Masked Murder (Open)

[Clown]

Sometimes, it seemed as though Vander would never give up. It’d already been a day since the two of them had arrived at the Citadel and from the looks of it, they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. Vander liked to talk to anyone that had anything to say, collecting information about various locales and landmarks. It was less common farther away, but in Corone every man talked of the great Citadel and the monks that ran it. Vander didn’t seem to have the warrior’s spirit in him, but he envied the almost universal respect that people held for the monks.

Today was the second day and while he may have enjoyed it, the monks did not. Sure, Clown was alright on his own, useful for filling up fights during the slow times, but Vander managed to be counter-productive. He would follow the monks everywhere, pester them with strange questions, and he tried to copy everything they did including the creation of arenas. Today he was nursing a blue lump after he’d interrupted and turned an arena into lava, while Clown was in it.

While Vander had been off practicing monk-ness, Clown was having a much better time of it. He spent most of his time fighting, so far he hadn’t had much of a challenge, mostly farmers or young boys. They hadn’t been very unique in their choice of arena’s either, he’d fought in three fields under the moonlight and two non-descript buildings. Despite their lack of imagination, he had obliged and cut them to ribbons. It was time for a change, nothing to do with peasants or bland landscapes. Anyone dressed strangely or having particularly eye catching weaponry was going to be directed to his arena, and they could have their choice of the setting.

It didn’t really matter after all, there was nothing that he couldn’t handle. There is nothing that can hurt him, no person that can get to him, not while he has his mask.

[He'll Scream]

Since his escape from the institute, Huey had been aimlessly wandering the continent he had learned was known as ' Corone '. The first few weeks provided difficult. With no where to stay, no money and no known relatives, his options were very limited. Up until now he had been sleeping in the streets, surviving off of any edible substance he could find in the garbage or sneak from a counter or food stand. Today however was different. He had a rather pleasent encounter in the forest, with a blind man. In most cases one would find the company of a blind man rather awkward, but not Huey. To Huey, this man was his saving grace. No matter how quietly Huey spoke, the blind man could hear him just fine. After weeks of unwelcome solitude, Huey had his first conversation with another person since his last conversation with Dr. Ortaa.

Huey's mind began to wander as memories of Dr. Ortaa stimulated his senses. He could recall her scent, the scent of sweet perfume and peppermint, his favorite candy. Before every session she would give him a piece to help him relax. But before his mind could completely escape reality, his feet brought him back. He stumbled onto a marble stairway, seemingly coming out of nowhere. Without standing, Huey looked up to see what this staircase lead to. With an open jaw, Huey stared up at the marvel of man's engineering that stood before him. It appeared to be some sort of cathedral. Massive collumns of pure white marble spiralled upward supporting a large, triangular overhang. The building itself seemed to glow in the bright summer sunlight.

Huey rose to his feet and brushed himself off, scattering orange dust across the snow white steps. He slowly made his way up the stairs, letting both feet rest upon one step before moving towards another. After a short while he reached the top of the stairs, and the entrance to the awe-inspiring building. Before him was an archway, taller than any he had ever seen. It was easily over twenty feet tall. His head hung low, his hands clasped together, rubbing eachother nervously, he entered the building.

When he entered the building, even mroe marvels were to be seen. Gargantuine stain glass windows lined the long corridor, each painting seperated one large wooden door. Huey inched over to the nearest door and tapped lightly upon it's oak surface. He listened intently, but heard no response. Assuming no one was inside, and that he would not disturb anyone, he opened the door and entered the room, completely unaware of the true nature of this building.

The moment the large door slammed shut behind him, it disappeared. Suddenly Huey found himself standing upon orange, rocky soil. It was hot now, the sun beat down upon Huey and the earth beneath him alike. A gentle breeze provided a little comfort. Huey removed his coat and his scarf and placed them on the ground, they were of no use now. He turned about and nearly stumbled to the ground when he did. He was no longer in any cathedral, he stood at the pit of the largest canyon he had ever whitnessed, or even read about. To his left and right were massive stone walls that seemed to be carved into the earth by God himself. Both walls had several layers, both shared stunning colors. Brown, orange, yellow and deep purple could all be seen. Huey gazed down the long stretch of dry land that separated one rock wall from another. In the distance he could see a hazy figure. The heat waves from the ground made it diffifult for him to see exactly what it was. He held his hand against his brow, blocking the sun. He fixated his glasses and squinted his eyes, all along keeping them locked on the figure in the distance.

[Clown]

“Sir, we have found an opponent. He came through the side way directly into an arena, so you may not have noticed him. Please, this way.”

Clown shifted a little, he had intended to see his opponent first, but was getting antsy after the first ten minutes. “He better not be a farmer.” Despite not choosing for himself, his fingers shook a little in expectation.

The monk he followed was a big man, he wore his hood down revealing his shiny and long-since bald scalp, and Clown noticed the robe was a little tight around the midsection. He’d heard they were battle-monks that worked to make others as strong as themselves, but this one hadn’t been missing meals for any training that he could see. At least he didn’t have any food stains on that coarse brown robe of his, that would have been just too much for the clown to be around. He never got anything on himself if he could help it, his clothes had to be perfect.

Once they arrived at the door to the arena and the monk departed, Clown looked himself over again for a moment. His suit was impeccably clean, every stripe was clean and perfectly straight, his right glove of white tended to attract the most dust compared to the black left simply to cause him ire, the pants were straight and the shoes shined, the eyes at his sides were spotless of farmer’s blood, and although he left his bag in the lobby he knew it was clean too. Vander laughed that he tried to keep the hardest colors clean, but Vander did many stupid things and laughed at many stupid jokes.

Finished checking himself, he pushed through the door to find his opponent and hoped vaguely for something exciting. As he did, his left hand palmed the masks he kept hidden as he determined how he felt about the arena. At first he was disgusted, the place was very dirty. He could see that much of the ground was dust, the stone walls were made of dirt, and there seemed to be a light breeze carrying filth off the ground. It wouldn’t be that bad after all though, the walls were uneven and natural giving him many small ledges of staggering heights, it was his advantage here. Lettings his eyes drift over the scenery they eventually found their focus, an average sized man in exotic clothing. His pants in particular stood out, a strange material you didn’t see everyday. Of shiny armor and giant weapons he had none, but at least he didn’t come with a corn scythe.

He approached the man, coming into earshot, waiting for an introduction. Leading by example, he bowed halfway and brought a hand up to tip his mask in recognition, enough to be a gesture but not showing his face, and when he returned it his aspect had changed. His mask was white with a black-lipped smile and his posture was stiff. His senses were tingling and his fingers shook a little, the thrill of courtesy before death always made him feel this way.

Clown waited long enough for a similar introduction before interrupting. He didn’t speak often so his voice was gruff and throaty, “Now we die.”

[He'll Scream]

Huey jumped as the figure he had been investigating suddenly appeared rather close to him. Even after the sudden shock disapated, he still felt uneasy. The figure that stood before him was unlike any he had ever seen. His clothes were very unusual and seemed to tease his eyes, making it somewhat difficult to focus on him. What grabbed Huey's attention the most however was the man's face. It was hidden behind a plain white mask. The man was faceless, souless...inhuman.

The clown-like figure bowed before Huey, in respect. Huey was never one to be rude, so he bowed in respect aswell, not entirely sure why they were bowing at all. Huey stood upright once again, still watching the strange man. Something was different now though, his once blank face was now painted with a big, black smile. Huey wondered how the man changed his face like that. Mystified by the man's odd ways, Huey couldn't help but be amused as a light smile spread across his face.

Huey motioned to speak, but was interrupted by the whimsicle man who said, " Now we die. " Huey was rather confused, what could he have ment by that? It was at that moment that Huey's pulse began to race and his heart filled up with terror. For it was at this moment, he noticed two daggers in either hand of the now menacing figure that stood before him.

Huey began to step back slowly. He wanted to reason with the man, but he knew that if he spoke above a whisper, it would only serve to make the man fearful of him. Men like him did not run from thier fears, they strived to destroy them. Huey looked about the canyon once again, and his fearful heart was suddenly put at ease, for if Huey had to fight, he was at a great advantage here. Any of his attacks would be greatly amplified in this contained area.

Huey turned back to the clown man. He swallowed deeply, and let out a heavy sigh. He held up his hands in a ready position. If he had to die, he did not want to die a coward. He had been a coward all his life. For at least one moment, he wanted to be brave. He stood ready. A bit frightened, but ready none the less.

[Clown]

His eyes never left the man, partially for observation but mostly because some men were so rude as to attack thinking him unawares. The man met his bow, a little uncertainly, and seemed to be unsure of himself. Most came to the Citadel knowing full well their purpose for being there and what happened inside the special rooms, though it was not uncommon for people to enter the arenas unknowingly. That might have been the case, though it could just as easily have been a youth coming here to find himself, as they often did. Those with easy access to the battles were known to have coming of age rituals in which young men got blooded for the first time without fear of death.

Whatever the case, Clown was not content to let his opponent hesitate and idle. Many people were capable of magic to some degree, most especially those most prone to combat, and so rushing headlong into the fight would not have been a good idea. Instead he decided to walk slowly and steadily towards his opponent, careful not to let his feet shuffle and drudge up dust, and warming up his hands. In his right was the bone eye, a long dagger with a fine edge, while his left held the iron eye, marred by dents and notched on the blade from contact, each spinning rapidly in his hand. First he spun them forward, and then backwards, rolled them around his hand and finally cycling them before him, his long delicate fingers tingling with the flow of blood and loosening the stiff joints. His hands were crucial, needing a proper amount of strength and balanced by extreme dexterity, without them his deft tricks would be impossible and his blades would suffer as so many clumsily wielded weapons did.

His eyes never left the man, watched as he put up his guard and eagerly spotted the weaknesses in his defenses. With his arms forward he was positioned to block only forward attacks, mostly effective though it did have its holes, his legs were often left undefended and forgotten, functioning only to move. At first he thought he might try to swipe at these, but it would be futile to open with such a weak attack, and he had no idea what his enemy was capable of. First he would need to test him, start slow and match him.

Smoothly he struck out with his left, a straight attack striking from the chest instead of swinging from the side as many men preferred, plus it seemed to disorient most. The distortion of distance by his clothing was one of his hidden features, and amusing. The iron eye wasn’t very sharp, but if he managed to hit a hand it didn’t matter, finger bones were very fragile. How the man reacted would set the pace for the battle, the standings, and the outcome. If he was slow, Clown would dominate the match and win easily, if he fast, the fight would end abruptly with an unclear victor.

[He'll Scream]

As Huey's opponent approached, he was able to size him up much better than before. The man was much taller than Huey had first noticed. He was a full head taller than Huey himself. In Huey's case, that did not matter much. He had no intention of remaining within the lanky man's reach for long.

As the the striped man grew closer, he began to twirl his blades about, most likely to distract Huey as he made his move. With the suddeness and fluidity of a river, the man lunged at Huey, his left arm extended, blade in hand. The knife cut through the air, creating a sort of whistle as it drew closer. The iron blade glistened in the hot sunlight, and Huey could see the reflection of the blue sky on it's metallic surface.

As the blade drew closer, Huey's feet began to move, seemingly on their own. His right foot lifted but a few inches off the ground. It glided smoothly above the ground, finding it once again moments later and sliding as it did so. Simultaniously, his left foot pushed off of the rocky earth, sending Huey to the man's left, and out of harm's way.

Huey watched carefully as the blade was thrust past him, much quicker than he had first anticipated. This man was very fast, and had a very long reach. Huey's focus shifted back to the man, who's left ear was now completely vulnerable to Huey's own special kind of attack.

Drawing in a deep breath of the dry, dusty air, Huey opened his mouth wide. For the first time since he had left the institue, Huey screamed as loudly as he could. He unleashed his sonic boom attack and focused it directly at the masked menace. The boom burst from his mouth like a freight train and bounced off of the canyon walls, sending it in all directions, causing the canyon to shake violently. As a result, several stones and boulders rolled down the canyon walls and into the pit, working up a light cloud of dust.

[Clown]

The man was fairly quick for just any guy, and he avoided the attack with fair ease. It wasn’t meant to kill him anyway, a slower than normal attack to test his opponent. There was always the chance he would hold back, move just as fast as he needed but no more, and if that was the case Clown would lose anyway. The type he could beat had no self control, moving as fast or slow as they could simply to dodge, no regard for perceived speed.

For a moment, he just stood there with his dagger thrust forward, thinking what to do. As he began to turn his head to face the man again, a horrible blast came forth from the small body. No man should have been capable of making such a noise, but he did, and it was painful. The sound vibrated the mask jarringly against his face and teeth, but it went unnoticed. The side of his head seemed to have been stabbed by a fire brand, a sudden hot explosion of pain from his ear. The force of the sound amazed him, it shook the canyon and the clown to their bones, knocked debris from the ledges and the clown from his feet.

In all his fights he’d never felt something like this, most wounds were to the flesh but this was something else. He had to get away. To make some distance from this boy that could hurt him so. At first just running away in fear appealed, but that would not give him any advantage. Dimmed by the pain, he remembered his initial thoughts of the arena. Sheathing both the eyes, he ran to the ledge clutching the right side of his face, reluctantly letting go of what could only be a hole in his head, he quickly began to grasp the jagged edges of rock and began to scale the wall. His legs were a bit too short for the task as most people went about it, leaving him to climb entirely off of upper body strength. Fortunately he was quite strong, and his long arms enabled him to climb quickly.

In less than a minute, Clown had managed to climb a good thirty feet up and out of the immediate range of the man. The climb was fast from panic but left him drained, as he was leaving a trail. Bloody drops slid out from beneath his hat and mask and rolled down off his coat, the pain lessening only slightly. While taking a moment to catch his breath, he looked over the edge and spotted the man, clutching his head and kicking rocks down at him in fearful anger.

Rested, Clown continued the climb. From the ground the canyon looked endlessly tall, but he was quickly approaching the top, that much he could tell. The rocks had a strange shape to them, giving them the illusion of far off distances and staggering heights. He didn’t have time to focus on them though, only on climbing and hoping it was impossible to leak brains from his ear, for surely the hole went deep.

[He'll Scream]

Huey looked on in both satisfaction and amaze. He had never amplified his voice in a real live combat situation. The results were definately promising. In all of his training sessions he had been pumped full of drugs to dim down his abilities and turn his mind into puddy, easy to manipulate. As such, he had never truly whitnessed his powers first hand, only seen the aftermath. He felt a warmness in his heart and a fire shot through his veins, for the first time in his life, he was excited to have this curse, or rather this gift.

As the blade weilding man scrambled to his feet, Huey readied himself for a retaliation, resuming his former stance, only letting his arms widen themselves, stretching his lungs, enabling him to take in more air. Instead however, the man ran away. Huey was suprised, but couldn't have expected much more. The man was actually extremely tollerant to pain, at least he must have been. All of the people who were that close to Huey in the training room when he let loose a sonic boom died on impact, their heads rupturing under the extremities. Then again those were no warriors, only lab rats, much like Huey himself.

The man scaled the stone walls with extreme feats of agility and strength. He much resembled an ape as he flung his body upwards with no aid from his lower body. He clearly wanted to get away from Huey in a hurry, and perhaps he was wise to do so. He now had the advantage of height, he was also mostly out of Huey's range. Plus, Huey was no stronger than your average teenager and could not climb the walls of the canyon so easily.

Instead of pursuing the blade wielder, Huey rested. He remained in his ready position and hummed deeply, vibrating the ground around him and keeping his vocal cords loose for another attack. As the pebbles danced about him like popping grease in a firey skillet, Huey gazed upward, never letting his eyes drift from the image of his attacker.

[Clown]

Surfacing over the edge, Clown was pretty tired. By now he was quite a distance above his opponent, the blood oozing from his ear had hardened, and he had yet to harm the man. The climb would have been exhausting on its own and driven by panic he’d went as fast as possible. His breath was coming in great big gasps, the sharp air biting his lungs and parching his throat.

A deep rumbling like that of drums came from below. He could feel it, even as far up as he was, though he couldn’t hear it. He knew the man was down there and he needed to do something, but he couldn’t risk getting so close to him. The eyes were excellent weapons for close-quarters but would do poorly for throwing, even with a skilled thrower, which Clown was not. Looking around and seeing nothing but barren desert above the canyon, there didn’t seem to be many options.

When he was climbing, occasionally a hand hold would give way as he put his weight on it and debris would tumble loose, evidence that the walls were not solid stone. He could only think of one way in which to attack while staying at his safety height. Dragging the iron eye from its sheath, he began to stab into the ground near the edge over and over. It was almost painful to use his valued weapon in such a way and he grimaced every time he struck stone the jolt ran up his arm just imagining how mangled and flattened the edge would have become.

After a few seconds, his hard work began to pay off. The sun was bright out, and Clown’s suit stuck to his skin with sweat. His gloves were dirty, had the ground not been illusionary he would have needed a new blade, and the side of his head ached like no other. Aside from the pain and dirt, the constant ringing was giving him a migraine. It was all worth it when that first chunk went. Pressing against several foot wide chunks aligned with the ledge, Clown had carved the hunks to slide off and he would bury his opponent. Let him try to make that noise when he’s crushed beneath a rockslide. He had several more ready to go, but launched only the first as it looked best angled to hit the mark.