midsection and she felt no pain, leaving her wondering if it hadn’t been a trick of some kind. Then the magic’s true affect hit her and Witch started to feel like water was rushing against her.

Growling deep in her throat, Witch broke away from her enemy, tossing one of the daggers she held in her hand at him, the task feeling harder than she thought possible. There was no water around her yet moving felt like she was walking through a face paced river and no matter how much she trudged through the water she’d never get to the other side.

This was not good.

“Izzy, he’s used some kind of magic against me. I have no idea what its complete effects are but I have the feeling it was meant to slow me down. I’m going to need some cover.”

She was basically asking for help from her ally and it burned to her very core to have to do so. However, she was not stupid enough to realize she was going to need it against this guy, he was strong and she was now at a tactical disadvantage. If Izzy could keep him busy for however long this spell lasted then together they could finish this guy off and move on to the rest of the cage.

[hushpuppy]

As the furballs leapt from cipher to cipher, spreading the contagion of destruction across the stands, they grew slowly weaker. The energy required to control the thoughts, emotions and movements of humans wasn't extensive, but over time it slowly built up. Humanity had a certain inertia, an unwillingness to move beyond the slow cycle of normal life, which could be difficult to overcome. These spectators were seeped in blood, relishing it being spilt in front of them, but feared their own vulgar ichor leaking onto the ground, feared drawing a blade across each other's skin. Overcoming that fear was Meerplex's goal: To sow destruction and confusion among the decimated and befuddled. And thus far, the furballs were succeeding.

Men dove into each other, clawing with fingernails and planks they ripped up from the stands beneath them, and a small ball of fluff bounced on to the next grove of unwitting souls. People rushed into the small battles that seemed to lack all purpose, some finding amusement in the novel battle, some trying to end the unexpected conflict. All were drawn into the fights, unable to hold back the baser aspects of their humanity when confronted with an attack on their own bodies. It was difficult, true, to move humans past the familiar, but it was just as difficult to dissuade them from joining a spreading fray, if they felt the pressures of all their fellows behind them, pushing them into war. So as the Meerplexes invaded one man, three more were pulled into the fight. The strings they spun in one man's soul reached far beyond his corporeal form.

The white Meerplex dug into a fat man's body, nestling against his flabby waist, and quickly sliced through the loose, gravely surface of his mind, digging deep beyond it, tapping the vein of his innermost thoughts, easily snatching up his consciousness. The man looked out over the Cell, and then looked out over the stands, now half-consumed with a raging riot. His lips stretched into a grimace that might have been a smile. The man waddled into the brawl, slapping aside weaker men, and stood at the edge of the stands, looking down at the precipitous drop from the last seat to the ground on which the Cell stood.

Roaring like an enraged bull, the man stumbled forward and fell down, his body flailing for a moment before hitting the ground with a wet thud, bones snapping and his skull bouncing, spilling gray and red slime. Just as his body tipped over the side, Meerplex leapt into the air, spinning wildly and latching onto the neck of a man carrying a dagger. He turned and rushed for the edge, falling off it as Meerplex leapt to another man. On the other side of the arena, as if on cue, the brown Meerplex began doing the same, driving the upright lemmings over the edge.

In the heat of the fight, men began following these fools over the edge of the stands. They turned and made a mad rush, as if fleeing from some unseen attacker looming up from beyond the amphitheater. Maybe they believed something was approaching, a force beyond measure, frightening their fellow man into fleeing to his death. The madness of mass conflict had gripped them. With a communal whoop, the entire riot surged forward toward the edge of the stands, pushing over one another, stepping on feet and legs and snapping ribs, moving toward the Cage below, crashing against wood and falling over the edge. They massed together in a crushing crowd, and the beams below their feet began creaking in protest at the sudden pressure.

The stands wobbled as the crowd pushed, as if from a failing ship, toward the Cell.

[Izvilvin]

The Cell was a chamber of unusual circumstances, of suddenly-growing trees and rioting audience members, the numbers of which was rising to fill the entire surrounding populace. Izvilvin was the kind of man who did not pay close attention to his surroundings, merely using the environment as a blurry backdrop to whoever was his current worry. But even he could not ignore what was happening. It was all so strange, sudden and unexpected. The warriors of the Cell and those who watched on were so very different from the drow of Alerar, much less refined, with abilities diverse and unusual.

Still, his acknowledgement of the goings-on around him was brief, accomplished by a swift turning of his head in either direction and a sweep of the eyes. It was back to business immediately, as he rolled out from where Storm had been and composed himself. The man had turned, giving him the opportunity to deal with the sudden pain in his side, likely a cracked rib or two. The human must have not have landed flat when he’d fallen.

Witchblade's psionic call, so distinct and impossible to ignore, came to him. She needed help, and Izvilvin didn't hesitate to turn from Storm and lend it. It was the second time he'd fled from the human to fight by her side. He wondered when a blade would find his back and end their alliance. After all, friendship didn’t seem to last very long inside this cage.

Coming from behind her, Izvilvin had the quick notion to tear her throat from her neck. Why not? It was nothing worse than what Rheawien had done to him. It was more merciful, he figured, because she would not need to know it was him, and she wouldn’t have to suffer wondering why he’d done it. This was the way humans dealt with this kind of situation, wasn’t it? She would undoubtedly betray him at one point; why should he be the one to be taken for a fool again?

Furious with himself, Izvilvin shook the idea away. What was he becoming? Rheawien had made her decision, however misinformed she was about the circumstances of he and Witchblade, and that choice had hurt him. He did not want to do something like that to a friend, no matter what situation he was in. Being in a tournament did not make it okay to put aside a good ally, nor betray them.

He was by Witchblade's side in a flash, then in front of her, blocking any approach Seth might have had in mind. With his eyes, Izvilvin communicated that the human would not be getting past him anytime soon. Sai in hand, the Drow came forward, each arm working independently to slash once at Seth's neck from the left, and at his shoulder from the right, the second attack thrown in an attempt to disarm him.

The Drow was consumed by the battle, so much so that he hadn't noticed the change in sound from the audience. Rather than a roaring cheer, the audience was now sending a screaming confusion. In fact, if he had simply looked around Seth, the lavender eyes of Izvilvin would have observed the intense state the humans were in. As if some plague of madness had descended upon them, the crowd was rushing the Cell.

[Dissinger]

He grinned as the witch threw his dagger back to him, and with practiced efficiency plucked it from the air and placed it back on his belt without a second thought. He then prepared to move forward as he stopped sensing something amiss. The crowd about them hit the cage walls, and it was obvious what was going on. So loud was the cacophony of people that he missed the sound of the dropping breastplate and merely looked at the witch as if to inquire if it was her doing.

His reply came swiftly behind her as he groaned in irritation. Seth was barely staying afloat now. Once again like the married couple from hell the Drow that had tried to stab him in the back attacked and Seth was put on the defensive. Growling lowly he said softly, “You got the hots for this girl? That why you have to make a jackass of yourself for her?”

He lashed out with a kick as he brought himself under the second slash. This accomplished, he then brought himself up, bringing the dagger forward with deadly force. If Izvilvin didn’t take that step back, he would find out why vampire’s don’t like getting staked. Hoping to end the Drow quickly he muttered under his breath, “You’ll be surprised what you can live through.”

Red energy coursed over his body as he grinned devilishly. He needed a quick fix in order to get at the witch in the time frame he needed, and if he had to use multiple spells, he would do so. As he brought his throwing arm about he chucked the orb right at Izvilvin hoping there was no supernatural agility lurking in that lithe frame. He had to move on and quickly or Witch would be free and he’d have a train wreck on his hands. Pushing on he then took a chance, running he could only hope now as he sprinted right at Witchblade, and began to swing his daggers around to try and disable her, hoping he hadn’t over extended.

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin wanted to press his attack and keep Seth on his toes, but the skilled human fended him off with a kick and a slash, giving the Drow no choice but to back off momentarily. It was irritating, but he was the kind of man who could respect skill even in an opponent. Thankfully, he had succeeded in protecting Witchblade, at least for now.

He made to attack again, but as Seth became encompassed in some red glow, the warrior hesitated. Izvilvin didn't know magic, didn't like it or understand it, and this seemed to be some kind of spell. Whatever it was, the Drow wasn't prepared for it, and couldn't imagine which way he needed to dive in order to avoid whatever was coming. Maybe it was some protective mantle, one of the few types of magic he knew anything about. If it was, that meant striking the human was out of the question for now.

Izvilvin learned the hard way what kind of magic it was. The red orb came too quickly for him to dodge, and when it hit him he fell. The noise of the audience, the sights of battle, they both disappeared as the Drow went to his knees and dropped his weapons.

He was suddenly in a place of blackness. What happened? The orb must have killed him instantly... But this was nothing like the death he had experienced at the end of the first round. Perhaps something else had happened, but Izvilvin had no sense of what it was.

Suddenly, his entire being was consumed by fire. The Drow screamed into the darkness, but the intense heat and unbearable pain carried on. He was being burned in front of a large crowd of people now, as they threw things at him. Looking among them, Izvilvin could stare through the flames and observe that they were humans. They were burning him simply because he was a drow in their land.

He screamed again as he felt his skin melting. How had this happened? Hadn't he been somewhere else just a moment ago, before he was suddenly tied here before these people? The Cell was forgotten for the moment, and though Izvilvin didn't know it, if he could not see through this illusion presented to him, he would die. That was the nature of Seth's spell.

Suddenly, he realized how strange it was. Despite this new situation of being charred alive, Izvilvin could not piece together the events that had come beforehand. He didn't remember being tied here, and he didn't remember the very beginnings of the flame. He didn't know which city he was in, or how he'd been captured. None of this made sense to him, and therefore... How could it be real?

That was it. It wasn't real. Suddenly, Izvilvin remembered where he was and what he was doing. He could now open his eyes and observe his shaking hands, inches from his face as he knelt near the side of the Cell. It had been an illusion. Suddenly, Izvilvin was furious. He could still feel the heat of the fire against his skin.

Plucking his weapons from the ground, Izvilvin got up slowly as he favored his ribs. Seth was behind him, in combat with Witchblade yet again. Gritting his teeth, the Drow tore forward and slashed twice, catching the human from behind and putting two deep cuts in his back before he whirled around him and stood by Witchblade's side.

((Bunny in the above paragraph was approved))

[Witchblade]

It was maddening watching Izvilvin fight Seth and knowing that jumping into the thick of it would most likely hinder more than help. What was even more maddening was watching her ally take the magic and then fall to the ground screaming in pain as if he were being burned alive. There was no fire around him though and no damage to his body. It was an illusion, it couldn’t be real and she wanted to scream it at him at the top of her lungs but he probably wouldn’t be able to hear it anyway and she had another issue to deal with.

With her Drow out of commission Seth was coming after her arms swinging, and in this case at the end of each arm was a hand holding something sharp and pointy she would rather not touch her.

His slashes were fast, faster than she could move. Her arms seeming to push through the air as if through molasses. The first attack was easy to block, the second a little harder, his blade slipping on hers and nicking her hand, a small cut and a small drop of blue blood flowing over the side of her hand. The third attack was not so easy to block, her muscles straining as much as they could to move faster and getting nowhere, thankfully it met her armguard, cut through leather then hit Titanium. The next one slashed through the bare skin on her upper arm, sharp metal slicing through pale skin easily.

Growling low in her throat, Witch saw the flow of blood out of the wound. It traveled down her arm and dripped off her elbow, staining her pale skin.

Before Seth could get another attack in on her, she caught sight of Izvilvin, slashing him from behind and then joining her by her side. Relief washed over her as she saw that he was all right. She didn’t want to lose him again like she had in the last round, not that she’d ever admit it to her Drow.

[Walter]

Several of the oak trees had broken through the ceiling of the cage, hunks of steel mesh hanging from thick branches, resembling peels of fruit. From the branches near the top, one could see the entire stadium amidst thick clumps of leaves. One could tilt his head and see the tiny people running around below, like toy soldiers clashing against eachother, and the enormous blue sky above. Of course, one might also spot the dead guy balanced precariously above the cage.

And if someone was looking, he'd probably see the body begin to shudder right about now. That person might also glimpse the wounds closing beneath the dead man's smock. But he would definitely see the broken right arm spasm, flailing into the air as it righted itself with a loud *SNAP*. And the body would puff up as though filling with air. Then that same observant man would watch placidly as the corpse, newly-revived, fell from the branch it had been hanging from. The body would appear to smash through several other branches along the way, before hitting a peel of uplifted cage ceiling, sliding down into the hole below.

Jon Walter opened his eyes and wondered why the hell his back hurt so much. And where the hell all that noise was coming from. He flexed his hands and found that both of his knives were missing; he must've dropped them while in the throes of death... and... trees? Jon found himself clinging to a tree branch a little more than halfway up the cage. He swatted some leaves away from his face as he looked around, assessing the situation. The decision was made practically the instant that he looked down.

It was black-skinned Izvilvin, the bastard drow. Witchblade was there too. Both of them had collected nearby, underneath where Jon now hung, fighting some guy. Jon ignored the opposition, that other guy hadn't done a thing to him. But he hated the drow and the stitch-lip, and he wanted to see them fall. A dull ache roared in his head and Jon knew he had to take this advantage while he still had it. He flung one hand free of the branch and tensed himself as he hang on with one hand, reaching into his messy trousers for the only knife he had left; his good whittling knife.

Jon's legs dangled in the air, as mess swished around inside his pants. Few people realize how messy death can be, but Jon ignored the fact that he was walking around in trousers full of shit and piss. It had become a habit by this time. He retrieved the knife, feeling its weight in his hand as he clutched it in a solid grip. For a moment he held onto the branch, looking down to make sure that both of them were still down there. Stay right there, fuckers. Jon thought as his fingers slowly uncoiled from the tree branch, and then he was falling toward Izvilvin with stabbery intent.

((Dropping onto Izvilvin and then shanking him in the back))

[Ter-Thok]

Ter-Thok groaned. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but the pain was still a potent force. However, the demon felt that he was in good enough shape to stand his ground and return to the fray. The treetops were boring, anyway. Ter-Thok managed a half-hearted smile, and was about to begin inching back down the trunk when he heard the war-cry of the blonde woman. The demon, panicked, grabbed the central trunk of the tree and inched to the side just as another beam of blue energy crushed the branch he had been perching on. "Hey, watch it!" Ter-Thok shouted as his hooves clonked against another branch, "Damn, I knew you were a stunted ape with wires growing out of your head and, like, plastic miner's helmets glued to your chest, you retarded buttertroll, but I didn't think you were the type to hold a grudge!"

The demon wrapped a hand around his ElectroProd and held it up, using the blade as a mirror to determine exactly where his opponent had positioned herself. She was, evidently, not very happy. Ter-Thok grimaced, gingerly felt around his broken rib, then vaulted himself downwards at her, his blade held overhead and pointing downwards. Electricity coursed along it's edge as the demon fell towards the blonde warrior woman.

Meanwhile, not far away, Hans had grown bored with spitting on the crowd from above and had, instead, left the ceiling to see what was with all the fighting. The ooze frowned mouthlessly as he undulated through the chaos. A portly gentleman, who had evidently grown confused as to why he was currently using an old woman as a cudgel to beat his own brother, dropped the biddy and took a swing at Hans. His arm sank into the ooze up to the shoulder, and his sleeve began to dissolve. As if epitomizing the utter nonsensicality of the situation, the man tried to press his hand against Hans and extricate his other appendage, the skin of which had begun blistering.

"MISS TUR, HANS P'LITLEY REQUISIST DAT YOU STOP TRY HIT HANS. DAT JUST MAKE HANS ANGERY, AN' YOUR ARMS START TO MELT."

"Lemme go, yer massive red-blast beastie!"

"SIR, WORDS DAT YOU SAY IS TALK FUNNY." With an expression of restrained anger, Hans extended a pair of tentacular pseudopods, wrapped them around the punch-drunk, girthy man, and tossed him fifteen feet into the air before moving on. Something strange was going on in this arena, and no-one appeared to be doing anything to mitigate the madness. The ooze grew determined, snatched a bowtie and top hat from a man who was being drowned in a bedpan, and shuffled towards the stage. By gum, if no-one was going to stop this insanity...

Then it was up to Hans.

[Christina Bredith]

Christina had planted herself on a sturdy branch of the oak tree some ten or fifteen feet below the one on which Ter-Thok stood. It was not exactly the best place for a drawn-out sword fight, but for the purpose of sending her Sonic Sable hurtling in his direction, it would suffice. And indeed, her attack went off without a hitch: the arc of blue energy raced through the air and crushed the branch at its base, sending portions of the tree limb hurtling towards the ground. The little red-skinned demon had managed to scurry away, however, and he was already letting loose another string of insults, if that is indeed what they could be called. Admittedly, if Christina wasn’t so pissed off and heated up by the battle, she’d probably be laughing at them herself.

At the end of the demon’s speech, Christina merely grinned and shook her head. “You’d best learn one thing about human women, kid: we hang onto grudges like they’re going out of style.” She widened her stance as much as she could on the relatively thick branch, and kept her opponent in her sights. If he didn’t move soon, she would attack him with another blast of sonic energy to keep him scrambling; however, Christina knew she couldn’t keep that up forever. In the first round of the Cell she had realized just how much energy the use of that attack expended, and she had already used more than she intended to by crushing the branch Ter-Thok had previously been standing on. Too much more and she’d exhaust herself before her fight with the remaining combatants.

Thankfully, the red demon didn’t give her the chance or the reason to do that. She could see him brandishing a strange weapon – it was like a spear, only small enough to match the demon’s diminished stature, and yet the handle was, for some inexplicable reason, made of plastic. It took her a minute to realize what his plan was, in any event, and her counterattack sprung to mind immediately. With a slight grin tugging at her lips, Christina did the unthinkable: she returned Rosebite to its scabbard just moments before Ter-Thok leapt down on her from above, pointing his unusual weapon at her with the intent of turning her into a very large shish kebab. Christina merely braced herself for impact, holding out her hands and flexing her fingers.

But then something strange caught her eye. A flicker of light along the blade of the spear. Her eyes widened in shock. Oh, shit, she thought. It all snapped into her thoughts right away: the blade of her opponent’s spear was electrified. That must have been why the shaft was made of plastic! Christina had no time to come up with another plan, though. If she drew Rosebite it would be too late, and the wiry demon would have already descended upon her. Besides, the steel sword would conduct the electricity just as well as the blade of the spear did; it would be no help here.

Christina decided to just follow through with her initial plan instead. She watched carefully as Ter-Thok descended, and moved her own body not out of the way, but into the way – or at least, into the way as much as she wanted to be. Within seconds he landed, and there was a sudden flash of blinding pain as the blade of the spear tore into her thigh. The electricity coursed through her nerves, blocking some of the pain while creating an entirely new kind in and of itself. The damage should have been even worse, because upon landing, the demon should have continued falling, this time to the side, thus dragging his spear through her leg and nearly cutting it off completely.

However, as soon as he had landed, Christina had grabbed the spear by its plastic shaft, knowing that at least would be safer to hold. With excruciating pain she lifted the spear out of her wound, and Ter-Thok’s tiny little body with it. It only took a second for her to complete her plan. “Go to hell,” she muttered quietly through tears of blistering pain, and with as powerful an overhead swing as she could muster, she tossed the little demon toward the hard ground twenty feet below. It all finally caught up with her afterwards, and she let out a scream; collapsing into a sitting position on the branch, Christina nursed her bleeding wound without even checking to see if her fatal game of toss-the-demon was won.

[Dissinger]

Pain blossomed in his back as he arched it. Gritting his teeth he barely got to see the fruits of his labor before the Drow was back to his position beside his mistress. As he closed his eyes he let his body go limp before he shrugged his shoulders feeling the twin slashes that had cut deeply. Opening the grey orbs he looked onto Izvilvin he could feel a growl issue from his throat as he twirled a dagger idly, ready to tear the Drow apart with the skill he had been given.

However, it turned out that the Drow had other problems on his hands as he watched a man drop from above knife in hand. The glint of metal causing Seth to step back as he looked at Witchblade letting his anger go as he grinned wide enough to almost look like the roguish grin, "About time you bastards got your comeuppance. Lets finish this."

With those words he ignored the pain as he rushed at Witchblade his daggers coming about in a whirlwind as he fought to push through the witch's defences. Slow would be releasing its grips soon, and he had to keep her off guard if he was to stand a chance. His shirt was torn, the fabric following suit of the vest as it too dangled off his back begging to be tugged and pulled on. However Seth was beyond caring as he continued his eyes going dead as he fought with ferocity unmatched by any man.

The demon had awoken form its slumber as he pushed forward. He would have slaughtered the witch were it not for one small problem. He could hear a voice, and from the sounds of it, the voice had something important to say. Slowly he heard his name called out over and over before a name drifted through the air, "...Sarah!"

He had no time to react before he saw the twin boots flying right at his face...

(Witch, you're getting a bit of help, if you need to coordinate something PM me, the next post will be Sarah entering the fray.)

[Lavinian Pride]

Liliana was busy with other things as the crowd had rioted, trampling others beneath their tread in the rush to attack the contestants in the cage. Having to use her staff to knock away anyone who sought to attack the woman she found herself tiring. It was tough fighting off a crowd that had become disturbed and with a shout she flung her hand out, “Ort!”

Knocking a few men back with the word of banishing she realized with a sinking feeling the Cell had become a bloodbath in more ways than one. Everyone wanted to fight now, and the problem was, she was ill equipped. Only her staff of darkness to fight with, until it was knocked from her hands, and her wits to keep her alive as she fought. She refused to kill the men, and yet they came at her yelling and screaming about various things.

Sarah meanwhile was watching the going-ons; a few of the cretins were trying to climb the cage to get inside as others pulled at the locked door. She herself drew a thorn from its place on the belt before she saw the priestess. She was in trouble, as one of the men was rushing to blindside the woman, and Sarah shuddered to think what would happen to her in the riot. With all her skill she threw the dagger with utmost efficiency, hitting the man squarely in the temple and dropping him before he could complete his devious task.

Liliana only looked at the downed man before she recognized the dagger. Trying to push her way through the crowd she shouted out, “Seth! Seth! SETH! Sarah is in the cage somewhere! It’s SARAH!” She could only hope he heard the warning as she continued her own personal battle, this time deciding to knock some sense into the zombies as she went.

Her task finished Sarah snorted as she pulled the girls out and shook her head trying to get her hair to get off the back of her neck. Task completed she moved dropping down five feet before she moved with trained agility stabbing her daggers into the tree and carving around into it. The effect was her momentum became centrifical force as she began to descend the tree until she came boots first right at Seth, knowing that the save on Liliana had blown her cover.

Seth was sent flying back into the dirt as Sarah landed heavily before the former Thief Extraordinaire. Sarah stumbled a bit as she clutched her nose before she giggled in delight at the pain she felt in her face; knowing Seth was hurting far more. Bringing her daggers to bear she spoke her voice terse and without room for argument, “My feud isn’t with you, don’t attack me and I’ll guarantee Seth here doesn’t go after you anymore.”

Seth groaned as he pulled himself to his feet, scrapes now opened by the jarring impact and as he felt his nose he knew it was broken. Not bothering with it as he began to pant from his mouth he looked at Sarah before his eyes widened. Sarah only rushed forward and swung as Seth blocked the dagger blows expertly and locked up with her, his voice strained as he said, “What in the hells are you doing here?”

“Someone has to kick your ass and personally, I don’t think anyone else here is up to the task,” She retorted as she brought a knee up into Seth’s stomach catching the thief off guard. As he grunted and hunched she brought the knee up again into his face sending him sprawling as she again lightly touched her face feeling sympathy pain from the thief. “Oops, did that hurt?” She asked rhetorically as the dark and twisted humor of the situation dripped into her voice.

[Witchblade]

(I’m playing this like your Slow spell has worn off since it’s been two posts, however if that’s wrong, just let me know and I’ll change it.)

The Cell really was a mad house, where opponents could drop from the sky, well technically a tree that mysteriously sprouted out of the ground, and attempt to stab one in the back, or kick them in the face. Of course, what mad it even weirder was the fact that the human dropping from the sky was none other than the one who had killed himself earlier in the fight.

Witch didn’t know how he was alive or why, but she’d seen stranger and right now she wasn’t too concerned with the fact that some lady drop kicked Seth in the face, saved her from having to defend herself against him and basically told her to back off and that she couldn’t handle him. Oh she wanted to show her what she could handle, but not yet, right now she had a more important thing to worry about, the fact that her ally was about to be shanked in the back by the same guy…again.

Jeez, every time she turned around her little Drow was getting himself into all kinds of trouble.

On top of all of this the human crowd had gone insane and was attempting to reach the cage and attack the fighters within it. Fights were going on in the stands and humans were leaping to their death all to get near the fighters. As weird as human’s had always been to her this just didn’t make any sense at all. Human’s liked watching people fight, bleed and die, they didn’t like participating in it. It was somehow beneath them, or they were just too big of cowards to fight for anything.

As the human fell behind Izvilvin, Witch made her move and with the effects of Seth’s spell gone it felt like she was traveling twice the speed she normally could. No rushing water battering against her body and molasses to trap her limbs.

Coming from the human’s side, Witch dropped Seth’s other dagger she was holding and used her telekinesis to bring up the sai sheathed to her boot. As she moved in to block the human’s…whittle knife, the blade slid easily between the prongs and Witch gave it a quick twist, trapping part of the knife and the human’s hand as well. Then she brought around her dagger, attempting to slide the blade across his stomach and gut him.

[Molotov]

Pandemonium had erupted in the stands, but Mara Jade wasn’t concerned. She had already moved down to a position of higher strategy, from where she would be able to attack Molotov and take him out of the Cell. It was a foolish action on her part, to give away her position and intentions just for the sake of a tournament, but the shapeshifter valued hurting Molotov on merely principle alone.

With a coy smile, Mara Jade looked on at Molotov. “Yes, you want attention now… just like you wanted it before…” she thought, rubbing her hands together greedily. “You could have had it in Gisela, but you threw it away, along with an army that wanted nothing more than to fight for you.” She couldn’t believe how foolish Molotov was in attracting this kind of attention. He should have known by now that the people who controlled Corone would never let him win. Be it a group of pirates or some drama league, they were all ultimately responsive to the nobles whose patronage everyone needed to survive.

The entire stands were now toppling, so Mara quickly transformed herself into a rat and snuck into the cage. While the steel cage wasn’t particularly strong, it would protect her from being crushed. However, now the shapeshifter knew she would have to be careful. One wrong move and she would end up crushed underneath the heel of an all too mobile warrior.

Thus, Mara wasted no time before she took her normal form right behind Molotov. It was only then, when she spoke, that Molotov noticed her. He had seemed so rattled by the previous attack that his entire brain had almost shut down, and it had provided just the opening that Mara needed to capitalize on. “If you refuse to win Gisela, you can’t win this either,” she hissed into his ear. With that, Molotov spun. Their eyes met. Vindictively, Mara held up a syringe, one that contained a blackish yellow liquid that she knew Molotov would recognize. She squeezed it just slightly, so as to betray her intentions.

“Surprise,” she said crookedly.

Before Molotov could react, the syringe was shoved into his neck. Molotov flailed a bit in the air, but then fell to the ground. Mara knew that the mohawked mutant could still hear her, and so she offered one last parting shot. “After this, the Corone police are coming for you… turnabout’s a bitch, aint it?”
With that, she turned to the boy Molotov had been fighting before her interruption. “He’s still alive. Do with him what you wish,” she said.

And with that, Mara Jade departed the Cage. Confidently, she knew that while she had ruined Molotov’s chances of winning the Cell, she had emerged from this ordeal as the winner. Whoever the drama league announced as their champion was only incidental.

[INDK]

It was nearly impossible to surprise Damon, no matter what kind of trees were sprouting or spectators were falling. Since the boy got an advanced warning of particularly dangerous events, he knew about Rheawien’s attack perhaps even before she did. However, Damon needed to act quickly if he were to avoid it successfully. The cage had degenerated into chaos now and the sudden sprouting of trees had made space particularly dear. Damon could no longer be elusive. His athleticism and speed would now be only half as useful.

For dodging this most recent attack, they were essentially useless. Damon was going to have to beat her with a parry, in genuine one on one combat. This frightened the boy. Far too long, he had got by exploiting his natural gifts and intelligence. He hadn’t needed to be a better swordsman, a stronger warrior, or even possess the same singe minded greed that seemed to propel many of the heroes of Althanas lore. Damon had managed to combine the grace of Ashiakin with his natural skills and cleverness to ignore his dearth of those virtues.

Now, all three had betrayed him. Ashiakin had never shown up in the cage at the beginning of the tournament, the arena cut down on Damon’s abilities and his cleverness had seemed to betray him. It meant Damon was going to have to find a new way to win, and find it fast. It was too late in the game to try and forge some kind of alliance, even the logics of anarchy were fast disintigrating.

Thus, as Damon pulled out his steel pole, he knew exactly what he would need to do. Return with a quick counter. In the blow that Damon had forseen, Rheawien would be using all her strength and two hands. This left Damon with an unlikely, but small opening. One for which he was going to have to pay a heavy price.

“I could kill her, take her out of the cell and make good on my promise,” Damon knew. “But it means sacrificing every other chance I have.” The boy doubted that he really could win the Cell, but he at least wanted to be given that chance. Somehow, perhaps more by luck than any real virtue of his, he had come close to emerging as the winner in the previous cage. Now, luck might just bounce his way again, even though all his other assets had betrayed him. To defeat Rheawien meant an end to himself, and end of that little hope inside of him that he had been afraid to nurture for fear of rejection. The truth was, it was a part of Damon that he couldn’t erase. Just like his past self, Damon Kaosi wanted to be a hero.
“You can still be a hero if you do this,” he tried to coax himself. “Perhaps not today, but you’ll get another chance.” He frowned. This was his second chance, the LCC had been his first. Damon couldn’t help but to think that two chances were all that he really could afford.

However, Damon knew he really didn’t have a choice. If he was to be a hero, he was going to have to act like one. No matter what the cost. Rheawien was dangerous and he had given his word. Thus the boy prepared to block Rheawien’s katana with one hand, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to repel her attack and that it would still dig deep into his thigh. In exchange, Damon hoped for just one shining moment, where he could use his free hand to drive a dagger straight into the throat of the wicked half elf.

Damon blinked, and tried to fight away tears. Then, as the katana headed towards him, the boy took a deep exhale and put his titanium pole in the position that would buy him the most time. In addition, Damon sliced again with his dagger, this time aiming for Rheawien's throat.

As he felt the katana slice into him, Damon found no truth in the assertion that a heroic death was somehow better than a wicked one.

[Izvilvin]

Izvilvin was beyond prepared to take care of Seth, and with Witchblade at his side, the Drow wasn't worried. His ribs were in pain, his wrist was still sore and he had other wounds, but the anger from that illusion lent him determination. Anybody who put him through that kind of misery didn't deserve to go unpunished, and in the Cell, punishment meant death.

Before anything else could happen between the three, a woman that Izvilvin had not noticed before appeared. She was upon Seth almost immediately, pausing only to say some words he could not understand. Brutally she went at him, bringing a knee to his face and sending the human to the floor.

A split-second later, Witchblade moved. At first, Izvilvin had the thought that he needed to defend himself, for she was coming at him while her own sai drifted up to her hand. Her weapon made contact with something behind him, and turning, the Drow saw that it was Jon. Again, the bastard human had come at him after he was dead. Witchblade was always protecting her Drow ally, it seemed. Maybe there was a difference between her and Rheawien that he had yet to see.

Izvilvin thought to pursue the two and sway the fight in Witchblade's favor, but as he considered it, the Drow knew she didn't really need his help. And besides, every time they teamed up, someone managed to attack him from behind. Something about two people allying themselves in the Cell just didn't sit well with the others.

Not to mention that Seth's power frightened him. Izvilvin didn't want to be at the mercy of another spell of that nature. He could recall the illusion so well, so vividly...

Sai in hand, the warrior came to Sarah's side. Though he didn't know her, Izvilvin thought she had some grudge against Seth, or at least had a reason to focus her attack on him. She was likely just as dangerous as the strange mage, but Izvilvin hoped she recognized him as an ally. He didn't count on it. A watchful eye was on her as the Drow waited for Seth to rise.

[Dissinger]

Seth was caught off guard. Sarah wasn't supposed to exist, at least, not anymore. She was a period of a month that he would rather never happen, and yet here she was handing him his ass on a platter. As he pulled himself from his downed position pain raged through his broken nose, as the blood dripped to the dusty stadium floor. She had purposefully done it now that he thought about it. She knew exactly what to do to piss him off.

He would have none of it.

As he pulled himself to his feet he felt the raging pain in his body. He considered pain as an option, but quickly dismissed it, the one person eh couldn't afford to hurt was Sarah. If he took the time to cast Pain, she would merely shrug it off to hit him in the recoil. So when he drew Ebony and Ivory he knew that the grin on her face only widened as he said voice dripping with malice, "You know, I tried to be fair, but when you just kept taking, you got what you deserved. Perhaps when you were ripping my soul up, you should have taken some maturity with you."

Sarah's grin immediately went away when she came at him again; however, unlike last time he was more than up for the task. As he blocked the blows he brought a gauntleted hand around in a savage backhand that sent Sarah reeling, then himself as he felt the pain on his cheek. Eyes glared at the girl before he cursed inside mentally. Apparently they were joined, and the pain she was feeling was more a relief than a burden, while he was caught with his pants down. He couldn't afford to inflict a lot of pain, and since he had left Spite and Malice back in the locker room, he was screwed.

Sarah grinned before she said, "You see, you robbed me of my chance here Seth, when you cast that stupid spell of yours to knock everyone out last time? I felt it too, before they did. I woke up three hundred gold poorer for my troubles, and was knocked out of the finals. I say turn about is fair play."

Seth growled as he said, "I'll get you out of here, on a stretcher or in a coffin doesn't make a lick of difference. I'll just pound you until you go away." Looking at Izvilvin he said coldly, "Run, and leave me the hell alone. You mess with me; I will kill you without a second thought."

[Ter-Thok]

A rush of morbid happiness had tickled Ter-Thok's brain when his blade had rended flesh. The stink of burnt human-blood filled the air, and the demon grinned. What he had not expected, however, was for the woman to overcome her obvious pain and grab the shaft of the ElectroProd. Ter-Thok was caught off guard, and sent hurtling towards the ground. As he stared at the approaching soil and tree roots, he rolled his eyes. What is this, like, fifteen feet? Sad. The demon concentrated momentarily, and bobbed in mid-air. He was able to rotate himself back into a standing position, with some rather undiginifed flailing, and started rising back up to the branch upon which his wounded quarry was reclining.

"Well, well, well," he said smarmily, hovering just a yard or so from the injured woman, "What have we here? A grudge-holding human woman. I'm afraid I had taken you, at first, for a hippopotamus that had been trained to stand on it's hind legs and dressed in clothes by one of those weird old ladies who puts sweaters on cats. But whatever, I'm starting to get sick of all this," Ter-Thok pointed the ElectroProd, still crackling with electricity, at the blonde warrior, "You fight bravely, even if I do hate having freakin' death beams shot at me. What is your name, noble bitch?"

Meanwhile, in the stands, Hans had reached the exterior edge of the cage. A damaged top-hat was perched on his head, though he had accidentally digested the bow-tie, and the ooze began waving a pair of gelatinous tentacles in the air. "PEOPLE DAT COME TO TOE ORNAMENT TODAY, LISTEN TO HANS!" the ooze shouted, loud enough to rattle the mesh of the cage and to carry across the stands, "DIS MADNESS! IS YOU NOT HOOMAN? DOES YOU NOT HAVES DIGGIN NITTY? DOES YOU NOT HAVES COMPARISON? HANS IS SHAMED TO BE NEAR YOU! AN' PEOPLE SHOULD BE SHAMEFUL DEMSELVES! DIS RIDDICALLOUS! DAT IT, TOE ORNAMENT IS OVER. HANS TELL PEOPLE ALL, GO HOME! GO TO FAMLIES AN' FRIEN'S. TRY AN' REBUILD. DERE IS NO MORE FOR YOU HERE. GO HOME."

Much of the crowd was perplexed; perhaps they would go home, once they deciphered exactly what Hans had said.

[Rheawien]

Pavel Enders wasn’t terribly happy with the whole Cell shebang and started to think that it would’ve been better if he simply tied a millstone around Rheawien’s neck and threw her in a river. She tricked him once and now the bitch was holding her own against the fabled Damon Kaosi, Mister Vampire Slayer whose might was supposed to godlike. As if that wasn’t vexation enough for the loanshark, the crowd around him seemed to fall into general disarray. Spectators that usually satisfied themselves with watching the fights now engaged each other in series of fistfights as if they were overtaken by mass dementia. Luckily for Pavel, his brainless lackey disposed of most of these lunatics quite easily, enabling his master to observe the battle unbothered.

Unfortunately for the sallow-faced shylock, the portion of the cage where Rheawien and Damon clashed was engulfed in a thick mist of dirt, concealing both combatants from his eyes.

“What the hell is going on there?”

***

“Don’t overextend yourself.”

There were many lessons that her father tried to teach Rheawien during her youth, countless intricate details that were supposed to aid her both in combat and everyday life, but that one was the most important of them all. Overextension was a rookie mistake, something too eager and too foolish did when they wanted the kill so badly. For years she trained to efface this from her technique, kept her slices strong and firm, but controlled, kept her footing both solid and soft, but measured. It was a life lived by the book, a dance that tiptoed down the edge of the blade, all just to serve that one simple rule.

But today, Damon Kaosi threw her off balance. In fact, this whole Cell tournament was one big distraction to her, a disaster from the get-go. She was either too cocky or too bitchy or too calculative, and consequently it got her killed once already. The fact that she was doing all of this against the instructions she was given was another brick that amplified the pressure on her shoulders. And suddenly, winning wasn’t optional anymore, it was obligatory. Her pride demanded it, her mind wanted it and her body tried to get her there. Unfortunately, it got too carried away by the emotions. Too much pride, too little mind.

“Don’t overextend yourself.” her father’s voice rang in her head.

She did.

The attack that was meant to dismember the legendary elven hero was parried with just enough effectivity to divert the katana from its initial goal and into Damon’s thigh. And while this would usually be cause for celebration, Rheawien never got a chance to rejoice. Because of the immense strength that she put behind the strike, her body was thrown off balance by the block, making her take an unintentional step forward. It took the white-haired woman straight onto the dagger that Damon set in her path, the blade slicing through her throat as if it wasn’t made out of flesh and tendons.

Rhea’s world went dark. The pain was like nothing she felt before, mind-shattering and forcing her consciousness to drift away from the harsh reality as soon as possible. Her hands dropped the sword, feebly tried to stop the immense gush as she fell on her knees. She tried to say something, some curse in the native tongue of her barbarian mother, but all that came out was a bloody gurgle. And then it too died. And so did Rheawien.

Her defiant stand failed. The loansharks won. Life was really a bitch sometimes.

***

Pavel Enders didn’t have a lot of time. The mass around him was moving like a stampede and his unintelligent colleague couldn’t keep bashing skulls of the crazies for too long. But just as he thought that the heat was becoming unbearable and that it was time to flee and read about the Cell results in the local papers, the dust that hid his hired swords and the owing bitch dissipated and settled. And only Damon was left standing. Below his feet, still clinging to her throat, Rheawien Lightbringer was prostrate in the rapidly growing pool of her own blood. But it wasn’t just the ultimate victory that brought a smile on Pavel’s face. It was Rhea’s face. It was the lost, disbelieving expression that remained locked on her face once life departed from her body. It meant complete and utter capitulation of the assertive bitch. And that made today a good day indeed.

With his muscle-bound gorilla plowing the way through the crowd, Pavel Enders made his way from the bleachers and the erratic audience, thinking to himself: “You win some, you lose some. And it’s good to do more of the former then the latter.

[INDK]

Damon saw his dagger slice into Rheawien’s neck. It provided little consolation at the moment, as her katana bit bitterly into his thigh. The boy clenched his teeth, inadvertently biting his tongue. He stumbled a bit, dropped his pole, and then fell down to the ground in a complete loss of balance. Damon was still alive, just mortally wounded. For a few brief seconds, the boy entertained the thought of somehow getting up onto his feet and continuing the battle, much like he had done after defeating the little furball in the first round. However, there would be little point to it now. There were too many warriors still alive in the cage, and even if Damon could somehow muster the will to stand, it would be nearly impossible for him to fight.

Perhaps most importantly, Damon knew now that he could resign himself to a fate of a hero’s death. He had gone out with one goal, to eliminate Rheawien in accordance with the note. He had no idea he had been fooled by a group of gamblers looking for revenge, and it was quite fortunate. Had he known what a pithy cause he had sacrificed so much for, Damon would have never been able to let his eyes stop fluttering, or allow his heart to take a break. His lungs had begun to breathe more shallowly, as systems shut down the body needed less and less oxygen. Damon coughed a bit. He cringed. Coughing hurt too much.

With his last breath of air, Damon wondered if his mistake in the first round had not been the way that he’d sacrificed himself for the common good, but that he’d gotten up from it. Had he stayed down, there would have been honor in it. His last action would have been victorious.

Now, he had a chance to correct his mistakes. As his lifeblood flowed out from him, Damon made no intentional movements.

[hushpuppy]

A last scream from the wood of the stands wailed out over the arena. Then, splintering and snapping, the stands collapsed. Bodies and beams fell towards the ground, already consumed by a growing cloud of dust and woodchips billowing up and out from the destruction. A chest-shaking rumble rippled across the Cell, rattling the cage. It was difficult, almost impossible, to see through the grimy mist; only indistinct forms, of shattered wood and men, and uncertain movements cast their shadows through the cloud. Within the ruin, one did not need to see for the wreckage to be all too clear. Moans and crying, gasps and sobs, called out from a thousand different directions, a cacophony of pain both confusing and edifying, for it made it impossible to pick out the nearest injury while still making the depth of the destruction clear.

Those who could move, stumbled across the hills of ruined stands and pylons, sometimes falling and impaling themselves on broken planks, sometimes finding their way out from the remains, falling from the dust cloud, crawling or staggering towards the Cell. Expecting salvation, dozens cried and stomped in horror and anger at the sight of men ripping each other apart for sport. Some simply looked down at their wounds, and up at the wounds of those on display, and vomited.

The white Meerplex rolled out from the dust, its fur caked with blood and sawdust. Shaking itself, it managed to kick off a bit of the grime, but most remained. Unseen by the dying remnant of the spectators, it rolled, albeit unsteadily, sometimes veering mightily to the side, across the field of death, zipping around collapsed bodies and pools of noxious humors. It moved towards the opposite side of where the stands had been, until another furball, this one dark brown and coughing to itself, rolled into view, less tarnished but more unsteady, stopping every few feet and raising its hair. As the balls approached each other, the white chirped sharply and rapidly, bouncing slightly in place. The brown hacked and barked back, all its hair on end now. The white whistled, long and high, and the brown did not respond.

The guards of the Cell that were not still in shock were beginning to rush toward the carnage. Their faces were worn steady by years of watching battles, and bashing back those who tried to enter or escape them, but haunted, expectant looks darted, barely seen, in their eyes. Some were frowning more than usual. Others, once they reached some bleeding, sobbing soul, shifted from foot to foot, their mouths half-open, no sound coming out. As one guard's leg stomped past, the brown Meerplex leapt onto his boot, nearly missing and skidding across the ground, and tucked itself up against his leg. Quaking and swallowing like an epileptic, the guard stopped in place, his arms limp at his sides, his head loose, chin against his collarbone. Chirping angrily, the white Meerplex followed suit on the man's other leg, and his convulsions stopped. The possessed guard looked around, slowly, gathering in the bodies around him. Slowly, the slight wind was pushing the dirt cloud away from the collapsed stands, showing a pile of wood and bodies, shorn from the edge of the amphitheater, the unharmed section of the seating still hanging like a cave, ready to wobble down the scene of lost life and gaping wounds. The guard turned to the Cell, his eyes impassive. And then he smiled.

As chaos reigned across the Cell, more guards rushing in from outside the arena, a mass of those who were unlucky enough not to get tickets pushing in, one guard pushed against the flow of people, making his way out. Escaping the Cell.

[Izvilvin]

If he could understand the words that spewed from Seth's mouth, Izvilvin still wouldn't have run from their coming battle. At least not in light of the threat. The Drow was defined by his strength of will, his courage and his honor, and if nothing else, these things were important to him. Whatever the obstacle, he could overcome it. Dying in the first round at the hands of one of his only friends, and his only lover, showed him that.

He came froward, sai flashing menacingly, but he didn't get close enough to Seth to attack before the stands collapsed. Despite Izvilvin's focus on the task at hand, the event tore his eyes away from the human. All about the Cell, humans were flailing and falling as the benches below them broke, sending smoke and dust alike up into the air around them.

The scene upset him. It was as if that until now, he hadn't understood just how much joy the audience was taking in watching the battle. Evidently the thrill of watching the Cell was driving them to aggressiveness, raising tensions and causing anger among the people who were supposed to be enjoying themselves.

Suddenly, he felt sickened. This tournament was a celebration of decadence, a barbaric gathering of those who wanted to see death, but were too cowardly to head to the Citadel and battle for themselves. And he was taking part in it!

To them, happiness was in their anger. It was mind-boggling to consider.

His weapons were placed back on his belt as he realized this, and he began to walk away from Sarah and Seth, to leave them to their fight. Izvilvin didn't belong here, and it had taken the collapse of the entire audience to show him that.

But how to escape? The walls were steel mesh and the doors were locked.

The only solution the Drow could come up with was to use the trees that had sprung up. Most of them broke through the cage's cieling. Without hesitation, Izvilvin began to climb one of the barked towers, making it to the top of the cage without too much struggle. His ribs were sore from the climb, but that was the least of his worries; the Cell was surrounded by audience members, the conscious ones either in a panic or in a rage.

"F'sarn xunor xuil nindol!" He called down to Witchblade, who was still in combat with Jon, the human who'd somehow overcome death. "Ka rin'ov gaer chu jalbyr draeval udos shlu'ta thalra do'suul d' nindol k'lar, ori'gato's xun ol 'zil abbilen!"

With that, he was off across the roof of the cage, his feet clanging against the steel as he tried to ignore the lingering ache in his side. Reaching the edge, Izvilvin observed that below him was a group of humans looking up and pointing, seeming surprised that the Drow had climbed his way out of the Cell. They did not slow him down, as he turned and climbed his way down the side of the cage.

The humans spread out as he descended. It seemed that regardless of the confusion among them, nobody wanted to chance aggrevating one of the Cell's warriors. He did not give them a second glance, running past to push against the crowd of humans struggling to get inside the ampitheater.

Eventually, he made it out. The panting Drow took a look back at the people, at the ampitheater itself, then shook his head as if the entire thing had been a mistake. The Cell was not for him, he realized. Betrayal was too heartrenching a thing for him to deal with, and as much as he tried to fight it in this second, final round, his experience with Rheawien had only hardened him. He thought back to the moment where he considered betraying Witchblade, when her back was turned to him, and the moment where she had come at him and he had the thought to defend himself.

The Cell had attempted to transform him into something he hated. He would not give the tournament a chance to do so again.

((*I'm done with this! If ever there comes another time we can meet outside of this place, let's do it as friends!))

[Walter]

((Minor bunnying approved))

As Jon hit the dirt, landing on all fours, he was within arm reach of the drow. A grin split his haggard face as he roused himself and thrust the knife into that sweet unprotected backside. From the corner of his eye a blurred figure darted into view. It was Witchblade, playing interceptor.

Shit! Jon thought as his fingertips and knife were suddenly caught in a sai. And just behind the bitch, Izvilvin was running off. Absolutely fucking perfect. Witchblade wasn't giving the bum any time to worry about it, though; a swinging dagger was at Jon's ten. It was pure reflex when his free arm whipped out and clashed against her wrist, destroying her momentum.

For a split-second, the two were at a standstill. Both their arms were caught and the first one to move was open. Deciding he wasn't going to move his hands, Jon thrust the crown of his skull into Witchblade's chin. Thud! Bone collided with bone and a huge lump began to form on Jon's noggin. The bitch, slightly surprised, began to stumble backwards when Jon seized the oppurtunity and yanked his arms back, ready to gain some distance. He knew he couldn't fight Witchblade on equal ground.

The knife flew out of his grip, still caught in the stitch-lips sai. In that instant, Jon realized he'd screwed himself over.

Fuck!

His knives had seen him through the Cell. Everytime he managed to get a shot in on Izvilvin, it had been thanks to one of those blades, and now they were all gone. Jon no longer stood a chance against the legends and misfits that surrounded him. Not a single chance.

He could see them, scores of shadows dancing in the Cell, laughing at his helplessness. They would all look down on the unarmed man, the fool of the cage, the idiot who'd gotten by on sheer luck. The useless hobo who deserved to be forgotten. Roaring laughter filled Jon's ears as he ran, and the screams and cries that filled the confused audience sounded like every single person in that audience was talking about him as an inferior. And something in the selfish scoundrel's head began to snap.

As he ran, Jon's pants began to slide off of his naked white hips, greased by a thick layer of wet excrement. The stench announced itself in thick, sour, roiling waves, gaining Jon's attention as he looked down at the soiled trousers. And the gears in his head began to spin backwards. In one swift motion Jon yanked his pants off and grabbed them by the legs. Foul ichor began to ooze from the other end, the same ichor that now covered his posterior.

Jon couldn't hurt anybody now. All he could do is piss them off. And remembering what he'd done earlier to Witchblade, Jon realized that he was very good at it. One way or another, he was going down in the history of the Cell. He was going to shut the faces of all the annoying assholes screaming their heads off in the background. The scoundrel was completely blind to what was going on outside the cage as he stepped across the dirt with his shit cudgel.

Seth Dahlios, Sarah Dahlios, Christina Bredith, Ter-Thok and others. Everything was a target now as Jon ran through the cage, smacking every fighter he could find with his newfound weapon, flinging shit through the air as the little devil inside of him nearly orgasmed with obnoxious pleasure. And if Jon met up with Witchblade again before the Cell's end, he was giving her a great faceful of crap before he went down.

((Running through the Cell "attacking" everyone at random.))

[Abenaki]

He faltered mid-lunge, his feet kicking up dirt and sand as he brought himself to a skidding halt. The wild-haired man that had proven his opponent’s newest attraction wobbled and fell, victim to a strange newcomer standing behind him. Jada's blade wavered, the young warrior's eyes darting between this second newcomer and the blue-haired man that had been his first foe in this chaotic match...

What's going on? Jada was screaming inside his head. The battle had been fast and furious, and already everything was going to pot. Trees had exploded out of no where; strangers were attacking people inside the Cell, interfering with the already hectic match. If Jada hadn't spent the majority of the battle skirting the outside of the main fights, dueling briefly with the blue-haired man that he had fixated on early in the fight, he might have noticed that things were even more hectic that he could have imagined. Combatants were dealing death amongst each other in a flurry of blades and lights, and all the while the crowd outside their bloody haven was going mad...

What am I doing here? Jada asked himself. Confidence found itself overwhelmed by Doubt, and with Doubt came Fear. Fear whispered dark things inside the warrior's mind as his eyes took in the sheer destruction taking place inside and outside the metal cage. The crowd has been whipped into a bloodlust, and were lurching towards the combatants with death in their eyes and blood on their hands...

"You weren't meant to be here..." Fear taunted. "You are no great warrior! You have done nothing to prove yourself worthy of competing in this mess!"

Jada shook his head as though trying to shake the voice loose, turning and looking around wildly as Fear took hold and drove him to seek out a route of escape. Jada had the sudden urge to get as far away from the Cell as possible, to get away from the chain of fights that he had been involved in since he first set foot on the island continent of Corone...

I have to get out of here. Jada convinced himself in a frightened panic. I have to get away...

Scrambling up to the nearest tree, Jada hoisted himself off the ground with muscles driven by Fear and adrenaline. Higher and higher into the branches he climbed, squeezing between the twisted metal of the cage and the trunk of the tree that had torn it apart. Scrambling out across the wide swept branches, Jada headed for the side of the arena least crowded by the crazed fans...

Fear filled his mind with whispers of his own imperfections and his own shortcomings. Fear pulled apart the young warrior from the inside and turned him into a fleeing young boy. Jada had to get away, and he didn't care where he would end up...

Jada has left the arena...

[Molotov]

As Molotov lay on the ground, he wondered how it could have happened. How Mara Jade could have snuck up on him without him noticing. “She was supposed to be in Shanleh, the sodded monks should have been looking after her…” he thought disparagingly. He had felt that the Cell would bring out his rivals, but he had never considered the possibility that they might try and stop his rise during the tournament.

Now, he was going to have to pay for this miscalculation. The serum that had been injected into his body was one of his own creations. It would have no effect now, other than to render his body helpless while it adjusted to the new powers.

It was almost tragic. The shock of the transformation left Molotov’s eyes wide open and muscles taut. The mutant was unable to move, but forced to witness everything going on all around him, be it the toppling of the audience stand or the bloodshed of people near him. In the midst, Molotov looked for Arsenic. Now, he really hated the young squire.

“The boy had distracted me, his new burst of energy surprised me so much that I almost ended up dead here…” Molotov thought. Was Arsenic in league with Mara Jade? Molotov didn’t want to admit it, but it was a distinct possibility. Especially since she had made mention of law enforcement.

Soon, a pair of muscular men entered into the cell. They hadn’t been in the crowd, but were event security. They cut their way through the cage in a brusque and businesslike manner and locked Molotov up in chains.

“By the authority of the Corone Rangers, you are under arrest for the murder of Anne Jolene,” one of them said.

Molotov would have wanted to protest this, but the mutagen had rendered him silent. It was creeping up into his brain, to the point where his entire body had been rendered numb. However, it was a considerable pity. Despite all the murders that Molotov had committed, this had not been one of them. Anne Jolene had been one of the few teachers that Molotov had liked at Jamison Academy.

As the guards led him out, they talked a bit to each other.

“Sure this is okay,” one of them asked. “Cell Rules indicate we’re supposed to stop interference, not help create it.”

“These were the boss’ orders,” the other replied. The tone was unmistakable, it implied no matter how daft the commands seemed, they didn’t have a choice.

“Fair ‘nuf,” the first one agreed. They brought Molotov out into the street and shoved him into a Black Maria.

Throughout all this, Molotov said nothing. It wasn’t like he could. Mara had got her revenge. By the time Molotov regained use of his body, he would be infected with a mutation that even he would not be able to control.

“I’m sorry,” he finally muttered, when he got the slightest control of his mind and lips. Molotov wasn’t sure who it was that he was saying sorry to.

[Witchblade]

(Bunnying permitted)

Witch growled low in her throat and parted her lips enough to spit the blood out of her mouth. The foul little human had head butted her and hard at that, splitting gums open and mixing the taste of her own blood into her saliva. That metallic taste that she hated filled her mouth slowly again and forced Witch to spit it out once more in vain.

Right then, as Witch saw the human strip his pants from his body, revealing something she would rather not see, she heard the call from Izvilvin and watched in disbelief as her ally left the cage. Her eyes seeing her only ally slowly climb the tree and then push his way through the crowd of humans attempting to break through steel mesh to get to them.

How insane this world was.

“Goodbye, my friend, we shall meet again.”

With that final message to Izvilvin, Witch said more than she had to any other creature she had ever met on Althanas. It was the first time she’d ever called someone a friend, it was the first time she’d allowed someone to be more than just an ally. Perhaps, she was beginning to trust someone, perhaps she could lower those guards she had up just a little or perhaps there hadn’t been that many of them to begin with and she’d just been too foolish to realize this.

Either way, that one sentence was not something she took lightly in saying even though the words had been formed and sent through her psychic link with her Drow before she’d even realized it.

We shall meet again…

For now though, she had an annoying human to deal with, one who was doing something most despicable. He was attempting to fling the very shit that had come out of his body when he’d died at the other participants. Even from here she could smell it, the noxious fumes of his own waste and he was touching it, he was actually touching it! Sure it covered pretty much everything below the waist of the human but she couldn’t believe he was actually holding the pants soaked it in and flinging it at the other participants. This human was disgusting and knew nothing about fighting.

Sheathing her sai, Witch reached behind her and grabbed her other dagger. With each in hand she raced through the bodies of warriors, ducking passed tree limbs and jumping over low hanging ones, it didn’t take her long to get to the human, he hadn’t run far. Coming up to him, Witch made a quick slice at his arm, he yelped in pain and dropped the pants his was holding. Whatever he’d intended to do to defend himself didn’t matter; she wasn’t going to give him the chance. With two quick moves she ran her blade across his stomach, splitting skin and muscle and allowing organs to fall through, then she thrust the other blade into the base of his neck, severing nerves and effectively paralysing him.

Oh he’d die, yes, he’d die. But slowly and painfully. He couldn’t move, he could probably barely breathe and some of the very organs sustaining him were now on the dirt-covered ground of the cell beside his body.

Looking around at the other participants Witch wondered if there was even a point in engaging in anymore combat. She just wanted this round over, with Izvilvin now gone all the fun seemed to drain away with it and the humans outside the cage desperately trying to get in didn’t help much either.

Sheathing her daggers, Witch sprouted her wings. The sound of flesh and fabric tearing and bones popping and growing filled the air. But she looked passed the pain and quickly flew up into the air as far as the ceiling of the cage would let her. If she was going to go down in this cell, well, she planned on taking a few people with her and with that in mind Witch brought her hands forward, at least half a foot in between each palm and began drawing energy together to form her most powerful attack.

Pure dark energy began to form between her palms, sparks of power licking off its surface and occasionally striking her hand burning the flesh. Behind and around her several other masses of energy began to form as well, drawing from her and her surroundings as well as the very participants. Feeling the drain on her very power but not caring, Witch released the masses of dark energy unto the participants of the cell beneath her knowing that wherever one touched it would expand to up to four feet and incinerate anything within in.

However, she would never get to see that result. Using this move had it’s own side effect. It completely drained her of energy and left her unconscious. As the attack left her fingertips Witch’s eyes rolled into the back of her head and her wings no longer supported her, sending her plummeting to the ground of the cage. There she landed, shoulder first to the sound of cracking bones she’d never feel the pain of. Her last thought a disappointment that Izzy had not been able to see her final move, she only hoped he got her message.

(For those still left to write conclusion posts, if any of your characters use dark magic they will feel a slight drain on their energy. Nothing that will hinder them.)

[Christina Bredith]

It was right about then that Christina thanked the powers-that-be that her opponent was as small as he was. Examining her wound from the relative safety of the tree branch fifteen feet above the Cage, she realized that it really wasn’t as bad as it looked. It was crippling, of course, and it would make it extremely difficult to move anymore, but it was not permanent, and it was certainly not fatal. It was like a large fork jabbing into her thigh where it joins with the hip, but not much more than that. The blood was slowing down already, and pain such as the electrical kind never lasted long except for the residual feeling of burned flesh. All in all, the wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been if Ter-Thok had been a larger opponent than he was.

Even so, Christina was beginning to realize the fight was over for her. She couldn’t maneuver with a wound like this. The best she could do was attack her opponents with her Sonic Sable from up here, and soon enough one of them would come up to get her. There was no way the wound would heal quickly enough to allow her to continue the fight. Realizing with despair that she had just about lost any chances of winning, Christina rolled her head to the side and looked out through the bars of the cage. What she saw, though, caused her face to twist in a look of confusion. What the hell is going on out there?

In the confusion caused by the growing trees, and in her focus on attacking the little demon, she hadn’t noticed the confusion outside the cage as well. It was like there was a riot in the stands! Well, at least, what was left of the stands, which had collapsed in the chaos. What could possibly have incited everyone to go so crazy? Maybe they had seen something that they just really didn’t like, and the mob mentality spread from there. It can be a powerful force, after all.

While she was watching the lynch mob outside, Christina suddenly heard a voice coming from her other side. She rolled her head around to see what was going on, and nearly shrieked when she spotted Ter-Thok hovering there and looking quite annoyed. The woman rolled her eyes slightly and calmed her breathing before speaking. “You’re like a big mosquito,” she muttered, leaning her head back against the tree. Rosebite was still in her hand in case she needed to use it, but her opponent thankfully was not attacking her just yet.

“Christina,” she said after a pause in response to his question. “Yours?” The woman raised one eyebrow and examined him carefully, mostly to ensure that he wasn’t planning to strike again. When an attack was not forthcoming, she decided that perhaps she could extend the peace pipe. “Hey, listen… you’re getting sick of this, and I’m tired. I really don’t want to have to use this thing again.” She gestured towards Rosebite only vaguely. “The time’s almost up anyway. How about I forget you shish-kebabbed my leg, and you forget I tried to blast you?” The woman tilted her head to one side. It the person she was speaking to had at least been humanoid, this would probably be an attempt at charming him, but she had no doubt that it would be ineffective against this one. “What do you say? Truce?”

Either way, Christina was just about finished. The Cell had certainly been an interesting experience, but it would be a stretch to say she had enjoyed herself. This was just more than she was used to. The only thing she wanted now was a long bath, about forty-eight hours of uninterrupted sleep, and then, a shopping trip. She had made some money from this endeavour, after all. Leaning her head back against the trunk of the mighty oak tree she was sitting on, Christina smiled quietly. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all…

[Lavinian Pride]

Sarah grinned at the proposition that they were locked in the cell. As the humans erupted into the riot tenfold she dug her feet into the ground. Her eyes locked on Seth, despite the insane happenings. As Seth seemed to set into the tired old stance he always did she grinned as she said, “I’ll make it quick, I got a tournament to escape, and you know how the law hates petty things like trespassing…”

Seth growled as he swung, causing Sarah to lock up with him. She grinned as she twirled her blades around, in such a way to hold Seth in position. The two were face to face as Seth breathed, “What the hell do you want with me?”

“I thought I made it quite clear, you’ve cost me time and money dear “brother”,” Sarah replied, the words bitter and dripping sarcasm. As they moved about something that smelled rank hit the both of them, however neither cared as they broke apart and went at it again. It was clear that neither would leave the cell until one or the other was dead or out of the fight. Daggers clashed the sounds of metal ringing through the arena as things were falling towards the inevitable conclusion. Sarah knew Seth so well she could stop anything he attempted to throw at her, but was not nearly skilled enough to overcome the thief.

As they pushed again towards each other they locked up in a clash of daggers. Sarah grinned as she brought her leg up, only to frown when she saw him deflect the blow and spin bringing the gauntlet around again. As her face swung with the blow to lessen it, she growled and brought her dagger forward, trying to harm her estranged other half. He parried the blow before he brought a gauntleted hand to her throat, bringing the fight to a halt as both girls hit the dirt in a knee jerk reflex that left her hands clutching the gauntlet.

“Listen here you bitch, I didn’t do anything to you, you haven’t done already to yourself. I’m trying to move on with my life, and if you’re going to act like the brat, then leave me the hell out of it,” He spat as he held her up. The unfortunate result of this was he finally saw too late just what Witchblade had done, as the darkness rushed through the arena, he saw the feral grin of Sarah as the last thing before he could only curse, “Shit.”

Sarah had accomplished her goal, making sure Seth left with her on a stretcher both bodies hardly identifiable to anyone watching. As the charred remains hit the infirmary they were placed in the cue with the countless other dead waiting to be revived. Perhaps this time people would be more intelligent about their actions, and the idiocy of mob rule would be negated.

All that mattered to Sarah Dahlios, was that she had beaten Seth, albeit with help, but beaten the Demon.

[Dissinger]

Liliana rested in the infirmary recovering from the broken arm and leg she had gotten when the stands collapsed. It was quite apparent that the Cell had been an overwhelming success, especially when they had guaranteed a fighting extravaganza that could not be beat. As she snorted derisively seeing a poster for the cell she shook her head as she said softly, “Last time I watch, if I want to fight, I’ll join next year…”

Soon afterwards a very tired and drained Seth emerged from the room. As he rested in the door way she moved to him before she said, “I’m sorry, if I knew it was going to-“

“No apologies, I just wish I knew she was even around,” Seth said softly. Liliana looked at him confused before he raised an eyebrow, “You knew Sarah was running around?”

“Yes, I tried to warn you, but the crowd went crazy and I was fighting not to be trampled,” Liliana replied.

“No, not the fight, I meant in general,” Seth replied softly. He was leaning heavily in the door frame as she widened her eyes in disbelief.

“You didn’t know?” Liliana said in awe. How could he not know, she was a Dahlios, surely he knew of Sarah-

The thoughts were cut off with his reply, “Sarah was never born, she is another piece of me. Much like Ebony and Ivory are a part of me now, so is she. She shouldn’t be alive, at least not from what I was told by Amiya.”

Liliana shuddered as she said softly, “Letho and Myrhia, I feel so sorry for them. I left them alone with her and-“

“When was this?” Seth asked quickly a bit of anxiety forming in his heart as he reached out and gripped her shoulder.

“Just before I left for Otaria to find you. Maybe three or four months ago,” Liliana said softly.

“Darith you crazy…it doesn’t matter, I have to sort things out,” He finally said.

“So you’re going to leave me here? You know how boring this city is?” Liliana said her voice pouting.

“I need to figure some things out first, Sarah complicates things, as does having you in my-“

“Don’t you dare use this as an excuse. You’re just running away form everything so you don’t have to take responsibility.”

“You’re right. So let me run for a bit longer, I promise I’ll come running back. Afterwards I also promise one thing,” He said softly as he pressed his forehead to hers. She looked into his eyes deeply almost asking for what it could be. He grinned as he whispered, “I will give you me, no hassles no fuss, no running. I will not shy away from you, I won’t try to escape. You will be guaranteed that each night will be spent with me with you, in any manner you should desire.”

She smiled as she placed a hand on his chest and whispered, “I’d like that, but what promise can you give me?”

Grinning he reached into his pocket and produced a small copper coin. One edge was sharpened into a blade, long since worn out. He gently placed it into her hand and closed it around the coin before he whispered, “That was a gift from Darith, one of the few other than Ebony and Ivory. While I may need the daggers, the coin is more of a good luck charm. It also means I have a reason to come back to you, ‘cause I really am fond of that coin.”

She smiled as she kissed him deeply holding onto the coin as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She then whispered, “You better come back, I need you Seth.”

“I will,” He said simply before he hugged her tightly and whispered, “Let’s go, I want to get out of here before Sarah gets revived, it’s only a matter of time before she tries to make it stick.”

[Walter]

Collapsing to the ground in a pile of his own entrails, the snapped fragments of Jon's mind had just enough time to realize what he had done before his numb, leaking body died in the dust. He couldn't even hiss at Bitchblade as she flew into the air, business accomplished. Jon felt humiliated, and this humiliation turned into a bitter black humor that welled up in his numb throat, puddling against his cheek in the dirt. He'd follow that flying bitch to the ends of the Earth to ensure that she got her just desserts. He swore it silently, gasping wetly for the tiny bit of air that would keep his brain working for a second longer. And then darkness took him again.

The Cell was over before Jon woke up again. The wounds that Witchblade had inflicted had kept him unconscious and yet alive long enough to see to that. And so he had the familiar sensation of waking up to a nearly-deserted Cell arena. Bodies were still stacked nearby, demanding attention of the steadfast monks that ran back and forth, barking orders and tending to the wounded.

Somebody kicked Jon in the backside before he could get up. Growling, he rolled around to meet the feet of the same leader monk that had roused him from the Cell's 2nd cage match. He held Jon's three knives in his hand, tossing them at the dirt in front of him.
"Take them and leave, shit-slinger." the leader spoke with a disgusted sneer. Jon raised one hand and flipped him off. He'd been in the cage doing the dying like they'd asked him to do.

"Disgraceful. Disgusting." The monk spat the syllables out. There was no other way for him to express just how displeased he was with allowing that man the chance to try again. He only hoped that the men that determined the outcome of this match simply passed him over. Jon Walter deserved no glory whatsoever. Jon reached for his greasy pants nearby, still covered in ick, and tucked his knives back into the hem. He'd find more pants soon enough.

"Never come back here!" the monk angrily shouted at Jon's retreating backside. The only thing that Jon had done in this Cell match was to make himself an infamous shit-slinger. No amount of recognition would ever make it a worthy title. And so he quietly, bitterly departed, spitting on the dirt of the cage before he vanished from sight.

[Ther]

Dissinger -
Introduction: 7
Setting: 5
Character: 8
Dialogue: 8
Rising Action: 6
Climax: 5
Conclusion: 6
Strategy: 6
Writing Style: 8
Wild Card: 7
Total: 66/100

Witchblade -
Introduction: 7
Setting: 6
Character: 7
Dialogue: 6
Rising Action: 6
Climax: 4
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 7
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 6
Total: 61/100

Ter-Thok -
Introduction: 8
Setting: 8
Character: 8
Dialogue: 7
Rising Action: 8
Climax: 3
Conclusion: 0
Strategy: 8
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 7
Total: 64/100

Abenaki -
Introduction: 7
Setting: 5
Character: 6
Dialogue: 6
Rising Action: 6
Climax: 4
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 5
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 5
Total: 56/100

Molotov -
Introduction: 6
Setting: 5
Character: 6
Dialogue: 7
Rising Action: 6
Climax: 5
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 6
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 6
Total: 59/100

Izvilvin-
Introduction: 8
Setting: 5
Character: 7
Dialogue: 7
Rising Action: 7
Climax: 5
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 6
Writing Style: 8
Wild Card: 7
Total: 65/100

hushpuppy -
Introduction: 9
Setting: 7
Character: 8
Dialogue: 8
Rising Action: 7
Climax: 6
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 6
Writing Style: 8
Wild Card: 6
Total: 70/100

Rheawien -
Introduction: 8
Setting: 5
Character: 6
Dialogue: 6
Rising Action: 7
Climax: 5
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 8
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 7
Total: 64/100

Storm Veritas-
Introduction: 6
Setting: 5
Character: 6
Dialogue: 7
Rising Action: 8
Climax: 3
Conclusion: 0
Strategy: 7
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 5
Total: 54/100

INDK-
Introduction: 6
Setting: 5
Character: 7
Dialogue: 6
Rising Action: 6
Climax: 7
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 8
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 6
Total: 63/100

Christina Bredith -
Introduction: 6
Setting: 7
Character: 6
Dialogue: 6
Rising Action: 7
Climax: 3
Conclusion: 4
Strategy: 6
Writing Style: 7
Wild Card: 5
Total: 57/100

Walter-
Introduction: 8
Setting: 7
Character: 7
Dialogue: 6
Rising Action: 8
Climax: 5
Conclusion: 5
Strategy: 6
Writing Style: 8
Wild Card: 5
Total: 65/100

L.P. – 230 EXP
Komo – 90 EXP
Arsenic – 180 EXP

[Ther]

hushpuppy receives 3,738 EXP + 2,500 bonus for a total of 6,237 EXP. hushpuppy also receives 500 GP and a magic item that will need to be approved by me through the Bazaar. Raises to Level 3.

Dissinger receives 975 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,725 EXP and 200 GP.

Walter receives 975 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,725 EXP and 200 GP. Walter raises to Level 1.

Izvilvin receives 975 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,725 EXP and 200 GP.

Ter-Thok receives 975 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,725 EXP and 200 GP. Raises to Level 2.

Rheawien receives 975 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,725 EXP and 200 GP.

INDK receives 975 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,725 EXP and 200 GP.

Witchblade receives 975 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,725 EXP and 200 GP. Raises to Level 4.

Molotov receives 650 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,400 EXP and 200 GP.

Christina Bredith receives 650 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,400 EXP and 200 GP.

Abenaki receives 650 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,400 EXP and 200 GP.

Storm Veritas receives 650 EXP + 750 bonus for a total of 1,400 EXP and 200 GP. Raises to Level 7.

All EXP/GP added.