The Crow And The Buttefly

[Silence Sei]

((Closed to EI, Slayer of the Rot, and Hysteria))

Well, this was certainly a way to get the attention of Sei Orlouge.

The mute was standing in what appeared to be a giant coliseum. The mute could not see anybody in the desolate stands of the arena. A gust of wind kicked up some dust that entered his nose, hinting that this place had been abandoned for quite some time. How the Mystic got here, he had absolutely no idea. One minute he was sleeping, and the next he was standing before a man on a throne.

A good fifteen feet above and thirty feet in front of the telepath was a large man sitting on a chair of brown furs and gold trimming The arms of the chair appeared to be made out of actual ferrets, their heads still intact. The seat was made of a white hide that Sei could only assume was a Berevar Bear.

The man sitting on the throne was a good eight feet tall at least (at least from what Sei could see). His brown beard resembled that of a normal brown bear's fur, and his nails were sharpened to the point of being registered as claws. As he smiled, all of his teeth were shown to be sharpened, each once a dangerous fang. He wore a dwarven helmet with two of the longest horns Sei had ever seen reaching to the heavens.

"Greetings, challenger," the man said, standing from his throne and throwing his arms out as if he were addressing an entire crowd. "I am Hromagh, Thayne of power!" Sei's eyes raised as the man introduced himself. Just as the telepath was about to 'speak', he heard a familiar voice coming from behind.

"That's bull," the voice said in a defiant tone. Sei closed his eyes and wished that he had not been sent here with Jensen of all people. The telepath's primary bodyguard was so full of himself and disrespectful, the mute was sure he was going to be smited by association, provided this was Hromagh.

"Shut up Jensen. If he got us here, he must be some powerful force," the mute noted, to which Jensen shook his head.

"That's bull," he said again, this time a little more rage in his tone.

"Jensen, I'm telling you--"

"And I'm telling you, faggot fairy king, that Hromagh is supposed to be a bull!"

Sei looked up at his captor once more. Indeed, everything he had heard about Hromagh had said he was the Bull God, mostly because he had appeared as such to most. Then again, the telepath -had- encountered a humanoid version of N'Jal, who was supposed to be the Spider Goddess. Perhaps the appearance of the Thayne was in the eye of the beholder?

"You're friend is smarter than he lets on, Sei Orlouge. And yes, I am the true Hromagh." The man flashed his teeth once more, wiping his mouth with anticipation for what was to come. "You've proven yourself to several of my brothers and sisters, Sei Orlouge, but not yet to me. I wish to see how strong you truly are. As such, I've brought three warriors here, each of whom you will be fighting three on one. Or two on two, or whichever. If you can best all three of them, then you shall be rewarded with my blessing."

Sei raised an eyebrow before turning to Jensen Ambrose. The immortal was supposed to be one of his foes? Sei had defeated Jensen thoroughly once before, but that was more of a mental battle than a truly physical one. If Sei were to gain the blessing he needed to be the Champion of the Thayne, he would have to defeat one of his best friends.

It was around that time Sei heard a moaning from the shadows. Looking over to where the shade from one of the stands was hiding his form, Sei noticed Talen Shadowalker standing up. The child puppeteer was a master of shadow magic, something Sei was incredibly weak against. Furthermore, Talen was one of his eight generals in the Ixian Knights. Was he truly one of the Mystic's opponents?

"As you can see, I've brought two of your friends with you. Talen is the only one here able to use any magic. Jensen's agility has been increased ten fold, and as for your third opponent..." Hromagh pointed downwards to a limp body that began to move. "Well, he was once known as the Rotslayer. He had an affinity for taking out the undead. I wonder how he'll feel fighting a former vampire. Especially when he realizes his strength is also slightly enhanced?"

Sei's eyes widened from what he could gather, he had been reduced to just physically fighting while his opponent's best assists had been increased. It seemed that Hromagh did not pull punches when it came to choosing his champion. The beast of a man laughed as he lifted a finger upwards. "Oh, and one more thing!" Hromagh tossed something at Sei's feet.

Looking downwards, Sei saw a three-sectioned staff. Its orange handles really complimented the blue titanium knobs on each end of it. The mute looked back up at Hromagh as he added in the last bit. "You each get a new weapon for this fight." The Thayne of strength sat back down in his throne, obviously pleased with himself.

"Now entertain me."

[Enigmatic Immortal]

((So, just so EVERYBODY is on the level. If I have 10X more agility, I now have 20X Agility. [2.0 AGI unmodified, X 10.0= 20.0AGI] So um…Jensen’s going to be pretty fudging limber in this thread. Act accordingly…))

The immortal looked to the beast thayne with a mounting disrespect. He hated the Thaynes. What did they do? Nothing! That’s what! They play their silly games, manipulate humans into doing whatever they want, and then when they get bored they dump them off to the side like yesterday’s trash. What baffled the immortal was his employer, Sei, was seeking these guys out. Already the immortal had walked to the plains of Berevar to get Jomil’s promise. That was an adventure and a half.

Putting it beside himself he listened as the Thayne of strength mentioned Jensen was now far more agile. To test the theory he flexed his fingers. Each one moved in a fast rhythm, far faster than ever. He tapped his feet, feeling each toe wiggling in separate to the others. That was a new feeling. He bent at the knees and jumped up. He got a feeling of his lift, jumping about four feet in the air easy with the simple hop, touching his toes in a wide stretch with his hands. As he came down he dropped one foot and lifted the other like a scorpion’s tail behind his back, lifting his hands up and grabbing the foot stretching his back.

“Oh yeah,” He whispered. With a series of three movements Jensen lifted himself into the air, spinning like atop with one leg and actually lifting himself as he twirled, his agility far exceeding the plains of mortality and entering right into godhood. He was limber, he was faster, and he was going to be a hell of a lot meaner soon. He gained enough momentum to launch himself seven feet across the plains landing opposite of Sei.

With quick motions Jensen fell into his Caeipoeria stance, flipping in the same spot with one hand and rotating his body around like a gyroscope. His feet moved around his body in violent arcs and the immortal laughed like a hyena at the powerful feeling he felt. When he landed down with a stomp he crossed his arms over his chest and made a punk move towards Sei.

“Well, looks like I get my rematch, Fairy King,” Jensen said with enthusiasm. He watched the other two combatants and pondered what the situation was like, and noting how the god spoke about the Rotslayer’s strength Jensen pondered what that meant. If he could do multiple flips with two fingers touching the ground, then with two fingers that guy should be able to punch a hole in Jensen’s chest. Talen had magic, but what was that when compared to agility and Strength? And Sei…he was a faggot, so Jensen didn’t care about him.

He looked down to see before an odd shaped sword. He lifted the weapon up, feeling its weight in his hand. Surprisingly the weapon was light for its size, which was about the length of his arm. There was a small switch on the handle, and when he pushed the switch up he felt a tug of chords within the frame of the sword yawn, and the blade curved up to resemble a miniature scythe. Laughing again he pulled the switch back and it reverted to its dominate one sided sword state. This weapon was going to work well with him as he flipped the blade around his body and hit the switch, the blade extending out as he brought it back in with a satisfied click.

“Alrighty kids, line up and let’s pick team captains!” Jensen joked. “We each get one person on our team! So I nominate Sei as captain, and myself! I accept my nomination, the votes are in, I am captain!” Jensen bowed to them. “So I get first pick, since this is Sei’s fault for dragging us all into this mess, so I pick…” Jensen stuck his tongue out to the side as if in deep thought, his hand lifting to his chin. “The Rotslayer! I heard some interesting stories about you pal, so I look forward to seeing what you got. Sei that sticks you with Talen.” He smiled cruelly as he watched the others.

Of course, Jensen had no desire to really team with anyone, but so far the Rotslayer was the wildcard, for he had yet to show Jensen just how strong the guy became with the Thayne’s gift. Jensen would feel him out, wait, and when opportunity came knocking he would stick the scythe across his neck and take his life…

“WHOA!” Jensen thought suddenly out loud. “Is death permanent?” He asked to the Thayne.

[Hysteria]

Sweet dreams filtered past the closed eyes of the little shadow warrior. Talen was dreaming the dreams of youth; flying over fields of deep gold and blue flowers without a care. The sun that lit the scene filled the world with temperate light and all was perfect and free. The dream though would not last as the nefarious nature of the Thaynes interrupted even the simplest and most innate of freedoms.

Talen's blue eyes slowly opened to a much more monotone scene. The little warrior was greeted with the smell of dust and dirt, etched with a timeless absence of life. At once he knew that it was not a dream. This was something else, a dream-like state brought about by a cold and loveless magic of power and destruction. The boy pushed himself up slowly into a sitting position and surveyed the arena he had found himself.

Instantly Talen saw the red hair of Sei and the form of another man he had not met before. High on a throne sat one of the biggest men Talen had ever seen. The youth quickly took stock of what he had on his person, his swords and other equipment seemed to all be in the normal places he would put them before a mission and with the words of the giant man on the throne it was clear that he was supposed to fight. The quick back and forth between Sei and the other man revealed the man to be Jensen.

So that's one of Sei's body guards huh? Jensen Am-something...

The youth slowly stood up with the effort of someone who didn't really want to. He took a step forward and kicked something on the ground. Talen looked down and saw mess of shadow. The youth bent down and reached towards the darkness. Just before he could touch it, the form twisted to the side and shot into his left arm. The youth stood bolt upright clutching his wrist tightly as dark patterns spread across his skin. As quickly as it had started the pain was gone and the youth was left with a black tattoo across his wrist and forearm.

The tattoo is a gift for the fight.

The thought rose to the forefront of his mind without the beckon of the youth. Like an instruction book, how to use the weapon was implanted directly into Talen's mind. The youth gave a cruel smile as he rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt and walked towards Sei and Jensen. The shadow warrior stood nearly two feet shorter than the other warriors, but held himself with confidence. He pulled himself up a few metres from the pair, enough room to be out of the reach of the weird scythe sword Jensen was playing with.

“Oi! Ambergris was it?” Talen asked Jensen innocently, “I'm not sure you really want to fight me. Just a friendly heads up, I think I'd be too much for you to handle.”

The youth rest his hand on one of his sword hilts and smiled at the immortal.

[Slayer of the Rot]

By Sei's word, Dan's enhanced strength, being doubled, will allow him now to lift and exert a force of nine tons.

Breath hissed through fangs and beneath the shapeless folds of the dark cloak that shrouded that last form on the dusty stone ground, a pair of cold gray eyes opened. He laid there for a moment, a thin red line slicing through his vision; the lingering stabs of a migraine. It was his first hint that he'd been snatched up from the earth through some form of teleportation and dumped elsewhere. It certainly wasn't the first time it had happened, and annoyingly, most likely not the last. The migraine though, was always his clue that he'd been taken by some moron who thought it would be a brilliant idea to dance that old bloody dance with him.

He heard them speaking, in excited, rapid tones. One seemed fairly relaxed by the situation; he guessed that one was the other arrogant one of the bunch. He counted three others in total, a fourth from higher up, calm and assured. He could see nothing beneath the cloak, but he had an idea of the appearance of that fourth; a man of power used to getting what he wished. A soft growl rippled from his throat. He'd taste that one's blood before he was done.

Quietly, he pushed himself up on the palm of his hands, got his feet under him, and rose into a standing position. The cloak fell away - and revealed long, steel-silver hair, dark, olive colored skin, peaked, leaf shaped ears. Hromagh had called him the "Rotslayer", but the person who cast a burning, malicious glare across the unfamiliar colliseum, into its stands where, for all he knew, ghosts sat and eagerly waited the killing, did not look like Dan Wilmhearst or Dan Lagh'ratham at all. This man, even at first glance, could not be mistaken at all for that man, that monster; he was quite obviously a dark elf, a son of Alerar, and a ranger of its Twilight Peaks from his attire. The dark elf groaned, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead.

"How...in the hell...did you find me." There was no answer beyond a heavy thud before him and the crunch of stone. Dust swirled around his boots, and he looked upwards, toward the sharp toothed, horned man on the throne.

"You know..." The tips of the dark elf's ears seemed to suddenly round out, and shrink, as though a sculptor had taken his skilled hands to the clay of his life's work and had begun to correct it. The tanned complexion began to visibly fade, from the healthy sun touched bronze to the peach-pink of man and finally, to a practically ghoulish white, pale from time perhaps spent in a cave or a coffin. "...I'm getting really fucking sick of kings, tyrants, and gods picking me up out of my god damn life and making me fight for their entertainment. I know you people got shit for an attention span but I don't waltz into your day and pull you away while you're blowing someone for a few gold. I was rolling a cigarette. I want my cigarette."

Beneath the shadow of his horns, Hromagh stared at the dark elf that was not a dark elf, passively watching the change. The long, straight pale hair began to crinkle and curl, darkening to coal. Dark circles like bruises formed beneath his icy granite colored eyes. They narrowed, glaring at the Thayne, as his thin lips curled into a snarl that revealed fangs precisely like the bestial god's own. The pale, tired looking stranger did not move, nor acknowledged the others. "I want. My cigarette."

He waited a moment more. The others talked, seeming friendly with one another. Finally, muttering, Dan Lagh'ratham bent and lifted the weapon that Hromagh had been so generous to provide. Light from an unseen sun glinted off of its cold gray face. From what he could tell, the heavy titanium mace was a masterwork - nothing less for those who'd be spilling their blood for his entertainment, he supposed. Its round top, he estimated, was about the size of his own head, and as he squinted, he noticed a number of thin, rectangular slots interspersed across its surface. His thumb tapped carefully along the handle, and then felt a small peice of it settle under his touch. Dozens of small, barbed blades burst from within the head of the mace as the immortal called out to him.

"Don't call me that." He turned the mace in his hands, admiring the thing. By its size, it had to be over a hundred pounds, but it was as light as a carpenter's hammer in his hands. He could recall the Thayne mentioning...only one could use magic, one had increased speed, and he had enhanced strength. But how much had he been boosted? He pondered it for a moment, musing that he wouldn't even need the mace to slaughter them. Lowering the weapon to his side, he lifted his right foot a few inches from the ground - and stamped it down with all his might

The effect was instantaneous and startled even Dan. The coliseum shook with the force of the blow. A thick fissure ripped the stone beneath him apart and the ground shifted. If he had his terramancy, he could have ended it then; lifted those heavy broken rocks and rained them down upon the other three. The rumbling faded, and he stared down at the destruction with a frown; it upset him that he could not feel the earth, the dust and the stones and the dirt. It had become a part of him as much as the feel of his blood beating through his arteries and the breath in his lungs. Slowly, he lifted his gaze and settled it upon the three; a child, and two men. Dan cocked a brow at the one with the orange hair as old memories rushed to his call.

"Sei. Its been a long time. Thought your ass was dead." There had been a time, long ago, when he had helped the Protector of Radasanth defend the city, from monster and man. Now he was in hiding, fresh from the service of Xem'zund, laying low in the wake of the defeat of the Forgotten One and the sacrifice of one of his oldest friends, Godhand Striker. Going on wanton rampages hadn't gotten him closer to his daughter, so he'd thought he'd just try to keep quiet and gather information...the peace, strangely had been nice for the moment, but now, here he was called to crush and kill and eat again.

That was okay. A little blood shed never hurt anybody - except for those who were unfortunate enough to fall into his hands.

He looked to the one at Sei's side, the arrogant one, who the mystic had called Jensen. The saraelian looked apathetic to the proposition, his face settled into bored indifference, but he shrugged as he turned his head away, walking off towards the border of the coliseum. "Whatever. I was busy. If teaming up finishes this faster and gets me my cigarette, fine." Dan walked with deliberation, staring at one of the tall columns that dotted the outside of the killing ground they stood in. He dropped the mace without care as he stood before it, scowling deeply at his new partner's outcry. Shaking his head, Dan cocked his fist back. The column was wide, about as thick as four large men standing shoulder to shoulder. He hurled his fist into the stone, and it sank in deep, pulverizing it into dust as thick cracks ripped across its body, bisecting it. The column groaned, all thirty feet off it swaying slightly, but it held - until he slammed his other fist into body, higher up. A deep, ancient growl rumbled through the arena as stone ground against stone, and the upper portion of the column tipped, the plummeted downward. He pulled his hands from the ruined rock and threw them into the air. If he was right - if he'd been made as strong as he thought he was, as he felt he was, this would be nothing to him. If he wasn't - well, it would be one less for Sei and the two to fight.

He gasped as the broken column hit him. He'd braced for the impact, but still his knees threatened to buckle. He could feel his bones ache, instantly - but he did not crumple, did not fall. Grinding his teeth, he straightened himself, driving his fingers into the column for a grip. "You shouldn't fear death!" He called out, that old, psychotic predator's grin spreading across his face. "I've been to the Antifirmanent! Its nothing but a tourist trap!" With a bellow, he hurled the enormous hunk of stone at the three - with his speed, he was sure Jensen could dodge, but without quick thinking, magic or a miracle, Sei and the child would be crushed into pasty smears.

"Now shut your cocksuckers and bleed!"

[Silence Sei]

Sei looked to Talen almost as soon as Hromagh had finished talking. The Mystic knew what was to be expected from his primary bodyguard, but this fourth party was going to be a wildcard. "Talen, Jensen is going to come after me with everything he's got. It will be the perfect opportunity to strike him." Sei almost had finished his words by the time Talen was walking over to talk to the enigmatic immortal.

As this man, the 'Rotslayer' got up, he spoke the telepath's name. Thinking for a minute of somebody who could have known him, as well as carrying such a nickname, the mute let out a silent gasp of shock. It was one of his old generals during the Yellow Lily Rebellion, Dan. The man had proven himself on more than one occasion during that war to be one of Sei's top men. What in Hromagh's name was he doing here?

Sei's eyes widened upon thinking about Dan's nicotine addiction, and just how irritated he seemed to get when he did not get his fix. As the demon of a man went towards a column, the mute quickly shot himself over to Talen Shadowalker. Though Sei was stripped of his own magic, he could feel the powers from his shoes, the Feet of Y'edda, carry him swiftly across the ground. Without hesitation, Sei grabbed the child and chunked his body as close to the east wall as possible, having him moved completely out of the way of the oncoming attack.

At this point, Dan had lifted the debris up, and had begun to talk. It was at this point that Sei focused on Jensen, running towards his friend as the Rotslayer heaved the huge makeshift meteor at them. As Sei reached for Jensen with his free right hand, the Apocalypse Knight lifted into the air. It was quite obvious that even with the Feet of Y'edda, Sei's speed would be no match for Jensen. Sei looked ahead to the former pillar that was now a current projectile, clutching the middle portion of the three-sectioned staff.

Maintaining his grip on the middle, Sei threw his weapon outwards, hoping for something unique to happen. This was a weapon bestowed upon him by a God after all. Sure enough, the two sections on each end of the staff broke off and began to spin towards the stone, Sei entranced with what the tiny things could do compared to such a huge adversary. Yet, the two sections did not stop, but instead seemed to plow through the column, kicking up a sea of gray dust and small stones everywhere.

As Althanas shook in response to the large pillar slamming upon the ground, the large cloud of gray merged with the newly awakened dirt, forming and even more drab color. There was a few seconds of quiet, anticipation to see what had remained of Sei Orlouge. The deafened air was broken by the sound of heavy breathing, followed by the dropping of some sort of item. The air cleared up quickly, and Sei Orlouge stood about two feet from the projectile (or rather, the shambles that was left of it). He had dropped to his backside due to the sheer force of the shockwave being so close to him, the third section of his staff on the ground beside him.

The mute never even realized the other two sections of the staff returning to their brother. He was too busy staring down the outline of the monster his friend Dan had become thanks to Hromagh's augments.

"Jensen, Talen," Sei said, trying to find his now cloaked friends in the quickly disappearing big, "are you two alright?"

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen had flipped over Sei’s rush, taunting him to come and get him when suddenly the earth shook with such a ferocity it made him stumble even with his new found balance. He looked back towards Talen, seeing if the uppity youth had something to say about this occurrence, but no, he hadn’t. He seemed just as awe struck as Jensen was. He turned his gaze to the thayne, noting the man was laughing with a twisted enjoyment. Well if it wasn’t Sei, wasn’t Talen, and wasn’t the thayne, what the hell was it?

One casual flick of his eyes over to his ‘partner’ and the world made sense yet again.

He felt his entire blood stream bellow in his ears, bounding within his veins as he turned to Sei, mockingly saluting him as a fit of the giggles bellowed out to the sky showing his growing excitement for the battle. He leapt upwards and over the coming column of debris in a stunning back flip, and the stone fell towards his charge he was supposed to protect. His body moved down the height and he felt the butterflies of free falling from a cliff with no rope. He realized his agility was so amazing he could leap high in the air, but did he have the endurance to land?

He tucked his shoulder in and fell in a tight roll, his body eating the ground as he came up tumbling head over heels in a violent spasm of flurrying body parts. It was like one of those comic book clouds when the cartoon characters got into a fight. When he came up he planted one foot ahead of his body, stopping his momentum against another column as he flashed a wild smile to the Rotslayer. With a quick thought Jensen decided not to jump too high again.

“Heh, you may be my new favorite person,” Jensen said. He observed the barbed mace in his partner's hand, knowing to feel that in his delicate skin would not be a comfortable experience, and looked back at Sei and the other mage. He heard the Mystic speak to him with telepathy, his urgency to know his friends were alright taking over his senses of combat. Jensen grunted in disappointment. H'moragh didn't want a weak little den mother as his champion, he wanted a cold blooded killer. Until Sei learned that he was going to get stomped at every turn.

“Faggot Fairy King Orlouge still is alive,” Jensen muttered to Dan, looking out for signs of the mage. “How about I leave you the Mute fairy king, and I’ll take the prepubescent bed wetter,” Jensen offered as he placed his hand on the handle of his new weapon. He activated the switch, turning it into a scythe and ran towards one of the columns.

When he felt he had enough speed he jumped for all he was worth, going easily fifteen feet in the air. He stabbed the weapon into the marble stone, and pressed his legs against the stone. He angled himself on his blade looking for the boy. When he found him he licked his lips and let out another fit of laughter, jumping towards another column. He repeated this until he was looking at the boy’s back, and when he was positive it was safe he jumped outwards, weapon returning to sword mode as he prepared for a flying decapitation.

Jensen has one EX bar

[Hysteria]

Life seemed to blur in a second. Talen was standing there, a patronising grin across his face one second and the next hurtling through the air. The reality of the situation struck him almost as hard as the ground he careered into and skidded along. Amid his own little dust cloud the youth realised that he had once again been saved by Sei. The thought hurt more than hitting the ground.

Slowly Talen pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked at the carnage where he had been standing. The youth stood up slowly and gingery stretched his arms and legs and found no serious damage. Sei had thrown Talen low and parallel to the ground to minimise the impact.

As the dust cloud from the impact of the pillar cascaded over Talen the youth sneered. He hoped that whatever dream he found himself in would come with a dry cleaning service at the end. The thought was cut through by maniacal laughter and Talen’s head snapped to half way up a pilar where Jensen was laughing.

“Subtle...”

Jensen made two more jumps, ending each time perched on the on the scythe. Talen didn’t like it one bit. The moves were over complicated and loud. It was not a two on two battle, Talen though Jensen should have just gone straight for him and skipped the theatrics. Talen turned away from the immortal and feigned ignorance. Soon he was flanked and his back was open to Jensen. As he attacked, Talen countered.

A wave of darkness spread out from the youth and lifted up into the air. The black mass shifted and solidified quickly, forming thick bars. The scythe turned sword struck the cage bars that formed between the youth and the immortal with crack of sound. The bars of shadows continued to formed quickly, springing up and around to form a large cage. Talen turned around with his arms crossed in front of his chest and an unimpressed look across his face.

[Slayer of the Rot]

Low, cold laughter cut through the thick, choking cloud of grimy dust. "Real cute. That's not how the rules to rock, paper, scissors goes, though. You cheated, Sei." A sudden, monstrous wind tore at the cloud and brushed it aside, giving them all a good look at the demon - and the large, scaly red wings spread from his back. Smiling, his eyes narrowed at Sei, Dan gave mental thanks to the bazaar shopkeeper that had sold him the Angelic Emblem which he'd embedded in his back. Slowly, the wings folded, then shrank, vanishing behind him. He couldn't use the little variety of magic he'd picked up over the years, but the relics implanted in his body were working just fine.

"You idiots can't be so dense as to think you can defeat me. I've laid waste to entire cities and slaughtered some of the greatest 'heroes' of this age of ours. You can stab me through the heart and I still wouldn't die." Dan bared his flesh shearing fangs in a wide grin, feeling his chest swell with pompous pride as he continued bragging. He had never been the humble or careful sort; arrogance and recklessness was simply two of his greatest assets. He raised his free hand before him, and the light caught something on the back of it, embedded in his flesh, flashing yellow. "Why don't I show you how outclassed you fuckers really are?" Laughter tore out of his throat seconds before he simply vanished. Dust continued to settle in the spot he stood a moment before, as though he'd never been there at all. Barely a blink of an eye later, the laughter came again, from behind the orange haired mystic, now.

"What, leaving me out of your little mental talks? That's really god damn rude." With a bellow, Dan cocked his arm back and sent the delyn mace at Sei in a horizontal swipe. Strangely, his other hand was not extended to block any counter attack - instead, he was reaching behind his back with it, his fingers curled like claws. There wasn't any point in playing around like a cat with the mice; if he was going to end it, he was going to do it fast and brutal, on his own terms. He plunged his fingers down into his own back, tearing through cloth and flesh with ease.

"I haven't tried this yet. Why don't you kick back with a snack and wait to see the beautiful little surprise I've got in store for you?"

[Silence Sei]

Sei heard Dan's taunts, felt the chilling wind as his weapon began to find its way towards its intended target. The mute closed his eyes and hoped that the pain would not be too severe. He was, after all, without the magic he relied on so heavily.

Then, something unexpected happened.

The mace had stopped inches before finding its mark. Sei opened his eyes with confusion when he realized he had not been injured. A loud shattering sound found its way into the fight, and Sei smiled from ear to ear. Hromagh could rid Sei of all of his learned spells, but Mystic Protection was an innate ability. Not even the Thaynes could make Sei any less of a Mystic.

As the air seemed to crack itself around Sei, the mute wondered if the same philosophy applied to his weaponry. As Dan reached around his back, Sei copied the motion. The difference was that the mute actually grabbed the hilt of one of his Gemini Blades.

As he did so, two things happened; the first was that the Mystic Protection finished, and glass shot everywhere in the arena. The second, was that no doppelganger appeared out of the Gemini Blades. Sei looked up to Hromagh, who was in hysterics laughing from his throne.

"We Ancient Thaynes made the Zodiac Weapons, Orlouge! Did you really think that I couldn't stop its special effect from kicking in?! Your jests amuse me!" He snorted like a warthog as he laughed, grabbing his flabby belly. Sei looked back to Dan, dashing backwards so he was beside Talen, facing opposite of the youth. It did appear that the shadow user was his only ally in this chamber.

"Talen," Sei said to the boy, hoping not to distract him too much, "We need to take care of Jensen first. If we can do that, I've got a special technique I've been saving for this exact scenario. Are you in?" The mute hoped that he was correct in his assumption, that this was a free for all where Talen was his ally. After all, their last fight ended with the mute impaling the puppeteer.

Sei hoped Talen wasn't bitter about that.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen’s howling laughter echoed behind him as he zoomed towards the child warrior, but as he zeroed in on his foe a black inky splotch moved to meet him in air. It opened up like a clawed hand, grasping the immortal without actually touching him before the ink bled downwards. In is flight he observed the forming of the cage and he made his eyes grow wide, smile wider than a mile as he looked to the bars and tested them with his weapon. Solid as iron.

He planted both feet on the cage as he barreled into the ground feet away from Talen, effectively trapped in his darkened cell. When it bounced on the floor the immortal hit the roof and the ground and his spasm like laughter faltered before he chuckled cruelly in a whine. Slowly he dusted his arms up, lifting his new found toy up and holstering it onto his belt as he pulled out two throwing glaives.

“Now that is a neat trick,” Jensen pulled on the bars and tested them, dragging his glaives across them like a beggar on a death row. “God your daddy must be so proud! You can shit out a fucking cage! Did he ever play games with you?” Jensen pondered loudly.

He turned his back to the boy to look at Sei, watching the Rotslayer nearly destroy the Mystic. He whistled again as he looked back to Talen. “Do you think you have the fortitude to handle such a fiend as that guy? I’m pretty sure he finds small children like you tasty,” Jensen clucked his tongue. “Gotta keep Azza away from him. Look at those eyes!” Jensen exclaimed with excited passion. He ran to the other end of the cage and pointed out through the bars.

“Those eyes are filled with someone who has hate, spite, fury and everything in between! Look at those eyes and tell me you do not see your death in them! Ah hell if I still had mortality I’d be crapping my pants! What prayer of chance do you have, bed wetter?” Jensen chuckled darkly before turning to look back at Talen.

“Oh, by the way,” Jensen tossed both his glaives at once towards Talen’s body. “Daddy ever played catch with you?”

[Hysteria]

Talen recognised the familiar sound of the breaking glass, but a quick glance and the youth saw the the epicentre of the expansion was far enough away that only one shard was a threat and he calmly stepped aside as it passed. The youth drew his two swords as Jensen, his physical attack foiled, launched verbal ones.

“Sure Sei.”

The youth's swords lifted slightly as he ducked and moved to the side as Jensen threw his glaive. If it wasn't for the cage, Talen was sure that the amazing speed of the immortal would have been his downfall. The youth skimmed around the cage, his swords dropped as he ran, touching the dirt and dragging two long lines as he moved around the cage.

“My Zodiac blades are not as developed as Sei's, but they have two useful abilities. This is the first!” Talen yelled the last line as he skirted the cage.

The two lines in the dirt started to move and changed into two long brown snakes. They instantly slithered towards the cage; hissing as they slithered through the gaps in the bars. Talen skidded to a stop around the other side of the cage and pointed the tip of his sword through the bars.

“The second is to be a focal point for my magic.” continued Talen.

The tip of the sword darkened as shadows rapidly gathered and condensed. A jet of black oil spewed out from the tip of the blade towards the captive Jensen. The oil was Talen's normal Liquid Ooze spell, but even though he normally lit the flammable oil, it would work well enough simply being extremely slippery.

“and I never had a father.” The youth smiled, he was set on cutting the immortal into little pieces.

[Slayer of the Rot]

It was not easy to argue that Dan Lagh'ratham had not fought through a great deal of pain in his life, and it was hard to say that any other man wouldn't have broken under the burden. He had suffered the broken, decayed teeth of the undead in his flesh, and had survived the killing bite of vampires. He had been shot, stab, crushed, buried alive, burned, burned, beaten, and nearly decapitated just recently in Eluriand. He had walked away alive from a necromantic spell blast from the Forgotten One, Xem'Zund, at the cost of his arm. He'd willingly mutilated his own flesh, all for the sake of power.

However, he'd never quite felt anything close to the pain of tearing out his own spine.

He dug his fingers deeper down into his obstinate flesh and gritted his shark-like teeth. Thick, dark streams of arterial blood welled up between his punctured flesh and knuckles and oozed down his clothes. Beads of hot sweat broke out across his forehead and trickled downwards, falling into his eyes, stinging them. He pulled hard at the column and was rewarded with an explosion of agony that blinded his eyes and threw open his jaws, wrenching a pained bellow from him. But the spine gave. Nerves snapped and tore, vertebrae broke, and he pulled loose a handful of it from his back. His body responded quickly, and instead of slumping to the ground, paralyzed from the waist down, he still stood. His regenerative abilities launched into high speed. Liquid calcium poured like molten steel into the cavity left behind and quickly solidified into new vertebrae. New nerves rose like jungle vines, replacing those he destroyed. Sweat made his face glow in the strange light of the arena and he pulled again. The spine gave, and more this time. The further he pulled it, the easier it seemed to be for him.

With a final cry and a spurt of blood, he pulled the last of it free, and slumped, gasping as he stared down at his feet. He didn't think he could do it again, and certainly didn't want to. His spine hung limply in his hand, still wet and slick with blood. Beneath the thick, raggedy waves of black hair, his eyes slowly turned towards that piece of himself that he held. It was then that he realized that he was full of shards of glass - one stuck out of his throat, only an inch from his carotid artery. Sei's Mystic Protection? It had to have been, he didn't think the kid and the loudmouth were throwing broken glass at him. Luckily, the same ability that had just allowed himself to ravage his body had saved him from any major damage - four plates of dehlar strength bone lay just under his flesh, linked like scale mail over his abdomen and some of his chest, had held the glass at bay. Without some form of armor - even as grotesque as it seemed - the shards would be in his heart, his lungs, spilling acid from stomach wounds, grinding in his intestines. Dan chuckled lowly, and dropped his Thayne given mace to the ground.

The spine suddenly twisted and writhed like a snake, as though it had a life of its own. It thrashed for only a moment or two before it went perfectly straight with a series of stomach turning, audible cracks and clicks, shedding its initial curved frame. He threw his head back, his face stretching once more in predatory mirth, and ran a hand through his ratty hair. The spine sprang from either end of his fist, practically bursting from his hold, increasing in size at an astounding rate until the thing was taller than the man it had been pulled from and boasted an improbable number of vertebrae. From the upper most links, curved thorns grew, the bone flowing like clay slurry, and the top vertebrae expanded, swam, twisted, and hardened itself into a wide, flat spear-blade.

"My apologies, kid." Dan turned his attention Talen now, barely even registering Sei's presence nearby him. All three of them had gotten quite a little distance away from him, and it was beginning to annoy him how much the mystic was running. He tightened his grip on the spine spear and began to advance on them.

"I've been giving all that attention to Sei, and well, that just ain't too fair is it?" Just from the corner of his eye, distractedly watching Talen and Ambrose fight, seeing the cage and the snakes, he could tell that the little one was almost as much of a threat as the mystic was. He drew closer, raising the macabre weapon into a fighting stance.

"You must just be hiding all that pain from your daddy abandonment issues. It's okay, I'll pay attention to you all you want."

This is a non combat round for me since Dan used Bones of the Behemoth to pull out his spine. He is focused on Talen now, though.

[Silence Sei]

Sei looked at the imprisoned Jensen with awe. Talen had found a way to easily keep the immortal from using his god-like speed. At least, he had for a little bit. As Sei looked at the exchange between his two Ixian Knights, he heard footsteps coming from behind. Turning around, Sei was shocked to see that Dan was now wielding, of all thing, what appeared to be his own spine. The telepath swallowed a knot that had formed in his throat, mesmerized by the dance the vertebrate was performing for its master.

However, instead of lunging out at Sei with the long weapon, Dan instead focused his attentions of Talen. Perhaps it was the father in Sei, the part of him that didn't want a child hurt no matter if they were four or forty. Maybe it was just the camaraderie the man felt for his fellow general. Maybe Sei just didn't want to lose his only ally in what was supposed to be a challenge for everybody to gang up on the mute. Either way, Sei looked to Talen with a blink, grinning as he felt his magical energies pour out onto the boy.

Once he was confident that his Mystic Protection now enveloped Talen as it had done so to the telepath himself seconds before, Sei quickly focused back on Jensen. The cage that Talen had made had bars, and said bars obviously had gaps between them, allowing for small objects to enter without being hindered. This brought an idea into the mind of the telepath, and he quickly reached down at his side. His chakrams were still at his hips.

Taking the bladed rings, Sei threw the two projectiles into the cage. Factoring in the positioning of the bars, Sei found his math to be right on the money when he heard a metallic like clank. Though he had thrown the dual weapons in at a vertical position (as to allow entry into the cage), upon hitting the 'bars' of the cell, they slightly changed trajectory, bouncing back at a diagonal path.

The rings then caught another bar, changing their course again with another ringing sound. Soon enough, the blades were building up a speedy momentum bouncing back and forth all around Jensen's prison. Sei hoped that the rings would find their way into his bodyguard to where his speed would matter. His Achilles tendon, the back of his knee, his groin. Anything that would take Jensen Ambrose out early.

"Speaking of Daddy issues, Jensen," the mute said with a wry grin, "What do you think Azza's doing without hers right now?" He was hoping he could lure the immortal into his own game of words, enraging Jensen to the point of allowing the bouncing chakrams to find an exposed area and strike.

All the while, Hromagh watched, laughing and pointing downwards at the ants below.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen was roaring with laughter, unable to contain any amount of the mirth his body felt as he watched the Rotslayer pull out his own spinal chord. His ability to even do such a task made the immortal’s feet jump up and down in excitement, fingers pointing as he continued to howl in glee. Even the normally stoic mute mystic had no taste for the macabre as the man turned upon the boy Talen and began a heavy gait towards the youth.

In his maddened hysterics Jensen didn’t pay much attention to the oil slicked ooze slowly crawling towards his feet within the cage. He also didn’t grasp the words the mute mentioned about his daughter, but not that he cared anyway. When it came to making someone break in the world, Jensen met only one person with enough sway to rip him out of his blissful adrenaline fueled fighting mode and that was the bitch Cassandra Remi.

There was one flaw however to laughing like an idiot in a cage in the middle of a fight.

The chakrums tore into the wind like spinning discs of malice, the air whipping and creating a whistling noise as the only herald Jensen had to their arrival. The immortal turned his head at the sound, his rubbery like body tingling at the speed in which his neck turned, looking at the two incoming missile weapons. The older Jensen would have no chance, no prayer, to dodge this well aimed and perfect mathematical attack. How the hell Sei was able to manipulate the bars and trajectory in his mind and learn the angle of the far plane on this rectangular shaped square and come up with a value for X was just simply put, amazing.

“Not enough!” Jensen said with baited breath, whooping as he twirled on his feet in a crouching manner. His jacket coat whipped around him as he spun, continuing to build up speed. Faster and faster Jensen moved until he started to move at inhuman speeds. His insides lurched and clawed at the immortal, but the only sound he let escape his lips was the sound of his echoing chuckles, screaming in joy as he built up more and more speed. The ooze around him whipped upwards, twirling in tandem with the immortal by his feet as the wind created a little vortex. Faster and faster the immortal spun, the world nothing more than a blur. There was only color, no shapes and only the sound of his own laugh was heard.

At last Jensen reached his top speed, slowly rising upwards as the ooze surrounded him like a curtain of black ichor. Jensen’s hands reached out and he felt the metal graze his tips. Easily he snatched the safer of the two chakrums, but the next one was tricky as he turned and looked for the chakrum with the deadly poison. He located it bouncing around the corner of the cage, and he continued to spin towards it. When flakes of the poison touched the ooze it ignited it, a torrential wave of flame erupting within the cage.

Jensen bellowed in agony as the flames engulfed him, but still the immortal spun and eventually he managed to grab a hold of the second chakrum. Now a whirling tornado of flames and armed with two deadly throwing weapons, the knight spun towards the center of the cage. He continued to howl with pain as he danced towards the center, keeping the tornado up as he burned brightly in the black metal bars. To the outside world, it seemed Jensen was burning to death, but the immortal was not. His vortex of wind created enough of a barrier to keep the flames away far enough to not kill him. Though he was burning and feeling the heat, he was in relative safety as the eye of the storm.

With careful grunts of pain and effort, the immortal brought the chakrums up and began to feel them clink against the metal bars. Faster he moved his body still, not fully at his maximum potential. The flames licked at the bars, turning the black into a golden glowing orange tinge like metal in the forges. He spun, shaving away chunks at a time as the weapons collided the burning material, until eventually he was able to cut his way out of the prison.

With a whoop of glee and an echo that swirled around his fiery tornado, Jensen moved towards the last known place he was aware of Sei. Even with his Mystic Protection, the shards would merely be part of his tornado of fire. He was the storm now, and Jensen would control the fate of everything as he watched it withered away before his very eyes.

“Let’s see you dodge this, faggot fairy king!” Jensen taunted, twirling towards Sei with sadistic glee.

Jensen is a tornado of flames now, spinning akin to a F3 tornado. Not powerful enough to lift the weight of a car but enough to rip shingles off a roof or break branches of a tree. He's also on fire. Moving towards Sei holding Sei's weapons.

[Hysteria]

Things happened… quickly. Far more quickly than the youth anticipated. His oily trap exploded outwards in a fireball and Talen watched with mouth agape as the spinning Jensen flew through the air. Sei’s danger was an aside; Talen had something more pressing. The slayer Dan was moving towards him with something akin to a grim reapers scythe, only slightly more like a spear and a hell of a lot scarier.

I’m boned. Absolutely boned.

Talen knew things were not going to go well and most certainly included his intestines being spilled across the dirt of the arena. The play-pen of the Thayne of power had seen Talen gain a gift, and the youth figured now was the best time to use it. His left hand moved into the air, his blade spinning downwards and sliding back into its sheath. His arm lifted and crossed his face as the dark ink imprint started to glow. The twisting design glowered brighter as the Thayne’s power filled the youth and increased his strength.

The boy didn’t wait for Dan to reach him; he jumped onto the shattered remains of the cage and launched himself into the air. The strength pushed the youth higher than he had been before and at the peak of his leap he pointed his sword into the air. A black ball of shadow lifted from the point of his blade and hung in the air. As the ball’s shape shifted into that of an unbloomed flower the youth hit the ground and rolled in a spray of dirt. He came up quickly into a kneeling position and reached into his pocket.

The boy produced a small metal cigarette case and flicked the only cigarette up and put it into his mouth. As he stood up he cupped the cig with his left hand and flicked his right wrist to trigger the device, The Bright Spark, to send a spark into the smoke and light it. Talen took a puff of the cigarette and felt the particular mix of medical herbs flood his lungs. Trails of smoke lifted into the air as Talen continued to breathe the special cigarette’s smoke and the thick smell of the herbal smoke filled the arena. The boy felt as if he was getting lighter as the mixture did its work.

“Can’t have Daddy issues without a Dad.” Talen exhaled the smoke as he spoke, “But then why argue with a man who can pull out his own spine?”

The boy looked through the shattered cage at Dan. Both Talen’s hands gripped his sword’s hilt and his knuckled turned white.

Fuck.

[Slayer of the Rot]

The blade-wind from Jensen's self propelled tornado pulled at the tattered gray cloak he'd been wearing, but he didn't even give the spinning, cackling madman a second glance. He'd stopped, a couple dozen feet away in his approach, eyes wide with surprise, flashing with delight. It was too good to be true. Far, far too good to be true. He didn't give the orb of shadow that the boy had created a single scrutinizing glare - his eyes were firmly locked on what he had hanging out of his mouth. A low chuckle trickled out of Dan's teeth, and in moments it twisted in a deep laugh. He could barely believe his eyes; his mouth was practically watering as the scent of the smoke filled his nostrils. He imagined he could feel that first drag filling his lungs already.

"Oh god yes." Dan sighed and smiled, thanking his luck. Aside from his magic, the boy seemed to be the weakest. His grin spread practically ear to ear.

"Hey, kid." Narrowing his eyes, he raised his hand and held it out, palm upwards. "Gimme that cigarette. Get out of that stupid ass cage. Its not going to save you. Its about as much defense for you as a tin foil hat, fighting me. So, c'mere, and gimme that, and I'll save you for last after all. Just enough time to pray to whatever faggot god you got. Plus, out of gratitude, shit, when the time comes, I'll make it fast and painless." He waited. Seconds passed, and his patience waned. His smiled seemed to flicker for a moment, and his hand fell. Shaking his head, he leaned forward and spat on the ground. The spine in his hand went limp, its considerable length pooling at his feet. The blades changed, bone flowing again into a series of long, curved edges upon one side.

"Okay then. Slow and painful it is then!" The bone whip cracked loudly in the air as Dan snapped his arm back. However, the lethal blades at its head never reached the boy - it bounced off something unseen thing that shattered into hundreds of pieces. 'What the fuck? Mystic protection?!' He wondered how that had exactly happened - the kid didn't look like a mystic at all. Could Sei use that damn thing on others? It was a question for later, if he even really cared to know. Dan raised his free hand quickly in front of his face. More glass shards bit into his flesh, but none managed to draw deep blood. The whip clattered and clicked as it tumbled to the ground again. More sets of curved blades grew from the whip as it began to shorten, bone seeming to eat bone. The top three vertebrae of the spine turned weapon swelled and thickened. He lifted the knobby, deadly thing off the ground, admiring the flail he'd made for a moment, before turning his attention back to Talen again.

"Should'a given me the cigarette, kiddy." With a bellow, Dan lunged forward, spinning the bone flail overhead before bringing it down with enormous strength towards Talen. "I'm going to break your arms and legs first before I eat you alive!"

[Silence Sei]

Sei hid his bewilderment behind a mask of feigned acknowledgement. Jensen's speed had managed to shock the Mystic, and the fact that he had went and made himself a human tornado was seemingly making things more complicated than it needed to be. Sei's eyes quickly onced over all of Jensen's strengths and weaknesses into his strategist mind. The new x factor of this 'Tornado Jensen' had to provide a weak point somewhere.

Sei jumped to the air, his two butterfly wings sprouting from his back. The mix of orange and blue darted around Hurricane Jensen, fighting with every fiber not to allow their master to be sucked in. Luckily, Sei had been behind the swirling mass of speed when Talen's Mystic Protection had gone off. Sei's eyes shifted to the boy while fighting the wind and debris that got sucked into Jensen's attack.

"Stand still you faggot fairy king!" Jensen shouted, unable to go as fast as he would have liked due to his tornado form.

Sei bit his bottom lip, making sure another Mystic Protection was laid upon Talen. As soon as he did so, he placed his last Mystic Protection on himself. Talen would be safe from one more shot, and hopefully a third Mystic Protection would be enough to at least wound Dan Lagh'ratham.

Sei looked to Jensen, inching further and further towards his vortex as his wings began to give out. So far, the telepath's mind had not come up with a solution to taming this beast of a warrior. The wind he was summoning to join him in order to make such an effect on the field was simply astounding.

Wait a minute... that's it!

Sei quickly reached into his pocket, removing the battle fan 'Jackal' from the niche. Opening the fan, Sei released the magical enchantment into the air, fanning the winds attempting to drag him in. Once Jackal's energies got into the air, anybody on the wrong end of the weapon would find themselves growing sleepy rather quickly. While normally, it would take minutes for such an effect to spread out and cause such a change in a person, Jensen was focusing all the air, all the wind, into surrounding himself.

Jensen's own foolishness would be what would calm the savage beast.


((Sei has used the fan 'Jackal' to attempt to put the tornado Jensen to sleep, banking on the fact that the wind required to form a tornado will essentially focus completely around Jensen, and thus the magic effects of the fan will be in high concentration on him. Also, because Sei was behind Jensen when Talen's MP went off, Jensen is now a spinning tornado of glass as well.))

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen was spinning far to fast to really know exactly what was going on. Being the center of the tornado had it’s drawbacks as the flames rose around him, licking the air and cackling. The heat made him perspire buckets of sweat as his giggles were swirled all around him. The fact that Sei even took to flight was lost to him, for he was going off of instinct and sound at that point.

Glass shattered and the shards cut all around the air, adding to the insanity of the maelstrom Jensen Ambrose was. Fiery shards danced between the eye of the storm, cutting his flesh but nothing major was happening to slow him from his maddened pace. He had assumed that the glass came from the Mystic, and he began to turn towards that direction where the protection had impacted.

When Sei came up with his brilliant idea he hadn’t thought of the only flaw that not even Jensen Ambrose could have thought up. When he waved his battle fan Jackal the magical pollen shifted into the air and was quickly taken in by the vortex of wind. It would have worked perfectly had the immortal been nothing more than a tornado of broken glass and dust, but the flames ate upon the pollen greedily, fueling the fire and waking the inferno to even higher heights as it burned the sleeping spores out of the air and turned them to ash.

With the increase in volume of flames the tornado reached a new fever of height, spreading outwards in a cyclone of destruction as Jensen continued to spin. His head was swimming and his mouth was gaping open, stomach heaving as his incessant laughter came to halt. The wheezing smoke built up in the entire amphitheater and Jensen was not wholly immune to such effects either. Continuous spinning, endless heat of an oven, smoke inhalation, and dancing shards eventually became too much for even the immortal to handle as he spun wildly out of control, feeling his legs give out as they turned to naught but rubber.

The flames, no longer enclosed, danced outwards in one last violent back draft of malice, eating up the ozone and dancing upwards towards the Mystic. Yet that wasn’t its only direction as it fireballed towards Talen and Dan, but the largest uptake of fire and glass shards and burnt ash was aimed right at the Thayne who had orchestrated the entire bout.

Yet for whatever it was worth, whatever damage would be done, Jensen cared not one bit as he puked his stomach contents upon the upraised floor, his hands and feet firmly planted to the ground as he felt his entire world spin in his head.

So, Sei, I guess you forgot that I was on fire, so your little sleep trick didn’t work. If I wasn’t, than I would totally congratulate you for figuring a way out, but the fire would burn away the sleep the way I figure your fan works. However, I do have to admit that a normal average person can only spin in a circle for five minutes before he drops to the floor and throws up, and since Jensen is going at 60+ miles an hour I would think he’d get MAX three minutes. SOOO

Everyone eats fiery death! A wave of flame about the size of Sei is coming for Sei, a boulder sized fireball is coming for Talen and Dan, and Hrmoragh (Whatever his name is) is getting the entire brunt of a full fledged wall sized inferno. Jensen is now puking.

[Hysteria]

Time seemed to slow for the youth as he felt the speed enhancing drugs take effect. The monster Dan demanded the cigarette, but his patience didn’t give the youth enough time to consider it. The bone flail lashed out and exploded through the broken cage in a shower of black metal. The youth instinctively dived to the side as the weapon smashed into the ground where he had been in a shower of dirt. If not for the small delay due to the protection of the cage the boy may have been crushed. Whatever reason he still lived in the screwed up arena of a god, it was obvious to Talen that if he was going beat inhuman Dan, he would need Sei.

The thought came and went as the boy barely had time to push himself to his feet before Jensen’s fire ball rocketed towards him. Talen pulled his left hand from the hilt of his sword and pointed it at the fireball. Darkness condensed; swirling inwards to form a growing pool of energy. From his palm exploded a jet of black oil straight into the fireball. The youth figured that if it was his magic that created the fire, then it could be destroyed by such. The liquid caused an indent as it entered the flame, quickly followed by the roar of it igniting. The conflicting forces of direction and expansion from within caused the fireball to expand, but rapidly lose momentum. The fireball crashed to the ground in front of Talen, but the boy was already moving to the side as it sprayed burning fluid across the ground.

Talen’s feet pounded across the ground as he inhaled and exhaled in puffs of smoke. His sword trailing behind him, he moved with great speed towards the incapacitated immortal. Glee twisted its way into Talen as he saw Jensen on all fours. Freeing himself of Jensen was the only way he could see facing Dan with Sei and this opportunity was to good to be true. The boy leapt into the air as he reached the vomiting knight and brought it around in an upwards arc, attempting to cleave the immortal’s head from his shoulders.

[Slayer of the Rot]

"Little shit!" He roared as the flail crushed the black cage but failed to pulverize child flesh. It slammed into the arena floor, the long, wicked blades sinking deep into the stone. His face was twisted into a bestial mask of intense rage, and he yanked hard on weapon, cursing loudly as some of the stubborn, stuck blades snapped. Maybe he was just jaded, or too arrogant, but was it really too much to expect the boy to crumble into a pile of fear and piss before him? He wanted the cigarette, and he wanted it bad - his migraine wasn't just from the teleportation, he always got them when he didn't have his breakfast dose of nicotine. Another smoker could understand that right? The boy's eyes turned away from him, and he felt his blood boil hotter. Dan began to raise his arm for another blow with the flail when he finally felt the heat and the stink of sulfur and brimstone.

He turned his head, curling his upper lip. The massive fireball came closer, eating up distance and stone until it soon began to fill his entire vision. "So....that's it. Eh?" He didn't even make an effort to run. His hand, poised to give a potential killing stroke, fell back to his side. Beads of sweat broke out across his pale skin as the flames came closer. His gray eyes stayed on the fireball as Talen released a surge of strange, inky black fluid, and it impacted with it. It grew larger and larger until it came tumbling down, striking the ground and bursting. The boy ran. Dan stood, still as a statue, as a tide of molten fire came, falling upon him like a dragon, ancient and full of death.

"Heh. Shit."

The flowing flames buried the cloaked, fanged, corpse-pale monster, swallowing him up like the maw of some starved giant. The burning flood continued to eat up the stone floor of the arena, oozing out towards the borders where the massive columns stood. Fire met rock with a menacing hiss, and thick black smoke curled up into the air, away from the mass, as the tide calmed.

Two pinpricks of vibrant green light pierced the oily smoke.

"What? That's it? You people are as stupid as Ravenheart was." Low, mocking laughter, as sinuous as the oil smoke, rose over the crackle and sizzle of the flames. The little dots of light grew, becoming larger, and soon, more of that green glow was piercing the smoke.

"That's okay though. Sometimes I forget how good it feels to crawl out of that worm's skin. You three are good examples of how ugly some of the human race are. Insects." Dan stepped out of the burning carnage, grinning with lips the color of raw iron. The long, curled horns crowning his temples glowed red hot, but that aside, no damage could be accounted for across his gray hide, webbed with strange, glowing emerald cracks of light and the ashes of his destroyed clothes. The saraelian demon still clutched his flail, though not it was cracked from the heat and coated with soot. He could feel raw power pulsing through every in ch of his body. He almost didn't want his cigarette anymore - this alone, was enough of a rush. He looked at the twisty, dirty bone in his fist, and crushed it with a flex of his hand. The name his brother, Derium had called him, echoed in his mind. Dak'arsha. Mountain slayer.

"This is the end. For all of you." With barely a measure of his new, immense power, he leaped into the air, crushing stone beneath his foot. He rocketed dozens of feet into the air above the arena, his ascent slowing as gravity came to claim him again. Now they all did look like insects; the laughing man, the mystic, the boy. Even the Thayne on his throne. Smiling wickedly, he began to descend, curling his legs against himself as though crouching. Wind tore and whipped against him as he descended like a meteor down upon the three, but he paid it no mind; there were few things that pierced demon hide, and the wind was not among them.

Seconds before he struck the arena, he kicked downwards, with both legs, with alll of his strength. Now the arena did shake. The floor itself cratered, the rock beneath his heels turned into dust with the massive pulverizing force. Broken chunks of rock groaned and rumbled as they shifted against one another, some rising, some descending, turning the floor the ground zero of his own personal earthquake. Talen's burning goop splashed through the air, some pouring into the broken pits his strike had made. Thick, wide cracks opened, splitting the arena in two, slithering across the ground like a snake, rising up the walls - and breaking Hromagh's throne in two.

Dan has entered his first Saraelian form, doubling his already doubled strength, meaning he can lift and exert a force of 18 tons. If you don't want to check the profile, this means that he is now covered in Demon Hide, formerly the site's strongest leather, but that's basically it, since his terramancy is blocked. And to make it clear - Dan chose no targets, just leaped into the air basically smashed the arena when he came back down.

[Silence Sei]

The smoke billowed, giving Sei a forewarning of Jensen's waning in his spinning game. As the fireball was released from the Mystic's bodyguard, he tried to pull off a mid-air back flip. He had hoped that the flames would just lick his skin, cause some discomfort but no real damage. His interpretation of the fires size, however, was Sei Orlouge's downfall.

The flame caught ahold of his gray karate gi. The fire began to spread along his body, Sei trying desperately to put the flames out with his battle fan. Eventually, there was but a puff of smoke spouting from the telepath's chest, revealing a large hole that the magical attack had eaten in his top. The skin behind the cloth was still slightly bubbling, giving the telltale signs of being newly acquired. Seething in pain, Sei grit his teeth and forced himself to land, trying hard not to place his free hand over the burn, but losing against his instincts.

The second finger touched burned flesh; Sei dropped the fan in pain. Memories of the Cell, where Sei had been burned alive by one 'Neville' flashed through the warriors eyes. So of course, he had been taken completely off guard when the monstrosity known as Dan crash landed in the center of the arena, causing a large tremor. Sei fell to his rear, remembering his original horror at Dan's capabilities. It seemed that everybody was going to have to go against the Rotslayer, lest they all fall in battle.

Luckily, Sei didn't have to worry about such a thing for long. Following Dan's new entrance, another tremor was made, one that shook so violently, Sei's body was forced to slam into the ground with an incredible force. Standing a few feet from where Dan's own crater was Hromagh. The Thayne appeared to be quite upset about something, and he approached Dan with a resolve, each step sending out mini shockwaves all around his feet.

Dan opened his mouth, probably inclined to say something smart, but was cut off by the massive hand of Hromagh. The Beast God had backhanded the Rotslayer so hard; he was sent flying into one of the arena's decaying walls. Hromagh looked to the other three competitors, his shark teeth showing in a scowl Sei had yet to see.

"I liked that chair..." Hromagh spoke, his temper getting the better of him, "Now you're all going to pay for it. But I warn you I only accept blood payments!"

((Hromagh makes a crater similar to Dan's, pimpslaps Dan across the arena, and challenges everybody. Oh, and Jensen's flames got Sei in the chest but good.))

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen hadn’t the time to observe the boy Talen creeping up on his side, ready to decapitate the immortal in one fell swoop of his sword. Had it not been for the Rotslayer’s rather impressive show of force, quaking the earth and making Jensen roll to the side awkwardly, the boy stumbling after him, the immortal would have lost yet another life.

“Hey!” Jensen said hoarsely with rage as he looked to Talen’s blade in hand. “You were going to lop my head off, you little bed wetter!” Jensen’s fist dove out and snatched up the boy’s weapon before he could protest. “You can have this back when you behave!” Then the earth shook again, the sword returning to the boy as Jensen and Talen collapsed into each other, his eyes looking to the Thayne of power and battle with silent awe. One powerful backhand hit the newly formed creature that Dan had become, and his fate was unknown to the immortal as his threat boomed within the coliseum in a heavy tone.

He could see the large, muscular legs of the god turn towards Talen and Jensen, and the immortal looked to the boy and contemplated snatching his hand and running to a safe location, or leaving him to die. Then he looked to Sei, watching the Mute gape in confusion as the Thayne took to the arena. Jensen pondered what the hell to do, his blood singing with chaos as his mind filled with laughter, his own lips trembling in soft giggling.

When he looked to Sei again he realized two things: One, he had to calm down and take the fight a bit more seriously. Two, he had the means to do that. Reaching into his coat he pulled out the small crystal fragment that allowed Jensen to attune his body with the mute Mystic, Sei, and meld their minds. Instantly the immortal’s thought process stopped jumping like crazy, the fog of battle lifting as he assessed the situation quickly.

“Talen, run into the shadows, now! We need you to strike from behind. If you’re magic improved perhaps you can create chains to bind H’rmoagh instead of entrap him in a cage. Await for Sei to give the order.” The youth looked to Jensen, but he was already rushing forwards. What the boy did wasn’t his concern, but the fight changed pace drastically and to defeat this beast of power would require all of them to work together.

The crystal slipped back into his jacket, the blood returning to full octane as he let out another riotous laughter. H’moragh looked like the man who enjoyed a good fight, and if he was a god of battle, he would gift those with things that would make for a good battle. He gave the immortal speed, the legend strength, the youth magic, and stripped Sei of all but the one thing that mattered most in a battle. Intelligence.

“We’ll do what we do best, Sei!” Jensen shouted to the Mystic. “You just tell us where to go and how to do it!”

“And do you think that will work?” H’moragh snorted in admiration. “I’ll still crush all your bones and squeeze your blood out to make a fine wine with! I’ll easily smash you, wipe the boy off the planet, and show that little runt what true terror and strength is!”

“Shove a cock in your mouth, douchefag!” Jensen hollered with glee, laughing with uncontrolled passion as his hands reached down, picking up his unique sword-scythe and twirling it into his hands, letting it switch modes rapidly as he spun it around his body. “You look more like the god of sissies and cheap shots!” The immortal looked to the cloud of dust where he last saw the Rotslayer.

“Yo, freak on a leash! If you’re still standing, twenty gold and a box of cigs says I can land the killing blow before you do!” Jensen shouted with glee, laughing hysterically as he jumped over a backhand from the Thayne, flipping four times into a roll and turning to see if Dan would take him up on his offer.

((Leaves Talen to his own device after he survives only because everyone decides to make earthquakes, tells Sei to lead the group, and challenge Dan to a contest to see who can kill this guy.))

[Hysteria]

Free-for-all fights are not my thing…

Talen was lifted high into the air with the impact of Dan, only to then be thrown once more by Hromagh. The boy scrambled to his feet and looked around in confusion. His attack had been nearly perfect, but his victory snatched away by unfortunate timing. Even worse, the game had gotten more complicated, with the fragile alliances destroyed by the open challenge of the Beast God.

“Run into the shadows?” Talen repeated the words Jensen uttered. The complex mental and physical preparations the boy went through to Shadow Step were simplified into child’s play. Were it not for the immortal’s endless insults numbing the boy’s sensibilities, he would have retorted. Instead he reached up and pulled the used cigarette and tossed it to the ground.

Talen lowered his weapon to his side and took off in a run behind Jensen towards the Thayne. The rapidly forming plan in his mind was risky, but then it was nowhere as bad as being backhanded by a god of power.

Darkness crept across the youth’s body, turning his faded cloths and white skin completely black, even stretching over his sword. As Jensen made it into range of the god, Talen twisted to the side. His black body surrounded in shadows split into two, one real and the other fake. The two forms ran away from each other as the Thayne failed to strike Jensen. The shadow clone and Talen twisted inwards charging directly towards the god. One Talen leapt extremely high into the air, and pointed its sword at the god. There were seconds as it flew towards the giant god, seconds in which the Thayne lined up the youth flicked his hand. The hand found nothing as the form of the youth disappeared a second before it touched.

The other black clone closed in on the exposed ribs of the god and brought its sword around in a giant swing. The attack never landed as a giant hand smashed through the figure and into the ground. The god was not impressed by trickery, but his finishing blow found naught but dirt.

Behind the god Talen materialised, and twisted on the spot. His sword turned through the air and slammed into the ground to be left free standing as he reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a black obsidian dagger. The youth pushed the black into his shirt at the shoulder and cut through the top of his sleave, and with a jerk, ripped it off. His face was grim as he placed the dagger at the top of his left bicep and sliced into his flesh along the length of his arm.

In front of the Beastly Deity, the shadow clone Talen had created rose through the ground. A mighty hand smashed it once more in a shower of dirt as the trickery of the youth managed to keep the god distracted, at least for a little while.

The magic of the dagger exploded into life as the boy wrapped the torn sleave around the heavily bleeding cut with his right hand and used his mouth and hand to tie it off. Darkness exploded around the youth, forming a large dark cloud twisted towards the god. Thick tendrils of darkness wrapped around Hromagh, solidifying into thick black metal chains twice as strong as steel. The youth held no illusions about the temporary nature of his spell; the God of Power would not be subdued for long. He lowered his roughly bandaged arm to his side as blood quickly soaked through and ran down his hand. His right hand grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled it free.

It won’t be long now… thought Talen, till they are fighting without me.

The quick succession of spells were tiring, even with the boost that the fight had bestowed on him. The first spell, Shadow Play had created the fake Talen, while masking which was real. The second Shadow Step allowed the first attacking Talen to materialise behind the God and trick him into thinking he was the illusion. The Dagger had then, at the price of his arm increased his magic by an additional fifty percent, allowing a much stronger version of Shadow Hold to temporarily bind the god, while the original shadow clone had distracted him.

[Slayer of the Rot]

It happened with such godly speed that he struggled to react, to keep himself on his feet. Down came Hromagh, and Dan stared up at him, green eyes flickering with light, the Thayne and the demon. He opened his own sharp toothed mouth, a violent insult preparing to roll off his tongue, and then the world shook, red light washed over the world, blinded him, and he realized he was sailing through the air, feeling the ache in everyone of his bones. The red cleared, and he hit the ground once, bouncing back up into the air, tumbling fast towards one of the coliseum walls. Narrowing his eyes and gritting his teeth, he threw out all of his limbs in any and all directions he could manage, flailing furiously until finally, the fingers of his left hand scraped on dusty stone. With a mighty push, he shoved his fingers into the ground, tearing deep furrows into the stone, trying to slows his flight towards the wall. It worked and yet it didn't - a meager eighteen feet passed as he dug his hand deeper, still carried by the force of the Thayne's blow before he collided with the wall. He gasped as the stone cracked, breaking in a wide fissure that snaked high above his head.

For the first time in innumerable years, in countless battles, Dan Lagh'ratham bent and took a moment to catch his breath as a thin cloud of dust fell over him. There was no mistaking the raw, brutal physical strength of a Thayne, a god of power, but something itched at him...if he was that pissed off about something, and had at his disposal the powers of a higher plane, he'd have personally killed those that had dared to raise his ire fast, but messy - and Hromagh was doing anything but that. Squinting, still trying to catch his fleeting breath, he watched the battle between Thayne and insects. He raised a hand to his chest, pressing against his, probing for any cracked ribs beneath the flesh.

Nothing, not even a hairline fracture. "Something's...not right here..." He rose, batting away the dust, and drew in a deep breath. Hromagh seemed almost...clumsy, in the way he fought. It certainly wasn't the way he expected a god of wrath and strength to fight. Was this really Hromagh? An impostor, or maybe even some effigy? He growled; if that was the case, he wouldn't be tasting god-blood just yet. With a grunt, he pushed himself off the broken wall and stepped into view, scowling deeply. The little giggling sociopath that had extended partnership in the beginning called out, issuing a challenge to him. Dan shrugged, his eyes set on the Thayne.

"I don't give a shit. I'm gonna butcher this faggot, and after you bitches are done kissing, I'm going to gut you like pigs." His lips parted, baring pointed teeth slick with spit. Knuckles popped as he squeezed his fists with all of his strength; this bullshit was the final straw. Spirited away from solitude and recovery, no cigarette, forced to perform, and then smacked around because he'd broken one little chair? The emerald light in the spiderweb cracks that laced his body throbbed with intensity, seeming to grow brighter now with his fury. Dan took a step towards the fierce melee, and one word boiled up from deep in his guts, barreling from his throat like a bullet fired from a magnum.

"Kikurin!"

It happened just as fast as Hromagh's annoyed counter attack minutes before; the horned, glowing demon simply vanished from sight. Beneweath the veil of twisted light him from sight, Dan glanced down at the jade plaque embedded in his chest, watched one of the ivory indents return to the pale green of the rest of the artifact. As he spread his artificial, red leathery wings and rose into the air, he once again pressed his hand into his chest; this time, he was not looking for broken ribs, but for the ring within him, entwined in the thick muscles of his head. He knew it was working when he felt the sudden weight upon his wings. He rose higher, watching with mild amusement as he grew. He'd never tried enlarging himself with the Audeamus ring, but thus far, the test run was going quite well.

He looked down into the coliseum from his place above it, dozens of feet into the air. Smiling widely as the dark chains lashed around Hromagh's limbs, Dan drew in a deep breath - and let himself fall, tearing down towards the Thayne like a hawk dive bombing its meal. Unseen by all of them, it was certainly a startling and strange sight as he slammed into Hromagh, laughing like a lunatic, just like Jensen, pounding his fists mercilessly in rapid jabs and hooks into the god's face and chest.

((Dan managed to soften the impact of Hromagh's slap, activated Kikurin, turned himself invisible, used the Angelic Emblem to getup in the sky again, used the Audeamus ring to increase his mass and size by four times - weight now 860 lbs., height now somewhere in the 20 foot range - and has dive bombed Hromagh while he's chained and has proceeded to go fucking nuts all over his meal ticket.))

[Silence Sei]

The whole world of Althanas seemed to be crumbling down around the mute. His people had allied against this new threat, a very God in every way, shape and form. Did they have a chance? Probably not. Were they going to give it their best shot? Absolutely.

Before Sei could even issue orders, Talen and Jensen were working like a well oiled machine. The youth had wrapped the beast Thayne up in black shadow chains, and Jensen was laying a combo of sorts all around the deity. It was not until the last minute that Sei noticed the grin on Hromagh's battle worn face.

"Jensen, fall back!" Sei ordered his bodyguard, who jumped back thanks to the increased speed he still had. In half of a second, the chains Talen had created were ripped from their place, Hromagh swinging the magical links around, and throwing them upwards. His hands still held onto one end of the dark contraptions, and the powerful being twisted his wrists around to wrap more of the chain around him.

The part of the makeshift weapon that had been sent flying wrapped around the neck of the transformed Dan. With a tug of the chain, Hromagh shifted the mans direction out of his way, directly into the ground. The crater made from Dan's diverted dive bomb, coupled with the increase to mass in the man, caused the walls all around the arena to crumble, and shatter to the ground. Whether Jensen’s speed kept him on his feet or not, Sei did not know, but the large earthquake made by the combatants had sent both the telepath and Talen a good twenty feet away from the rest of the action.

Once the aftershock of the man made tremor wore off, Sei looked around at what remained. Surrounding the area was nothing but the blackness of space, little white dots lining the skies. Hromagh had teleported them onto a comet of sorts for his own amusement, where nobody would be able to stop him.

Now, Hromagh had approached the crater where Dan had been, a sensation of surprise filling his eyes when an unseen impact sent his head to the side, and blood drizzling from his mouth. Hromagh reared up, returning the punch to what seemed like air. However, the sickening crack of ones face being busted was clear to everyone involved. Sei looked away for a moment, feeling sorry for the death of Dan Lagh'ratham. Yet, when the same sound from a different impact point came right back at Hromagh, the mute's eyes widened back up.

Hromagh was busy exchanging blows with an invisible Rotslayer. Furthermore, it seemed as though the two were evenly matched. Sei looked to his two Ixian Knights with a nod before closing his eyes. Sei had been saving this technique for a special occasion, something that really warranted such a risk. Losing ones life to a Thayne seemed to be a worthy enough cause to try it out now.

Sei scanned the Thaynes mind, his telepathy working as if it were communicating with the being. However, rather than talking to the God, Sei was copying his brains patterns. He was matching the way the far more experienced warrior let his blood flow, and mimicked it in his own mine. The telepath could feel his muscles trying to tear from his skin, as if they needed exercise. He could taste the very air, the perspiration each fighter had gathered on them. As more and more hits came to their ears, it became apparent that Hromagh had won the battle of blow-for-blow.

The Bull God raised a fist, attempting to deliver a final blow to the unseen entity. As his fist came down, a hand grabbed him by the wrist, however. Hromagh looked to his side, his eyes filled with shock as none other than Sei was keeping him from delivering his retribution.

"Orlouge?! You dare?! But how?!"

"Something I like to call Evenflow. It puts me on the same playing field as my target," Sei stated plainly before delivering a punch to Hromagh’s face and releasing the Gods wrist. The shot sent the Thayne stepping backwards, reaching to his nose and finding the blood that was now pouring from the just broken appendage.

"Jensen, Talen, support me. I'm not sure how long Evenflow will last. Dan, if you can hear me, now would be the time for any aces you have left up your sleeve." As Sei finished talking, he charged Hromagh, who in turn started a charge against the Mystic himself...

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen looked to the three titans fighting, and he felt relatively small. It seemed everyone had grown in size, save for poor Talen, and poorer Jensen. Sei spoke to them about fighting and pulling it out of the hat, but what exactly the mute had in mind for them to do was a question that would forever plague Jensen’s mind. Still, with a shrug he turned to Talen and pointed to the giants of the arena.

“So, you got some weird shadow magic that can create a twenty foot tall warrior? Cause I don’t have any of that shit, but I do got this kick ass sword, my kick ass fighting talent, and my kick ass good looks…” Jensen then suddenly thought of another idea. “Take a rest, kid, and when you’re ready, let’s get back into the thick of it.” And with that said the immortal ran forwards, watching as the three titans did war. He looked around for something to even the playing field, but the sword in his hand, as cool as it was, wasn’t going to do jack to any of them. The columns were all collapsed, and the world was shattered and destroyed.

“Fuck Jensen, think! What can you do?” he looked to H’moragh and sighed, knowing he hadn’t a chance against him or anyone in this room at the current moment. With a chuckle he looked to his own reflection in his blade and sighed. “What is a pretty face like me going to do to an ugly brute like that…” Jensen lowered the weapon and saw the answer in fire before him. Watching the flames rise and fall as Sei collided into Dan while H’moragh charged forwards. The impact made the flickering fire rise again in tension, before falling low to consume the earth around it.

“Willie, I think I owe you one…” Jensen whispered before looking at his own reflection burning in the fires as his sword caught the pyre in the sheen. William Arcus, the Revenant, had been all about destruction and fire. Nothing could stop the demonic beast and Jensen had known that first hand. That was true until Jensen did something that still to this day burned in the man’s mind.

“Yo, Herfomatic cancerous piss pot!” Jensen screamed at the deity of strength. “You got a god complex the size of Sei’s ego, you know that?” Jensen continued on. “Seriously, I think it’s just cause your damn prick is so small that even Jomil’s is bigger than yours when she un-tucks it!”

“You’re going to insult him to death?” Sei thought to Jensen, the heavy sarcasm evident.

“Come on, you bullheaded chicken! You’re supposed to be so mighty and powerful! Fucking Rotslayer over here is more of a fucking scare than you! Hey! Pay the fuck attention to me!” Jensen shouted angrily as H’moragh and Dan punched each other. “Yedda’s sagging tits got more length than you, and N’Jal’s a way better looker than you’ll ever be!” Still no response from the Thayne as it did battle.

“FUCK’S SAKE YOU BASTARD COWARD! LOOK AT ME!” Jensen screeched as loud as he could. After pushing Dan away and back handing Sei the beast looked right at Jensen. “You fucking useless coward! I hate them, cowards, all of them! And that’s all you are! 'Strength' Cassandra Remi’s fat ass! You’re nothing more than a lord of cowards! The only people who would worship you is those to insecure with themselves to train and be better! Fucking idiot losers who’d rather suck your dick than actually learn a lesson for themselves. You have followers that are to cowardly to admit their own weakness. Fuck I hate a coward!”

H’moragh went back to fighting Dan and Sei.

“Whatever, wait until I tell all the other Thayne’s you’re a pussy cry baby. Later, cry baby.” There was a loud crash as H’moragh tossed a boulder the size of his chest at Dan before turning to Jensen. “Ouu, you threw a rock. So mighty from the Thayne of strength. Fuck man, do you do anything? Anything at all that could be considered…I dunno, cool?” H’moragh began to seethe as he blocked Sei’s attacks while Dan casually lifted up a column and slammed it against the bull god’s head.

“Fuck man, Thayne of strength is getting his butt kicked. Wow, look at you. So powerful and mighty you are…loser. Fucking go cry into Yedda’s tits, you cry baby. Gonna cut yourself tonight to forget the pain of realizing how weak you are? Fuck man, all you Thayne’s are know it all whiners with no real power.” H’moragh lifted Sei up and over his body to put distance between him and Dan as he glared at Jensen before grabbing his throne and chucking what pieces remained at Dan.

“Wow…so epic…Ya know, I think I’m gonna go take a nap.” Jensen yawned. “I’ll be over here if you need me. Ya know, to wipe your tears after Dan’s done shoving your horns up your ass.”

“For the love of god…” Sei groaned.

“Faggot human…” Dan roared.

“SHUT UP!” H’moragh screamed turning to look wide eyed at Jensen. But as his body turned Jensen already was laughing hysterically, rushing forwards and jumping in the air so when the Thayne turned his head Jensen was already before his eyes swiping his sword across the iris of the bull headed god of strength. When the tip of the metal met the resistance of the eyeball, Jensen pulled the weapon back and flicked the switch activating the scythe mode as he dragged it deep across the god’s pupil. Blood and other liquids exploded outwards as the Thayne thrashed backwards, Jensen screeching with a fit of the giggles as he landed on H’moraghs thigh and leapt forwards to his face.

“Come on, come and fight me, pussy cry baby!” Jensen taunted, laughing as he landed on H’moragh’s shoulder and continued to laugh deep into the beasts ear. He ran the length of the beast and dug his weapon deep into his flesh as an anchor, cupping one hand in leaning forwards into the beasts ear. With a deep breath Jensen began another fit of insane laughter, letting it echo and bounce within H’moragh’s mind as he never stopped.

“I’ll fucking break you!” Jensen sneered. “H’moragh the baby! H‘moragh the useless! I‘ll fucking rip your mind asunder and show you you’re the laughing stock of the Pantheon!” Jensen bellowed with a mighty roaring laughter, continuing to let it pickle inside the god’s mind.

[Hysteria]

Talen pulled himself out of a pile of dirt after the attack from H’moragh. The youth looked up to see Jensen standing near him. The immortal still carried with him the jubilant nature that marked his character. Talen knew that part of it was the lack of fear of dying that allowed such a flippant ego. When added to a healthy streak of narcissism, you had Jensen.

“Take a break?”

Talen turned the words over in his mouth. Jensen was probably showing Talen more concern than he ever had, or ever would again. For Talen the idea of taking a time out more a reminder of his lack of development, at least when compared to the titans that fought near him and although Talen didn't want to admit it, he had reached his limit. While he had tried to keep himself fairly clean during the fight, he had lost the will to try and dust off the layers of dirt that caked his skin and cloths from Sei, Dan and H’moragh's earth shattering antics.

The little warrior stumbled backwards and hit the giant wall of the arena. As Talen's strength faded he slowly slid down the wall till he was slumped on the ground. Sei had asked for the youth to back him up, and Talen hoped that the Saviour of Radsanath would forgive his failure. The large cut along the youth's arm had done little to aid in the fight. The dull ache that resonated out from the wound was one of many that dotted the youth's body from being thrown around like a rag doll. The youth wondered how much blood he had lost as the shadow of unconsciousness slowly slid across his mind. The youth's limp body toppled to one side and was still as the battle raged on.

[Slayer of the Rot]

For the faintest of moments, Dan felt his near-godly strength waver as the emerald blood dribbled from his lips and eyes, his knees threaten to fail and drop him to the rust colored stone face of the meteor. It hadn't been since his fight with Godhand that he'd felt so battered and pained. Grabbing the Thayne's shoulder, he dug his fingers into the flesh, hoping make him at least wince, to draw away some power from that fist he was drawing back. With a flickering of lead-gray and brilliant green, the jade artifact, Kikurin finally failed, bringing the saraelian demon back to sight. A slow smile began to grow on Hromagh's face as he looked into Dan's eyes and saw his victory.

The fist came down, and Dan opened his jaws wide, releasing a monstrous bellow from deep in his guts. A hand snatched the Thayne's wrist and halted the finishing blow, and instead of giving a cursory thankful nod or even acknowledging Sei saving his inhuman hide, he lunged forward and raked his monstrous teeth across Hromagh's throat. Though he failed to draw blood from the strong skin, it drew the god-thing's attention for the split second it took for the mystic's unexplained new strength to launch him across the meteor before he could counter.

Stepping back with the slightest of a stagger, Dan clenched his teeth tight, resisting the urge to draw in deep, soothing breaths, or to give any indication at all to the other three that the Thayne had had him on the ropes. He gave a glance to Sei, who was handing out the orders like a natural born general. "Just go fucking punch him again like that for another few minutes. And shut your god damn big mouthed friend up, he's killing my motherfucking concentration." As the mystic moved off towards the Thayne, and Jensen effectively blinded him in one eye, Dan drew in a deep breath and began to feel around for the second wind that he knew was growing inside of himself. The power that he never would have found had it not been for Xem'zund. The power that he'd used to murder the Forgotten One's own undead wife, Cydonia. It took him only a few breaths to find it, steadily rising, and when he did, he grasped it tightly and let the breath leave his lungs just as the demon flesh closed over the pulsing green veins and his own mouth.

The changes came swiftly, steadily, and with no hint of subtlety. His bones began to audibly creak and groan as change was forced upon them, his legs shifting, bending and twisting at painful angles before abruptly splitting in half vertically. His skin darkened rapidly, strategic patches of it rising, thickening, adopting a strange, glassy sheen, spotting up on his face, arms, chest, strange legs. His body grew as it mutated itself into its new, truly inhuman form, and when he stopped, it seemed as though his head was touching the glimmering star filled void that filled their world around their meteor. Dan took a moment to enjoy the exhilarating rush that surged through his veins, stamping his new hooves restlessly. He imagined that the more he ascended to this body, the less painful the whole affair would feel.

He tore forward in a full run, the hooves of the equine legs pounding the red rock with thunderous thuds. His enormous left hand burst into motion, a blur of crackling chitin and bone as the limb rapidly reformed itself into a long, black lance. Dan plowed into Hromagh at full speed, like a collective stampede of wild Fallien horses, and sunk the tip of the lance through the Thayne's stomach. The second the bio-weapon tasted blood, it vanished in yet another furious streak of speed, revealing three wickedly curved claws. They ripped across Hromagh's chest, and Dan slammed his hooves into the rock, bringing himself to a halt as the god-thing slammed into the ground and tumbled a dozen feet away. A blink of an eye later, he was back on his feet, eyes bulging with indignant fury. Amused, and lost in sudden arrogance, Dan wondered if it was one of the first times the Thayne had seen his blood drawn by a mortal. Snarling, he charged at the black centaur. Rearing up on his hind legs, the demon intercepted the rushing attack by slamming both hooves into his face. The Thayne staggered backwards, and Dan capitalized on it immediately, shoving his forelegs forward and throwing Hromagh off balance.

[Silence Sei]

The God toppled back from the Rotslayer's unique parry. The secret technique Dan was holding out for paid off, and now the group appeared to have the Beast King on the ropes. Sei wasted no time in rushing behind the reeling Thayne. Hromagh looked to the three sides he was being flanked on. To his front stood the newly transformed Dan, to his back was the rushing Mystic, and to his east was the loudmouth immortal. Out of the three, Jensen would have been the easiest to pick off. After all, the savage warrior had absolutely no idea how long the effects of Sei's new technique would last. Attempting to go head on against the orange haired strategist while not operating at his best would mean a losing battle for the undefeated warlord.

He took the opportunity to run at Jensen with a clutched fist. Throwing his knuckles with all of his might at the red haired warrior, Hromagh sought a moment of rest in order to reasses his situation. Jensen responded with some combination of curse words and derogatory phrases about the Bull Gods mother. The lithe warrior easily manuevered out of the way of the Thayne, shifting his entire body to the left and delivering the back of his heel directly into the sharpened teeth of the proud fighter. Blood poured out from the mouth of the beast man, presumably from his own jagged canines cutting into his gums. In retaliation, five large digits grabbed the foot of Jensen Ambrose while it began to make its way back down. Still possessing seemingly unlimited stregnth, Hromagh slung the grown man behind him, causing his body to collide with that of his leader, and sending both of them tumbling to the ground. If he had acted just a second slower, Sei Orlouge would have surely caught up to him and spelt his doom.

The powerful Thayne then turned to find the horse like form of Dan reared up upon his hind legs once more. As the front hooves of the animal came down towards him, Hromagh bright his open hands up, and clutched the animals limbs in his hands. He could feel Dan attempting to break free, his voice booming with frustration and anger towards the God. Hromagh's jolly behavior had seemingly disappeared altogether as he threw the legs of his foe to the ground, taking the whole of Dan with them. All of the Thayne's opponents now laid on the ground before him, struggling to formulate some other asinine plan in order to defeat him. The large warrior placed both hands upon his hips, sucked in a deep breath of air, and then did something completely unexpected.

He laughed.

From the sounds of things, Hromagh appeared to be in absolute hysterics over something, his hands shifting from his hips to holding his ribs. It was as if someone had just told a great joke to the man, and he could not control himself. During the laughing fit, the three fighters who could still stand did so, and looked to one another with puzzled looks. Would now be a good opportunity to attack? Was the Thayne of Beasts attempting a feint of some sort?

"A chair?" Hromagh asked, looking to each warrior (including the unconscious Talen) for a moment or two, "You all thought I was really riled up over a chair? I can create those things with a snap of my fingers. I coulda made a throne up of Dans bones alone if I had wanted to!" This apparently sent the Rotslayer back ionto a rage, and he began his charge anew. Hromagh replied by pointing his fingers downwards, and the simple motion seemed to slam Dan to the ground once more.

"What part of 'Beast God' don't you understand? You're all creatures at heart, which means I am lord over you all." This revelation gave Sei pause. What more savage beast was there than man? Hromagh was simply allowing the group to fight him as part of his entire show. The mute would not have been the least bit surprised to find out that Hromagh had not been hurt at all, aside from Jensen's unexpected kick at the end. Hromagh poked his tongue into his cheek for a moment, causing a bump of sorts to form from the outside of the mans features. After a minute, the fierce warrior spit out something into his hand. Showing them off as if they were a trophy, Hromagh took pride that Jensen Ambrose had managed to knock two of the extremely sharp (and now bloodied) teeth.

"You were toying with us all along," Sei spoke as if he had just seen some sort of enlightened truth, "Just like you pit us against one another for your satisfaction, you also threw your self into the match for some sort of sadistic exercise. Is that about right?"

Hromagh walked calmly to Sei, patting him on the back as if he were an old friend. The sheer force of the friendly gesture sent the Mystic's whole body stumbling forward. It took everything the mute had to keep from falling flat on his face. He tgurned around as he looked to the much stronger foe, waiting for what he had planned next.

"Congratulations," Hromagh said, another jovial laugh coming from his form, "you all passed."

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Jensen Ambrose had broken two teeth of the god of beasts. He had fought tooth and nail with Talen Shadowalker and Sei Orlouge, and even stood shoulder to knee with the Rotslayer. And now, he was just told it was all some sort of test. Once more, they were pitted in a contest of such asinine reasons only a god could understand, and they were beaten up, bloody, and made fun of.

Jensen Ambrose. Was. Pissed.

“So, I guess this was all just dinner and a show!” Jensen said as he extended his arms out, shrugging as he gestured to all the chaos that destroyed the arena. “The fact that Dan and Sei and you all did this clash of the titans while Talen and I were mere mortals running around like mice was part of some test?” He sounded distrusting.

He paced back and forth, holding his switchblade sword over his shoulder as he shook his head. A laugh came out, a dry, humorless laugh that held nothing but dark malice within it. “What the fuck was the test? Can we go ape shit and bash each other’s brains in? Was that the test? Or was the test how fast four people can die when they unleash all their hate and rage.”

H’moragh said nothing, but his grin only widened. It was clear in his eyes that he cared not for the lesson, but only the work to solve the equation. The test never really mattered, he just wanted to see four warriors go all out in a bloodbath. The immortal spat on the ground. He really had lost all his respect for the Thayne’s these days with Jomil being a total bitch and H’moragh being a douche-fag of the highest caliber.

“I don’t know why, and frankly I think I’m done caring, Sei, about the reasons why you want to be these assholes champions! Not a single Thayne has any interest in the lives nor safety of humanity. All they care about is there personal entertainment and making sure they get their shit and giggles.” Jensen turned as he looked for an exit, heading away as he left whatever gifts or prize the mute sought out to his own device.

“That sounds rather silly, coming from your lips,” H’moragh spoke, his tone dark and challenging. “For you Jensen, who have walked the path of destruction and relished in it. Was it not you who enjoyed the art of breaking foes souls? Do you not excel at destroying happiness in return for you own misery? Have you never schemed to ruin another?” H’moragh shrugged to Jensen with a knowing look, before he laughed.

“Do you hate us, Jensen Ambrose, because you are like us?”

Jensen stopped walking as he turned slowly to glance at the beast god, a hateful scowl on his face. He said nothing as he flicked the sword into scythe mode, before flicking it back. He gave him a soft, vile smile as he turned and headed back towards the exit. He laughed to himself, a sad pitiful laugh as he shook his head side to side.

“Goodbye, Heffer-mat,” Jensen mumbled cruelly as he walked with little care back down the path of destruction.

[Hysteria]

Crude thoughts manifested within Talen's mind. The simple, almost basic impulses took hold and the little warrior opened his eyes. The youth watched with uncomprehending eyes as the Thayne of Beasts marked them little more than animals that fought for his amusement. Talen slowly pushed himself up and blinked as understanding slowly crept into his mind. The giant Thayne turned his eyes to the little shadowmancer still with the self-satisfied smile that had crept onto his face while addressing Jensen.

“And you little shadow, your magic was not enough to save you from the brute strength you faced. Those who hide in darkness are doomed to die there. I'll grant you my favour for now, but I expect to see renewed strength, crush some heads.”

The giant let out a booming laugh at his own statement, unconcerned for the trickle of blood ran out of his mouth and down his chin from his missing teeth. In reaction to the bold statement pain spread across the youth's forearm as the god's mark burned a fiery red. Talen lacked control of his own body and stumbled forwards as the immense paid tore across his arm and his flesh sizzled. Talen made it a few more steps before collapsing. The youth's hand reached out and clawed the ground in a vain attempt to get closer and only stopped when it grasp something half buried in the ground. H’moragh only laughed louder. The ground under Talen twisted into life and sucked the youth down into its dark depths before returning back to normal as if nothing had happened.


****

“Gah!”

Talen sat bolt upright in his bed as a flash of lightning illuminated his room in the Ixian Castle. The boy looked around wildly as his cloths clung to his body with sweat and wondered if the realistic dream was actually so. Talen twisted his feet outside the bed and heard something role off his blanket onto the floor. Talen reached down and picked up the object and almost yelped with surprise. The large tooth was as big as a dagger and covered with blood. Hurriedly Tale pulled up his sleeve and was greeted by the black lines of the mark of H’moragh.

“Damn Sei...”

Talen slipped on his werewolf skin slippers and stood up. He was going to go yell at the mute, but first he needed to pee.

[Slayer of the Rot]

"And finally you, Dan Lagh'ratham. Or Dakarsha Mountainslayer, as your people would call you." Hromagh turned to the saraelian, blood still oozing from his lip, looking down upon the man. Incredibly, out of the four of them, Dan seemed to be the calmest among them; he had shrunk down, returning to his human form. Or at the very least, what passed closest to him as human. He was brushing dust and broken bits of stone off the lapels of his suit, his fingers stained with blood from the healing pink scar on the back of his neck, from where he had torn out his own spine, with which to kill Talen. He wasn't swearing, making threats, or even levelling snide, sarcastic remarks at the Thayne, but he was still scowling deeply, still bottomed out in the throes of his nicotine fit. He ignored the beast god for the moment, who seemed to be waiting, as he continued to adjust his suit, tugging at the sleeves, straightening the collar, dabbing away splashes of blood that never managed to sink into the fabric.

"Yeah. Haven't heard that name in a while," Dan muttered, still fiddling with his clothes. Even after all the centuries that had passed since the War of the Tap, and the disappearance of the Saraelian race, there still seemed to be some odd stigma around the dead language. The name didn't ring bells for people in the modern times, but folks as old as Xem'zund stiffened up a bit at its utterance.

"You seem rather accepting of all of this." Hromagh smiled, reaching out for some friendly gesture, perhaps a pat on the back like he had given Sei, but Dan stepped back, shoes scraping on the rough red stone under him. He gave a cold glance to the beast god, that made it obvious that while he may have cooled down, he wasn't of the mind to be acting buddy-buddy.

"Because it means this horseshit is over. I get my smoke, go back to my life. And the way I see it, you owe me something." Dan finally dropped his hands to his sides and stared up at the Thayne expectantly. There were a few moments of silence as the two stared at one another, so very much like images in a mirror, wrath and savagery reflected in mortal and immortal. Finally, Hromagh lowered himself to one knee and laid an enormous hand on the saraelian's shoulder. Dan's brows furrowed, thin pale lips seperating to reveal a sliver of dagger like teeth.

"I can do nothing for you, son. Its a shame; you would have been one of my children that I would have been so proud of...but you have been claimed by another force. One who's name none of us Thayne speak. I'm not talking about N'Jal. They are four who should not have existed, but do. All I can do is give you a warning." He held out his other hand and opened it. Laying in his palm was the enormous mace he had given Dan when he had first summoned him to fight. It almost looked like a toy in the Thayne's hand. But it was broken; many of the flesh-tearing spines had been snapped off when he'd hurled it. All that remained of them was a perfect vertical ring, circling the head of the mace. The long wicked knife that made the counter-balance at the other end was untouched. It was as vague as any omen he'd ever been given, and he grumbled bitterly. He reached out and took it with both hands, sending it away to his pocket dimension with all his other weapons.

"And a treat for being such a good sport." The Thayne's hand closed and opened again, and a pack of cigarettes laid in his palm this time. He dropped it into Dan's hands. The package was red, with "Thayneports" written across the top of the wide, flat box, and at the bottom was written "You're in God country now!" Cracking a smile, Dan opened them, stuck one in his mouth, and Hromagh pointed at it, lighting the cigarette for him. Dan took in a long drag and sighed, smiling widely now as the smoke billowed from his mouth. They had a rich, sweet, coppery taste, almost like blood, but none he'd ever tasted. Before he could say anything else, the meteor and the stars were gone and he was in a small, cramped stone cell, practically mummified in chains and heavy padlocks the size of his fist. His cigarette still hung in his mouth, and he took another soothing pull from it, staring at Silence Sei through the smoke and iron bars in front of him.

"A guy can only take so much of this before he finally snaps and murders everything around him, you know." Sei held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and then waved them down towards the floor, trying to convey calm.

"Please, Dan. Just wait, I wanted to speak with you."

"Yeah, in my damn head, you glassy eyed fucking mute," Dan snarled, wriggling in his chain cocoon, looking for areas of slack. He clenched his fists and began to strain, flexing his muscles and pushing outward with his arms. The metal began to groan as he shook.

"I want to help you, Dan. You're a good man, even if no one else believes it, including you. You've fought by my side before, I know you. I need men like you, whose strength I can trust."

"I smell a lot of people here..." The saraelian grinned slyly, narrowing his eyes, letting the threat sink in, "And I worked up quite an appetite in that big old fight."

"Dan, please-"

"I have a daughter."

"What?" The statement seemed to catch Sei by surprise. It shocked a lot of people; it was hard for anyone to get it in their heads that a flesh eating demon could ever be a parent. Dan sighed with a puff of smoke and paused, relaxing for a moment.

"Yeah. She's been missing for a while now. I've done everything I can think of to find her...asked seers, dipped into artifact hunting, and just plain old fashioned walked around and looked with my eyes, but nothing I do helps. All I want is my kid. You're calling me your friend, but can I even trust you, Sei? You gonna help me find her if I join you in whatever you're asking me to do?" Sei blinked, and there was a moment's hesitation as he seemed to gather his composure, before finally setting a serious expression across his face, and nodded.

"Yes. I promise you that. I will do everything in my power to help you find your child, Dan. As the leader of the Ixian Knights, I can say that we all will." Dan snorted, shook his head lightly, and gave one last mighty push. Chain links snapped and cracked and broke, and the long shattered lengths of metal fell all around his feet, making an incredible racket as they clattered to the floor. He walked to the door and shoved it open, breaking the lock, then stood before the mystic, staring down at the man quietly, before finally extending his hand. Sei took it and shook. Dan took the cigarette out of his mouth and tapped its ashes on the floor.

"It's kind of funny. Xem'zund told me nearly the exact same thing. I guess we'll see. Anyway....I wasn't lying, I'm fucking starved. I hope you've got beef here...and beer. Fuck, I could drink a damned gallon of beer right now," he muttered, grinning as he left the room and moved down into the castle.

Spoils: A heavy titanium war mace, which was broken after Dan threw it. Its barbed blades are locked into place now, and many were broken off. There remains only a verticall ring of them, circling the mace's head. It is five foot long in total, including the seven inch, single edged knife blade on the opposite side of the mace head, which appears like the blade of a combat knife. Hromagh says that the mace is the symbol of an omen, but Dan doesn't know what it means presently.

Also, a pack of cigarettes, Thayneport brand. They are normal cigarettes, not special in anyway aside from being made of very high grade, fine tobacco, and being flavored with Hromagh's own blood.

[Silence Sei]

"I am afraid I share Jensen's sentiments, Lord Hromagh," Sei spoke once more after the King of Crows had sent away Dan, "Manipulating me is one thing, but you took advantage of three innocent people today. You risked all of our lives just so we could be pawns in some grand scheme that you had. You were using people who did not deserve such things." Sei turned away from the man, a small growl resonating within the gut of the Thayne. Apparently the mute had struck a nerve with the much large, much more powerful foe.

"Then I ask you," Hromagh said plainly, an accusing finger pointed at the telepath, "What makes you and I any different, strategist?" Hromagh's last word was filled with bitter venom. The God was attempting to use his own words to hurt the Mystic. Fortunately for Sei, Hromagh was the God of Beasts, not the God of Persuasion. Sei was unfazed by the comment, something Hromagh now felt he had to continue. "You use the lives of many an innocent in order to fulfill your prophecy of war. How many men have already died because you were unprepared? How many more are you predicting will fall before your war to save Radasanth is over? We are not so dissimilar, Sei Orlouge, the difference is that I'm honest about the games I play with man and his life, can you say the same?"

Sei remained silent for a moment, a cool wind blowing through the arena, kicking up a dust cloud. He had no rebuttal because for the most part, the words that Hromagh shouted rang true. The Hero of Radasanth did already sacrifice the lives of many before his war had even begun. Even before he had received the prophecy, Sei had been responsible for the deaths of High Elf and Dark Elf alike during Alerar's siege of Raiaera. There was a reason that the great general Thoracis had said during his greatest defeat 'if only I still had Sei by my side!’ The mute had never seen any one of his grander strategies fail, and always had contingencies ready just in case they had. It was what made Sei so good at what he did.

"Besides," Hromagh finally continued, "The immortal left, all of you are leaving, with the weapons I bestowed upon you for this battle. You have The Arm of Hromagh now. Once you throw one, or even two pieces of the staff, nothing can stop its momentum so long as you still posses the other third. The immortal was granted something you're quite familiar with; a Zodiac Weapon. Whenever he strikes a blow with that blade, the adrenaline in ones system is slow to work, causing the pain to last much longer in its victim. A nifty little trick for the weapon of Cancer, I call it a 'Solstice Slash'. The child left with slightly increased magical abilities, you'll find he'll be able to do more now. As for the Rotslayer, while I gave him his mace still in its broken form, I am quite sure that your blacksmiths will be able to repair it."

"My blacksmiths?" Sei asked, turning back around to face Hromagh, "What makes you think that he'll come willingly looking for somebody to repair the weapon?" Hromagh just grinned, the missing teeth in his shark-like mouth giving a glimpse to the abyss within.

"I sent him back to Ixian Castle. Never let it be said that Hromagh is not benevolent. Now, you won't need much of a front line, provided you can convince Dan to stay with you." Sei stood there in the quiet air for a moment, Hromaghs words hanging in the wind as well as in the mute's head. Sei honestly believed that anybody could be saved, with a couple of exceptions. Dan was a war hero, and at one time he was praised by the people. The Rotslayer could once again become a name that the people were proud to hear, instead of a warning to make them hide in their houses. Sei finally nodded to the warrior Thayne, who returned the gesture....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The mute found himself starring at one of his prison cells. Chained to the floor before him was none other than Dan himself. The man was still smoking his cigarette, the gray puffs escaping his mouth with every drag he took. Sei had been teleported onto a chair, his body already feeling better from the assault he had previously suffered. The mute stood there for a second, looking as Dan spoke to him. Beside the Telepath laid the three-sectioned-staff that he had been awarded, the 'Arm of Hromagh' he remembered the Thayne calling it. He would make sure to use it in the future, but for now, there were more pressing matters. Dan finished his threat while Sei continued to look calmly at his massive form.

"Please, Dan. Just wait, I wanted to speak with you."

[The International]

Review of The Crow & The Butterfly
Let me start off my saying WHAT THE HELL, SEI?! I don’t know why you asked me to be gentle. This was a fun story to read! It certainly got me back into the mood of Althanas. I’m ready to write now. You four are very advanced writers, so for the most part the notes are going to reflect that. Let’s get to it.


Plot Construction 20 /30

Story 6 /10 – This had all the elements a good story should have. Beginning, middle, end, and a conflict. It’s how you guys went from one element to the other that I have to give you praise and criticism. First off I want to give Sei mad Kudos for getting straight to the damn point on the first post. I need everyone on Althanas to read this thread for that alone. The best stories spend only the first quarter of its length introducing the reader to the situation. The average writer on this site spends almost the first half a thread on holding the reader’s hand, and even though we don’t write novel length stories, the proportions must stay the same. Spend the first quarter or less exclusively on the introduction. You spent less. Now here comes the criticism. This story was, for the most part, a battle. It’s only being judged as a quest, but even if it were being judged as a quest the pacing, and many other elements suffered greatly because of one nasty habit. Everyone in the thread felt it necessary to recall the events of the previous few posts from their character’s point of view. I can understand having your character react to the events, but you guys literally pressed rewind in the narrative. Almost every post can do without the first paragraph or two, and I think if you guys had bunnied one another, or devised a posting order to better facilitate the flow of battle, you would have gotten a nine or even a ten in this category. The ultimate example of this was the very last post, where Sei went back to recall his interactions with other characters and then start the conversation that already happened with Dan. If you guys had switched order there things would have flowed nicely into what I thought was a beautiful bearing of the Rotslayer’s soul.

Strategy 7 /10 – The stipulations the Elder Thayne placed on your player characters was fun. It explained the atmosphere, which was quite campy. It reminded me of a Tarantino film or an anime, where the characters do outrageous things and somehow find the time to have conversations in between moves. That’s not a bad thing. If you’re going to do it, do it 100%... and you all did it 100%. If one of you decided to make things more realistic even for a little bit it would have completely destroyed the atmosphere. What really messed things up for me here was the loophole Sei found to use his mystic abilities. This isn’t a continuity issue here because it affects what Sei might have done if he hadn’t had his mystic protection. If Hromagh was able to nullify his Zodiac weapons, he should have been able to nullify Sei’s mystic abilities. Once again the habit of recalling the events of the past few posts got in the way here. The reader knows what happened in the previous post. Just get to your character’s reaction and counter.

Setting 7 /10 – It was straight forward. Some may have called it a little plain. I call it characteristic of Hromagh. You all managed to use the setting as though it was another character and that was good. You also appealed to all of the reader’s senses. One thing that threw me off was a bit of inconsistency from player to player. That first column seemed to be of different size to different characters, which was indicated by how they reacted to it. At least it had one thing in common between you all… it was big. Another thing that would have helped was finding a way to tell the reader where your characters were relative to the arena instead of relative to each other. If you say your character is ten feet away from another character, and that other character moves (in this case as fast as Jensen), where is your character now? The setting is passive. That column isn’t going to move unless someone moves it (…Dan!), and we have a more accurate idea of where your character is.

Characterisation 22 /30

Continuity 7 /10 – Here’s the beauty of this thread. You took liberties with Althanas lore, and I love you for it. Enigmatic Immortal even called attention to one of those liberties and made it a source of comedy. You guys demonstrated how to properly use storywold continuity here. You gave the reader what was relevant to the situation and nothing more, but here’s where the ‘Show, but don’t Tell’ rule works for you guys. There were times in which the situation forced you guys to tell the story, like the fact that Sei had to tell the reader that this big guy floating above the arena is Hemoragh. You had to do that. There was nothing you could do about it, but at least you made it super quick and even used that restriction to your advantage. The harm comes in your characters’ histories. All of your characters have an established history… but we don’t need to hear all of it... not even half of it. Only the parts of it that are relevant to the story. At times the Ixian trio showed their dynamic. Jensen was all too happy to beat the bricks off his colleagues, and EI showed it. The fact that Dan didn’t like the moniker ‘Rotslayer’ and Sei using the Elder Thayne to introduce him was great. These are genuine demonstrations of a character’s continuity and they are more memorable than any form of narrative exposition. However, if that history isn’t relevant or cannot be demonstrated in the present moment, consider getting rid of it. Let’s take Slayer’s first paragraph in post #12 for example. It was in the middle of all this action so it slowed things down. The very last sentence of that paragraph, “He'd willingly mutilated his own flesh, all for the sake of power.” proved that it was relevant. I think it would have been more effective to either get rid of it and the following punch line altogether (thus allowing the grotesque ripping of the spine to tell the story), somehow integrate it into the next paragraph, or put it at the end of the post. Kudos to Sei though. Little things like ‘Berevar Bear’ are really good ways of making the entire world of Althanas much more genuine. The fact that he didn’t overload is with those little things makes it even more effective.

Interaction 6 /10 – Praises to all of you here. As individuals you all took great care to interact with the world around you in a manner consistent with your characters. I won’t say that it was a realistic interaction in the least, but you didn’t need it to be. Your outrageous actions were befitting the campy atmosphere I mentioned earlier, and the Elder Thayne’s stipulations solidified it. As a group, however, I think the interaction could have been a lot smoother if you had bunnied one another more often.

Character 9 /10 – Enigmatic Immortal, you did a superb job of integrating Jensen’s opinions and point of view into your narrative while using 3rd person and without using the pesky internal dialogue italics. There are only two other people on this site that do that as effectively, Letho, particularly when he uses his alt, Cinderella Man, and Elrundir with both his main account and Christina Bredith. There was one inconsistency though. For some reason Janson has no problem using strong language like ‘Faggot Fairy King’ but finds it necessary to use the word ‘crap’ instead of ‘shit’, which confuses me. It only happened once or twice, but it was memorable. Hysteria, you did a very good job of showing the reader how Talen felt about things with his body language and his facial expressions. I don’t have to be inside his head to figure out what he’s feeling, and you didn’t overuse your internal dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, Slayer, yours was beautifully crass and true to Dan. If you look at the relationships of the story, Dan was the odd man out. Sei, Jensen, and Talen knew each other well, and that family dynamic (which I’m familiar with) could have made your character irrelevant. But you wittingly injected him into the conversation with crass asides, thus keeping him relevant. Dan’s portion of the conclusion was fuckin’ beautiful, so beautiful that Sei’s final post was completely unnecessary. What I have to say about your character, Sei, is partially in jest. I have to admit that your main character annoys me with his morality and self sacrifice and intellect. I am now certain that my Villeneuve family absolutely cannot join the Ixian Knights because they will fuck up Sei’s plans just because of who he is. Hell, they might even do so without having to join the organization. Watch your back, biatch! Here’s the beauty of Sei. He’s consistent. I don’t want you to make apologies about who he is because it takes a lot for a fictional character to evoke such things.

Writing Style /30

Creativity 6 /10 – The narrative was pretty conventional in terms of literary and rhetorical devices. I’m actually quite glad you guys didn’t make it as colorful as I know you guys are able to do. This was a battle, and battles don’t need that. They need to be concise, but you had some wiggle room that you didn’t take advantage of, and that’s why this category isn’t a perfect score. Check Sei on post #5 for an example of using just enough imagery without killing the pacing.

Mechanics 7 /10 – repetitive use of pronouns (The Immortal, The Mute, The Youth) hurt this category. If it were judged as a battle, Slayer would have won this category. I understand why you guys did that because it’s something that haunts me. I’m afraid that if I don’t constantly remind the reader who I’m talking about they might get confused. The reader assumes the players character is who he is writing about, and will probably need a reminder once a paragraph (twice if there’s a lot of back and forth or if the paragraph is big). There were only a few spelling and grammar errors, but the use of the pronouns are the big killer here.

Clarity 6 /10 – The score in this category goes back to the habit of recalling events of the previous post. The reader’s mind wants to keep going forward. Interrupting that progression with said recall managed to confuse me once or twice. Other previously mentioned notes will help with clarity as well, especially the Setting category. The next note doesn’t take away from your score, but would definitely serve to improve it in the future. For most people, sight is the primary sense used by the conscious mind. Unless your primary character can’t see what’s happening (through any type of circumstance) try describing said event through sight first, and then use the other senses. It should help the reader keep track of what’s going on. None of the sensory descriptions hurt clarity at all. I just think this little tip would help give the reader a sense of certainty about what they’re reading.

Wildcard: 8/10 – The campy atmosphere wasn’t my cup of tea, but as you can see I was objective about it. What I can definitely give you extra points for is using Althanas canon. Good job guys.

Total 69 /100

Spoils List:

Arm of Hromagh: A three -sectioned-staff made of Titanium and covered by Yew wood, save for teh titanium knobs on each end. The staff can become completely detatchable, and if one or two of the three sections is thrown, the pieces become unstoppable until Sei wills them back, so long as the mute is still holding the last 1/3rd piece. This does NOT mean they track an opponent, it simply means that once they are thrown on a course, they will not stop. If they come across a material they can not break through, they will simply continue to push its target until they get out of their way.
Evenflow: Sei has learned the spell Evenflow, a technique that allows the mute to match the BASE STATS of his chosen target (so lets say Sei is fighting Hysteria, who we'll say has 3 x base strength, but also a strength boosting technique to make it 5 x strength. Sei can gain the 3x strength boost, but not the additional +2 from the spell.) This includes any base stats the target may posses, but as a drawback, the only one of Sei's techniques allowed to be used during Evenflow is Mystic Protection. Not even the Gemini Blades Doppelganger ability will work if Evenflow is in use.

Note: Material of Arm of Hromagh can be changed as needed, but Evenflow must remain the same.

EI recieves
Cancer's Pincer: A sword that with the press of a button becomes a scythe. This is a Zodiac Weapon with the ability to perform a 'Solstice Slash', an ability that disallows the adrenaline to get through ones system as it normally would, and thus makes the pain last longer.
Jensen also gets +1 AGI (Though this is optional for the judge to grant.)

Material of Cancer's Pincer is Titanium.

Hysteria Recieves:
Hromagh's Tooth: The tooth of the Beast Thayen, Hromagh's tooth is soaked in the God's blood that acts as a sort of toxin to anybody cut with the thing. The tooth itself is the size of a dagger, and material is equal to that of Delyn
Talen also gets And additional use to ALL of his spells. Number of spells gaining this +1 may be decreased by judge.

Slayer Receives:
A heavy titanium war mace, which was broken after Dan threw it. Its barbed blades are locked into place now, and many were broken off. There remains only a verticall ring of them, circling the mace's head. It is five foot long in total, including the seven inch, single edged knife blade on the opposite side of the mace head, which appears like the blade of a combat knife. Hromagh says that the mace is the symbol of an omen, but Dan doesn't know what it means presently.

Also, a pack of cigarettes, Thayneport brand. They are normal cigarettes, not special in anyway aside from being made of very high grade, fine tobacco, and being flavored with Hromagh's own blood.

Sei's weapon is approved, EI's weapon is Titanium, Hysteria's weapon is of Delyn strength (but not of Delyn's magic conductibility/resistance), and Slayer's weapon is approved. The abilities are in RoG's hands and must go through their approval.

Silence Sei has earned 1560 exp.
Enigmatic Immortal has earned 1250 exp
Hysteria has earned 870 exp
Slayer of the Rot has earned 1180 exp

[Atzar]

EXP added!