Redemption Bracket: Lye Vs Chibimon Blue

[Silence Sei]

Battle begins tonight at 12:01 AM Central Standard Time! In possibly the silliest match up of the tournament, our hardcore assassin must fight a delusional boy with a pet obbsession! Begin!

[Chibimon Blue]

“You lost again Hsa. You’re out of the tournament because you can’t keep it together,” there was a guttural sound to the words spoken, a contempt long held in finally bubbling to the surface, “now you have to return home, defeated and embarrassed even though your wolf killed your foe.” The light from a cigarette butt lit up the darkness. The voice came from a man with a long scar tracing the left side of his face, from his bushy brown eyebrow to the matching trimmed hair along his chin.

“You’re wrong!” Hsa shouted, fists clenched, “I did everything right! The council was blind if they thought I was cheating! I got that guy fair and square and everybody knows it!!”

His body shook in anger, his heart raced a mile a minute as he tried to explain himself. Every time Hsa engaged in a major battle, he confronted this man in this dark room. The boy managed victory after victory as he tried his best to prove this grown-up wrong; to prove he could be the most powerful Chibimon Trainer in the world.

The stranger took another drag from his cancer stick, his green eyes shifting towards the bed where the child lay. “You think you won? How funny.”

Hsa straightened himself in the bed, pushing the sheets off of his form with his feet. On the brown nightstand next to the hotel bed were his Chibiballs, their monstrous inhabitants comfortably sleeping within. The child clenched his teeth, reaching towards the stand yet never taking his eyes off of the smoker. His palm pressed against the cool wood and ran over the surface to try and feel for one of his spheres. His hand felt only smooth surface, and the boy froze. His digits scouted the entire area of the piece of furniture, and his eyes grew wide when he realized that his Chibimon were missing.

“You look like you lost something,” the stranger commented. The light from his vice showcased his sharpened yellow teeth when he smiled, like a caution light that warned of impending danger. “I know what it is you've lost too; yourself. You've been relying on those…things for too long now, boy. Let’s see how you do when you have to fight someone without your pets.”

Hsa jumped up from the bed, armed with only his white boxers. The hand drawn Chibiballs dotted all around the white fabric appeared to have been smeared from years of use. His hair fell into his eyes without his hat to keep it in place. His body shivered in the cold, which caused the child to turn his head behind him for a moment to look at the open double hung windows. The blue drapes danced to the tune of the wind’s music while the cool breeze caused Hsa to shudder even more.

He turned back towards the antagonistic man, as his teeth ground against one another in fury. His expression changed to one of horror when he realized that the smoker was no longer in the room, but in his place stood another man entirely. The terrified child stared at the barely visible figure who shared this space with him. Hsa took a heavy swallow. He was without his only line of defense, and with no clue how or why this newcomer arrived in the small bedroom.

“When I find that guy,” Hsa growled as he took several steps back, “I’m going to make sure Rhinosaurus burrows a hole straight up his butt….”

[Lye]

"You are a strange lad," Lye spoke, his arms folded in the worn, hotel chair. "For some time you've been rambling on about counsels, cheating, and now sodomy?"

The assassin scoffed, muffled by the trademark crimson vlince wrapped about his face.

"Sounds like you're playing some sick, twisted game," he mused before rising to his feet. "But that's the truth isn't is Hsa?"

His sinister green eyes reflected what minimal light seeped in from outside the window and contrasted heavily in the shadows as they narrowed on his prey. The blades fixed to the heels of his combat boots clicked against the groaning floorboards as he paced.

"Stuck in some delusion of grandeur from an early age about becoming a master creature tamer?" His arms locked behind his back, a slight rigidity in his movements as though prepared for the unexpected. "Considered a dishonor by your father, and pitied by your mother..." He spun on his heels, platinum locks drifted hauntingly in the night breeze while he continued to pace. "They tried to seek treatment for you, but we both know you're far too gone for that, Hsa Eulb."

Lye stopped in his tracks. Only their breathing and the static chatter of street traffic plagued the room. The boy began to bubble up a response, but the assassin was not finished.

"Do you remember your mother, Hsa? Or your father maybe? Are they apart of that false reality you believe in?"

A single step moved him closer to the boy. His gloved hand retrieved a single black needle the length of his palm and thick as a finger from the many at his hips. He gave it one quick flip and brought it to an aggressive point at the youth.

"I suppose it doesn't matter much," he began to approach the scantily clad, shivering boy. "Your make-up world of these 'Chibimon' is going to end tonight. Someone decided your delusions are no longer welcome in this world."

The assassin felt the lightning of exhilaration flash across his exposed skin. He snapped toward the boy, his hand leading with the point of the needle. Last second, he switched his grip to launch a fierce jab for the boy's midsection. His body braced and should he feel contact, a grip of the shoulders would pull the boy into a follow up knee to the diaphragm.

"Show me your power, boy! I want to see the creations of your insanity before I snuff out that miserable life of yours!" he shouted, the chivalry of attacking an unarmed child lost in the prospect of a fresh murder.

[Chibimon Blue]

He froze before the accusations laid out before him. This mysterious man’s revelations danced around his mind much like the cold wind danced around his near naked form. How did he know the boy’s parents? What relationship did this cloaked figure have to Hsa? The trainer opened his mouth; a reply fully thought out and prepared when he received a preemptive rebuttal in the form of the stranger’s fist.

His small stomach seemed to cover Lye’s fist, and Hsa gasped desperate to reclaim the air that left his body. What little oxygen he did recover quickly left once more courtesy of his attacker’s knee slamming into his throat. He could feel the man’s nails as they dug deep into his bare shoulder. Streams of blood rolled down his body and fell into a pool on the green carpet below. Tears flowed from his eyes as both his sternum and throat throbbed and began to bruise. His eyes shifted everywhere as he fell to the ground, desperate to find something to defend himself against this threat. His fingernails clung to the cheap carpet as though he might fall from its surface at any moment.

He coughed and a splatter of blood left his mouth. His eyes widened as they rested upon a sphere like object barely tucked underneath the green bed skirt of his hotel room. He reached out and grabbed the object, throwing it up towards the man. He closed his eyes, words no longer an option thanks to the brutal assault the stranger had delivered unto him. Rhinosaurus, he thought, Come on and show this guy that I’m not a loser!

It was too late by the time the child noticed that the object thrown at his opponent was not a Chibiball, but a ball gag. NO! Hsa screamed in his mind, desperate to reach out and grab the sex toy before it made contact with the man. His body would not obey; it only remained still against the soft, scratchy carpet. He closed his eyes, nearly encased in a puddle of his own blood and tears. His face contorted as the realizations hit home and his tiny body went limp. He’s right. Nobody loves me. I am a loser. I can’t do it…

I’m going to die…

[Lye]

Frail flesh wrapped around his fist, and the boy buckled like a sapling in a gale. The prey succumbing to the driving force fed the addiction of afflicting further wounds. Two gloved hands gripped at miniscule shoulders. The boy had but a second's reprieve before the hammer of his knee drove deeper into the softened tissue. The body heaved but his grip was relentless. The boy slipped his clasp at the expense of lost tissue, and the red began to flow.

Hsa collapsed.

"Nothing?" Lye taunted. "Your enemy told me you could summon beasts to your aid!"

The boy sputtered, desperately trying to reclaim lost air and surface his senses through a sea of pain. The sweet signature of internal bleeding spat from his victim's mouth and the assassin felt a rush. Such weak competition itched at his patience. He was warned about resistance and all he saw was a youth which lay clawing at the ground.

"Stop toying with me and--!"

Lye's forehead reeled backwards upon unexpected contact. The object that broke his taunt suspended in air from recoil to which the assassin wrapped his hand around. He brought his eyes upon his closed palm wit witness two black strips dangling from between his fingers.

"Decided to put up a fight? One of your 'chibiballs' I presu--"

Gloved fingers unwrapped the object as he spoke and the speech halted mid sentence. Lye's face twisted into a scowl and the gurgling pit of disgust whispered at the back of his mind. A ball gag, most certainly showing signs of use, lay idle in an aggressively shaking claw.

"You little..." The fury bubbled into a full eruption, launching the gag into a lamp with enough force to crack it's porcelain body. "Is this a joke?!"

He rocketed a boot to the boy's outstretched body.

"Some sick musing of a deranged mind?!"

Another kick launched with crippling fury.

"Setting me up to..."

His boot rained down for a crushing stomp.

"...kill a worthless sack of shit!"

He heaved with an anger that nearly emitted steam from his mouth. The sting of cool night air bit at his lungs. This farce was over. The killer halted his assault and snapped his hand open to release the needle it held. It lifted in the air as though possessed and was soon joined by four others that pulled themselves from their holsters. They snapped rigidly above Hsa and each one held a lethal point poised to strike. The boy would pay, one needle at a time, until the life flickered from his glassy eyes.

[Chibimon Blue]

He tensed his body, prepared as he could be for whatever assault the assassin was about to lay into him. He could see the glimmer of the needles in the moonlight, but before he could react, he felt the stab of the first needle deep in his jugular vein. His breaths became ragged, the tiny amounts of oxygen not able to satisfy his lungs. His eyes widened as the second needle slammed deep into his heart, an intense pain filling his every nerve. A fountain of blood sprayed onto the mystery killer by the time needle number three impaled itself through his left wrist. A cry of pain filled the room though Hsa could not have known it was his own. The final needle penetrated the right wrist, essentially turning the carpet below Hsa into a makeshift crucifix. A whimper left his lips as the blood there mixed with salty tears that choked him with each forced breath.

He could feel the blood slowly drain out of his body. His vision went blurry and soon turned to black. The last thing he could remember was the form of his murderer triumphant over him, a sickly smile the last image he would ever know. His ears were filled with the insane cackle of the stranger as he laid claim to the boy’s life. He had won. Hsa was dead.

His eyes shot open, the cold stream of tears still fresh on his face. He knew what he just witnessed was his own death. The boy shifted his gaze upwards, the faint gleam of the needles temporarily blinding him. The scene from before played in his mind and gave him just enough strength to make a move. He jerked his shoulders as hard as he could physically muster. His form shifted ever so slightly up on the carpet, blood smeared across his body. The needle still slammed into Hsa with the same amount of force and ferocity, only now, the needle hit the child’s shoulder rather than his neck.

He howled in pain as the other needles made their mark, slightly lower on his body than they had been in his ‘vision’. Screams of pain echoed into the night air like a wolf’s howl. He tried to grab at his injuries, only for his arms to continue surging with pain thanks to the needles embedded into his limbs. Blood and saliva trailed from the child’s mouth as he shifted his gaze towards his foe. He felt like a deer looking up at a lion as it prepared his final blow.

What… was that…? Hsa wondered as he tried to keep his mind off of whatever this stranger’s final blow would be.

[Lye]

"Enough toying around, your life ends now," the assassin hissed. His wrist snapped toward Hsa and a needle sank into flesh with a wet thud. The shrill of youthful agony filled the air. The wrist flicked again and more howls emanated from the waste of oxygen. Each sickening impact followed dwindled screams and although submerged in his element, Lye remained stoic. All five needles now lay within whimpering meat.

"Resilient," the antagonist remarked, his tone flat and lack luster. He let out a sigh, muffled not only by his garb but by the continued sufferings of the lad.

"You've disappointed me," the killer stated, lifting his boot from carpet thick with blood. He returned to the worn wicker chair that lay witness toward the wall. With a twist on a bladed heel, the assassin slumped into the seat. His elbow braced and held his head with a look of frustration and irritation.

"You are Hsa Eulb, correct?" gloved fingers massaged the imaginary tension on the bridge of his nose. "The boy that summons monsters out of thin air?"

Through a curtain of stray hairs, emerald eyes fell upon the easily victimized youth curled up in his own fluids. What was once white boxers was now mottled in dark red. The bed he lay near donned an organic pattern of ejected crimson.

"Pathetic."

"You're nothing like the description. Why anyone would offer to have you slain is beyond me," he spoke plainly as if all the interest had left him. This one-sided engagement was hardly worth his effort. Another exasperated sigh escaped from the seated figure. Scuffles through the thin hotel walls began to manifest in testament to the cacophony they crafted. Their time together was nearing its close.

"Gold is gold I suppose..."

The killer extended his arm while an unamused expression. His hand clasped and the needles that still remained within the boy answered his ghostly beckons. They began to twist and write deeper, seeking out more vital tissue to lacerate. His hand flexed and relaxed to drive them the directions he chose, all the while spectating from his seat. The racket beyond the walls began to increase as the echoes of pain grew more audible. The moment the screaming stopped would be the killer's queue to leave, and he could finally be done with this farce.

[Chibimon Blue]

He could feel the cold metal as it moved inside his flesh. Tiny geysers of red jettisoned forth from his wounds, a harrowing scream the only reply he could muster. His muscles tensed, which did nothing but add further to his pain. His tears no longer flowed, for the child cried for so long that his body could no longer produce the salty waterworks. His whole body twitched involuntarily between loud sobs. He knew that this was the end of his legacy as a Chibimon trainer; killed without a single Chibimon at his disposal.

He wanted to jerk his body once more. He wanted to try and force the needles either through his form, or completely out of it. His body would no longer listen to his mind’s command; the assassin had hurt the young man too severely. He laid there with his eyes closed as visions of his life ran through his mind. He remembered when he had caught Servapour during the War for Corone, when he obtained Rhinosaurus during his stint in the Adventurer’s Crown, and even when Max Dirks had punched him so hard and so quickly that he had lost consciousness within seconds.

That’s when he had realized that he could not die today.

Max Dirks had become a fallen hero of sorts to the child, someone he sought to defeat with or without Chibimon. Dirks had managed to leave the child in intensive care for months, and in that time, Hsa could only think about how badly he wanted to leave Dirks in the same way the gunslinger had left him. If he died right now, on this hotel room floor, he would never see this dream come true. He did not just want to get up. He had to get up.

Hsa opened his eyes, his orbs filled with a black color that overtook the child’s natural azure blue. While his body still did not respond to orders, his head moved to the side, a determined stare thrown towards the man who sought to end him. As he watched the killer revel in this victory, four green tentacles began to rise up behind Lye from the floor itself. Even as the tentacles shout out with their tips pointed straight at the mercenary, Hsa’s eyes never once blinked. He just stared at his foe with the cold dead eyes of someone who no longer cared.

[Lye]

Lye loosed a sigh in the myriad of sounds building within the hotel. Voices sounded through the walls, agony sang from the boy, and the clank of the guard chanted through the window which stood open to the brisk night air. His hand danced as though commanding a puppet on strings, and the needles he lodged in Hsa earlier took to movement like stiff black maggots. The lack of interest was plain in his slumped posture and dull eyes, but the fist slamming into the hotel door jostled him from the display of the boy's final seconds.

"Open this door at once!" shouted the voice on the opposite side. The pounding lacked the metallic clunk of an armored guard.

"Can't you tell we are in the middle of something intimate?" Lye retorted with a sneer.

"I've summoned the guard! Cease what you are doing now!" It chimed back with a weak shudder of confidence.

"Almost done!" The assassin sang back, finding at least some amusement in the banter versus the slaying of a helpless child. "Now where were we?"

He returned his gaze to the sufferings of his prey. The boy's eyes ran dry. The writhing, screaming, and growing pool of life essence dwindled to a stop. Eyes closed and the only sounds Hsa produced came from wet slurps of steel in damp flesh.

"It is done," the killer remarked, loosing the shadow's grasp on the steel objects and dropping his hand from its puppeteering. The sounds of metal grieves booming against wooden flooring in rushed unison marked the inevitable arrival of the city guard. Their intimacy wasn't exactly of the silent variation. Lye took this as the moment his mission was over. The delusional Akashiman was dead, and there was a bounty to collect. The killer rose to his feet, the cold demeanor returning to his sinister features as he braced to collect his tools of the trade. His arm began to advance to the silent body when its eyes shot wide. He stepped back, looking into the black that presumably gazed back at him. The irises and the whites of the eyes were obsidian.

"Well, this is new," he jeered. The assassin felt the rush he had been waiting for and summoned his grip upon the twin blades at his back. They sang into the cool, evening air, and he braced for the combat he wished would soon follow.

"Open the door! This is the guard!" The resounding thud of steel on hardwood proved the statement to be true, but as the assassin offered a glance toward the disturbance, a much more unique sight commanded his attention. Verdant tentacles shot from where he sat directly toward him. Time was not in his favor and the sparks from these object meeting his blades were joined by scarlet mist bursting from both his shoulders. Two tendrils were halted and two others slammed into him with such force, he repelled into the wall beside the window. The wood at his back replied with a crack, sending a light rain of splinters around his form. The back of his head was no exception to the collision. His vision became a fog, and his hearing was reduced to a faint ring.

His legs struggled to support himself, and he weakly brought the blades back to the ready, red molasses flowing from two deep pits in each shoulder.

“It’s about time.”

[Chibimon Blue]

The tentacles that were hurt by Hsa’s mystery assailant seemed to disintegrate into nothingness once touched by the killer. The remaining tendrils were quickly joined by four more of the appendages, each one colored the same black hue of the Chibimon trainer’s eyes. The tips of the limbs each possessed a mouth with several rows of razor sharp teeth that glimmered in the moonlight much like a gold piece shines in the sun. The strange creatures hissed at the assassin and their forms bobbed and weaved several feet away from their ‘opponent’.

Beside the boy’s face was a black colored fish, each of the long tendrils attached to the aquatic animal. The fish itself barely moved, as if it were in the last seconds of death, but its limbs proved to be quite the contrary. This was an image Hsa had created with his mind, the evolved form of his beloved (albeit useless) Goldbish, the Drapegon. Hsa watched on as the creature stood at the ready, prepared to defend its master to the death.

The trainer tried to cheer for the creature, but found himself trapped, as if he were a prisoner watching through a glass cage. The beast sent out a mighty roar as chunks of the hotel door flew to and fro. The guards were trying their hardest to get into the room, even if it meant their bodies had to become live battering rams. The tentacles wrapped around one another, each mouth echoing a slight hiss that joined in an overall sinister kind of chorus. The tips of the tendrils flew towards the murderer, their many mouths opened wide to try and take a meaty bite out of their prey.

As Hsa waited with baited breath, a small image flashed before him. Even though he was surrounded by the dark recesses of his mind, a light shone upon a small children’s book. The cover was yellow, and the two monsters on the front were positioned to attack one another. Hsa approached the book closer, his eyes temporarily off of the battle outside his skull. He kneeled down and picked up the book as his eyes began to read the cover. He gasped and dropped the tome, shaking his head back and forth.

“No…” Hsa let out a small whisper at the sight of the book labeled ‘The Adventures of Chibimon: Book 1’.

[Lye]

Once again the music of chaos grew deafening in his ears. Guards began to beat down the door, and shouts of encouragement could be made out from those not currently participating. The assassin faced the boy and his creature with blades quivering in front of him. The urge to finally taste the thrill of what his boy had to offer tingled at the back of his neck and burned feverishly in his emerald watch. Unfortunately, the town guard wanted to going this engagement and a public group slaughter was not what he needed for his reputation.

"Damn," he swore aloud as the strange black fish sprouted numerous black appendages. Each one seemed to have a mind of its own and a set of razor sharp teeth to match. All the meanwhile the boy, somehow clinging to the verge of the living, stared upon the killer with black, dead eyes.

"Just when we were finally getting started..." slipped the words doused with venom toward the amassing collective assault. They lunged for him as the door began to signal it's final attempts to maintain privacy. Lye snapped the blades to his aid, but the reaction was sluggish. The tentacles crashed into the hardened bones of his rib cage. A lesser man would have been penetrated numerous times, but this warriors skeleton remained vigilant against the assault. Instead of becoming a living kabob, the force of impact pushed the assassin through the hotel wall into an array of debris upon the city streets.

The boy's power was shocking, and Lye managed to raise himself upon his feet. His client warned him, but experiencing such ferocity first hand could not compete with a description. Lye forced a grimace on his bleeding features, and immediately turned tail to the nearest alley. Fragments of wood made their presence known every time his muscles tensed to move him. A trail of blood marked his path until the shadows swallowed him whole and erased him from existence.

"Next time we meet, Hsa Elub, there will be no foreplay -- you will die..."

[Chibimon Blue]

The black fish disappeared the second the guardsmen entered the room. Hsa could hear the cries for help, and feel as the hotel staff and city guard alike picked his limp body up and carried him to receive medical treatment. He watched the whole scene play out, though his eyes once again shone with a hopeful azure rather than a grim ebony. He knew it was a matter of time before he was back on his feet, and in the time it had taken his monster to attack, Hsa had learned the truth.

The Magus Quartet, Chibimon Trainers, Arena Captains, they were all stories in a book from his childhood. Chibimon were nothing more than the overactive imagination of a young child who wanted so badly for his dreams to become reality that they did. Rhinosaurus, Servapour, even MysLight and Drapegon were just creatures written in one of his favorite bedtime stories. He stayed unconscious for days, forced to think about how many adventures he had been on, and why so many had offered him strange looks when he tried explaining things.

“Now do you understand?” Hsa’s eyes opened up. In a dark corner of the medical ward stood his smoking nemesis once more, a wide grin plastered upon his disgusting features. “Chibimon were never real. The reason you can create those beasts is because you have such strong psychic abilities. ‘Goldbish’ never evolved because you didn’t want him to; you wanted something more useless than yourself to represent all your inequities. Likewise, Rhinosaurus was your strength, MysLight your courage, and Servapour your intelligence. They were all you the whole time Hsa.”

“Don’t give me that,” the child coughed as the IV needle in his arm jerked and caused the boy’s body to shiver out of sheer muscle memory, “You sent that assassin after me. You weren’t trying to teach me a lesson. You were trying to kill me.”

“I only wanted you dead if you didn’t see the truth, Hsa,” The smoker took a toke from his cigarette, “I paid him, that’s fair enough, but what do you think happens when a damaged mind tries to repair itself?”

“What do you mean?”

The figure stepped out of the shadows, and the light shined on a familiar baseball cap, pants, and even shirt. He approached closer and Hsa could see into the endless blue eyes. It was like the boy was in front of a mirror. The smoker took one last puff and billowed a ring of smoke in the child’s face as he evaporated into the air.

“You and I are the same person…”

((End, if there was any bunnying, permissions were given for such on both accounts. Concluding post.))

[Max Dirks]

Great battle guys. It's a shame it had to happen in the Redemption Bracket. I'll be keeping commentary limited. LU is Lye and CB is Chibimon Blue.



LyeChibimon BlueNotes

Story
5
6
CB: I was very impressed by your improvement here. I only saw one point that did not flow with the rest of the battle, and that was when you had Hsa foresee his own death. Yes, I realize you were using it as a motif to set up his near death realization about Chibimon, but the battle coul have been just as good without it.



Setting
5
5



Pacing
5
5



Communication
6
6



Action
5
5



Persona
6
6



Mechanics
5
6
LU: You had a number of missed words and misspellings. Post 7 contains quite a few of them.


Clarity
5
6
LU: Your writing style, particularly when you open with a verb or adverb, tends to confuse the subject of the sentence. For example, when reading "[g]loved fingers unwrapped the object as he spoke and the speech halted in mid sentence." From reading this, the subject of the sentence "gloved fingers", "he" or "the speech". You probably meant "he", but it's still unclear.


Technique
6
5
LU: When I first read "[t]he boy that summons monsters out of thin air" I glazed over it. Only when I reached the end did I realize how this little piece of dialogue great foreshadowing. Was it intentional? If so, great work.


Wildcard
6
6


Total
Total
55/10056/100



Chibimon Blue wins

Chibimon Blue advances to Round 2 of the Redemption Bracket!
Lye, surprisingly, is eliminated.

Chibimon Blue gains 1100 EXP and 80 GP!
Lye gains gains 350 EXP and and 79 GP!

[Lye]

EXP & GP Added!

Chibimon Blue jumps to Level 3!