Redemption Bracket Finals: Zack Blaze Vs Roht Mirage

[Silence Sei]

The winner takes on Taste of Treason! Will our Smart Mouth youth once again prove superior, or will the Daughter of the Desert bury the Zack in her sandstorms?!

Match begins Tuesday, June 3rd at 12:01 AM Central Standard Time! Good Luck!

[Zack Blaze]

"I wonder what happens when you're thrown into an unfinished part of a citadel arena?"

Nobody really knew the answer to this question. Anytime someone entered the Citadel, they went into one of the preestablished rooms, or spoke of the exact kind of battleground they wanted. The legend went that the monks of the Ai'Brone could create one's wildest fantasies in an instant. Zack was always interested in this foreign magic, and it caused so many questions to fill the intelligent street fighter's head. Was its power drawn from the Tap? Was technology involved in its use? Could an immortal essentially die if they were locked in Citadel limbo?

It was these questions the youth sought to answer today. Through a series of distractions, Zack had managed to procure one of Citadel arena doors as somebody described it to their monk guide. The brawler made sure to slip in as the poor sap was still in description, so as he could see first hand exactly how the magic took place. Furthermore, he decided to bring Princess Agnie, sometimes friend and always Misery Business ally with him to this stage. He needed her talents in order to secure an opponent for the fight. If Citadel limbo really did curse one to an eternity of nothingness, Zack wanted to make sure the Ixian Knights lost one of their many valuable assets. Those guys were harder to kill than a cockroach with steel plates.

As soon as they entered the arena, Ags worked her magic by simply leaving through the door. Zack knew that the Princess' ability to link doors together would come in handy for his experiment. Once one of the dumb Ixians walked through one of the random doors in either their castle or caves, they would walk right into the open and ready arms of Zack Blaze. He didn't care if his foe was Jensen Ambrose, Talen Shadowalker, or even Arden Janelle, if he could cripple the self-righteous defenders of Corone by just eliminating one of their best guys, he would be satisfied. The fact that it would cause a mental blow to Kyla and Sei Orlouge did not hurt either.

He cracked his knuckles as he looked around. He stood on a balcony made of stone which lead to a short hallway. The hall in question was lined with various pictures of a noble on each wall. It stretched for about thirty feet before the white wash of the arena took over. At the very end of the hall was simply an alabaster void. As Zack stared into the white, he wondered for a minute just what laid beyond the Citadel walls. There was an enticing curiosity that overtook him. His body started to pace towards the ivory nothingness, almost mesmerized by it's simplicity. The sound of his feet upon the stone flooring jarred him back into consciousness, and he quickly turned around as a result.

"Just looking at the damn thing makes you want to go in it," Zack muttered as he managed to walk back to the stone balcony. Outside, the same white effect took over, though it gave more a feeling of insignificance than one of allure. Two large statues were half way 'built' below, and the pasty abyss seemed to claim everything on the decor from navel down. There was no kind of smell outside, other than the peach like fragrances Zack graced his form with. He turned back to look at the door that lead to the balcony, connected to a room that did not exist. It would be a close a close quarters match, just the way Zack Blaze liked it.

His body tensed as he heard the door open. It the moment of truth. The winner of this bout would leave the citadel intact while the loser found out just what horrors lie within an unfinished Citadel stage. Fists were balled and his body trembled. Zack took one last deep breath.

"For science..."

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle blinked, moaned, and rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?” she asked groggily.

“Almost time for your next match,” came the curt answer from the foot of her bed.

She lifted her head and tried to blink away the teary streaking of dusty Citadel light. No matter the room, no matter the light source, the building's air was always thick with lazy motes as if its natural state was one of isolation and neglect. How it could remain so tomb-like despite being Corone's most visited attraction was beyond her.

With another blink-yawn-rub routine, she cleared her eyes enough to see the shape of her attending monk. His robe betrayed the lines of a hunched back, and his hair an incalculable passagge of years. On the table before him were the tools of the Ai'Brone trade. She so rarely actually saw them, now that she thought about it. There were vials of disconcertingly blood-like liquids and bowls of metallic powders. In one bowl stood a short wand of aged and weathered bone. And was that a crystal? She pushed herself up on her elbows to get a closer look, but only caught an annoyed sideways glance from the monk. He shuffled to obscure his work station and silently finished capping and stowing his secrets. “You should know, Miss SetRoh, that we rarely tend to injuries incurred outside these walls,” he said as if he had just suffered a great burden.

Astarelle huffed quietly and lay back down on the thinly-padded bed. By the depths, they're all so grouchy.

“Bees, Astarelle?” came a voice from the door, “How did you manage that?”

She smiled. Except for that one.

“By being a sand-brain,” she admitted with a tone more demure than diminutive as she slide to a seated position on the bed. “It's actually an embarrassing story,” she added with a coy turn of the head and a slight swell of color in her desert-kissed cheeks. “Don't make me tell it, Hoak. Please.”

Against his Ai'Brone robe, Hoak brushed his hands then raised them in supplication. “I'm sure it is,” he said with a small chuckle that turned very wrinkle on his face into a laugh line.

The monk that had ministered to her -unnamed, like so many in the greying herd- coughed impolitely. She hadn't missed the tension that knotted his shoulders at the use of his sect-brother's name. “Are you taking her to the door?” he probed. His tone was dark; positively catty by Ai'Brone standards.

Hoak bowed shortly and answered, “Yes as I was ordered to, brother.” He managed to remain professional even if his eyes crinkled with some niggling concern.

The monk finished covering his powders and panaceas on the tray, then moved for the door without so much as a glance toward Astarelle. For Hoak, he paused only long enough to not collide with him. Then, he was through, leaving a disgruntled aura in his wake.

Astarelle stood from the bed and fidgeted her pale, high-laced blouse into unrumpled order. “That was... umm...” she started, only to lose the appropriate word when she realized that Hoak was still looking at the empty doorway. His brow told of worries more weighty than this single exchange. “Hoak?” she asked carefully.

The monk's face snapped to her, changing as starkly as if he had donned a smiling mask. “I arranged another Fallien arena for you,” he said brightly.

Astarelle heard some strain in the words. Yet, she couldn't help but return the smile just as brightly. In fact, she gave a small chirp of joy as she grabbed her staff from the wall, causing the blue ribbons upon its skyward end to flutter and flail about. “My good monk,” she chimed as she bounced over to him, “You are just wonderful!” She leaned in as if to give him a kiss on the cheek. He recoiled just slightly, a function of instinct rather than thought, it seemed. An awkward color flashed over his face, then to hers as if it was an airborne virus. Timidly, she kissed the air beside his ear, inches clear of any direct contact.

She rocked back onto her heels, hands shifting ever so slightly on the staff. Hoak's face resumed its earlier cheer, if strained. It didn't suit him. Their first meeting, by contrast, had left her with the impression that he was as sincere as they come. The change rubbed her nerves like gritty paper.

However, it seemed a mystery for another day. Fallien called to her with its golden, calming whisper.

~

Astarelle burst through the door with blouse laces loose and one shoe already half off her foot. A hand towed at one pant leg as she contemplated whether to roll them up to frolic through the sand or just rip the blasted fabric and go 'full savage'.

White glare blinded her at first – inevitable when one transitions from dusty Ai'Brone tomb to the brilliance of Fallien's dunes. She inhaled deeply, savoring the sharps smells of the desert. Only... she didn't smell anything. The absence made her huff and snort and paw at her nose as if the lack of scent created an uncomfortable pressure. She blinked bewildered eyes and looked around.

One thing was certain: There wasn't a stitch or grain of Fallien to be seen. The balcony she stood upon was the wrong style. The hall leading off of it was wrong as well, only made more glaring by the portraits of paler-than-pale nobles. Beyond the edge of both: white. Though, 'white' was too benign a word. It was a void, a disconcerting blankness. Against that backdrop, even the solid floor seemed dubious.

They always spoke of Ai'Brone illusions; the unreality beyond the doors. It was a very different thing to see the proof of that lie.

Of course, Citadel being what it was, she wasn't alone. A man with a leather jacket and hair of false red stared at her. Even his surprise couldn't overcome the smirk that seemed to be the permanent motif of his face. And here she was, half bent over with blouse partially unlaced, a pant leg hoisted in one hand, and a shoe halfway to being kicked free. With a ruby shade of wrestled composure tinting her cheeks, she clicked her staff against the expertly-masoned stone floor and stood. The pant leg draped into place. Her heel dove back into the shoe. Her blouse remained as it was, baring the plush lines created by the corset underneath.

She gave the stranger a critical eye and immediately distrusted him for the fact that his surprise seemed wholly for her, not the ill-formed arena. “What is this?” she asked with venom that wavered as soon as she heard her own voice. It sounded so loud against the overpowering un-noise of nothing.

[Zack Blaze]

“Astarelle Set’Roh. Awesome,” Zack’s body tensed at the sight of his opponent. He knew that Agnie was already sealing both doors so the ‘Sister of Sands’ would have no way to escape. Astarelle was something among a legend among the fighter’s community; the girl that came from nothing only to enter and subsequently win the Cell. Just that reputation alone was enough to send men of lesser spirit withdraw from a fight with the girl, who seemed to be nothing special.

I could not have asked for anything better! If I condemn her to this void, it will ensure the Ixians can not be trusted even with their strongest warriors! Zack’s fingers fidgeted and his brow lowered, his teeth a bright white that blended in with the backdrop before him. The fighter did not know much of the woman’s abilities, but knew not to underestimate her. He took in a deep breath,a breath that was much louder in the silence of their arena.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said among the quiet, “the name’s Zack Blaze, and it is my privilege--- nay, my honor to be the one fighting you today. I hope you find the arrangements more than adequate. The mansion once belonged to a man known as ‘The Duke of White Noise’, for obvious reasons. The man loved the color white and quiet so much that’s pretty much all this building was built on.”

Zack did not let on for a second that this was an elaborate deception on his part. The more comfortable Astarelle felt in the fight, the more likely she was to let her guard down, and the better the opportunity to sentence her to silent damnation. There was a bit of irony in the sense that one that followed ‘Silence’ Orlouge would now find herself sentenced to his namesake. All that was needed was a red haired spider to ensnare the Fallien fly into his web.

He approached her, each step as obvious and deliberate as possible. He had to make sure Astarelle was lulled into a false sense of security. The bottoms of his shoes scraped against the stone floor below and he hoped such sounds would be enough to distract her from the electric pops that sparked off of his hands. Once he was within an arms reach, he attempted to hug the girl, his palms on the flat of her back, and fill her with a surge of electrical energy that would leave her temporarily paralyzed.

She already looked like she got struck by lightning based on just her unkempt appearance alone. What was one more jolt to the sand bitch?

[Roht Mirage]

Zack Blaze. Zack Blaze. She remembered the name from one of the Ixian strategy meetings she had been roped into. The significance of the name, however, eluded her. She never paid attention during those blasted things.

What she did know was that he was a liar; a good one. His words had just the right amount of honey and the perfect presence that gave weight without being overbearing. It was enough to make one eye twitch. He was lying to her of all people, and she might even have believed him for a second. His logic ticked all the boxes, but the feel was off. The beyond-white and the hollow silence were not an eccentric Duke's choice of decor. They were symptoms of something unfathomable and so wrong that she just wanted out.

As Zack approached with his arms wide in effervescent greeting, she ran a hand over the door that had allowed her entry. The knob was gone, if it had even existed on this side at all. Bury me, she cursed as she took a heavy step back toward the archway leading into the hall. Her hand trailed off the etched stone of the Citadel door and onto the masonry of the mansion. Even that felt wrong as if its texture was shallow and unfinished.

The young man made his move; one that wasn't common on a battlefield, but any lady of the world knew it well. “Don't touch me!” Astarelle shouted into the opalescent depths. The staff rattled on the floor. Her hands flew wide, dark sand welling up from her sleeves to encase them. With freshly-formed gauntlets, she grabbed his hands and braced them away from her sides. The technique was automatic in close quarters, for the sand granted her control where her strength faltered. In this case, it also granted her insulation.

At first, she didn't realize what magic he was working on her. The sand simply grew hot against her palms. Her arms tingled, then twitched. She winced, drawing the corners of her mouth high and locking them there. Her gauntlets hardened around his hands, infusing her grip with the strength of iron. “You sun-scorched little trickster,” she said with a beautiful smile and a lilt from affection to ambivalence. There was a small measure of respect, yes, but it was dwarfed by a mountain of rage. And the mountain was shifting.

With a sharp scream, she shot one iron-plated toe upward between his legs. Her whole body flexed with the strike, ready to snap her foot down to kick again and again as long as she could keep him in the sandy grapple.

[Zack Blaze]

As she stepped back, Zack thought on his feet and transferred his electricity into the headphone conduit around his neck. The item did it's job and released the stored power like literal lightning in a bottle and made Zack a large body of high voltage currents. Astarelle would not know what hit her, but she proved quickly that Zack was not the only one capable of improvisation. A shield of glass tried to take her form as Zack embraced her with his his unique technique. She grappled at his hands and locked him in place, albeit temporarily, but then something quite strange happened, even for an arena filled with a blank, possible death-like purgatory.

The particles slammed into his body and popped like gnats into a flame. Quick sparks jolted from the boy's arms as small glass fragments flew at the girl. Several of the small crystals jutted out towards Zack as well, though the mastermind was quick to bob and weave his form out of danger. The corners of his mouth widened at the thought of revealing his true nature to the girl now. Flashes of his encounters with Kyla, Sei, and Ciato Orlouge passed through his mind, and it seemed their stupid get out of anything quick spell never wanted to leave the warrior's visage. "I heard you wanted to be a Mystic, Set'Rohlouge, but are you seriously imitating their stupid glass shield trick now? And here I was, thinking this was gonna be awesome."

He wanted to give in another good verbal jab but the leg of his opponent tried to bring the taunts to an early stop. Zack's eyes shifted down towards the attack as the street fighter blinked out of existence. Astarelle's blow met nothingness within the nothingness while Zack reappeared above the girl by a good ten feet. He extended his leg outwards as his form hurdled towards the girl thanks to the effects of gravity. He was ready to paint the white of the arena red with the wannabe Mystic's blood. A good foot to her face would be able to accomplish such goals with ease.

"Dynamic Entrance!" Zack exclaimed and hoped the girl did not have time to move. Even her meaningless mock Mystic maneuver could not save her from the one hundred and seventy pounds that cascaded don upon her lithe figure.

[Roht Mirage]

Bunny approved.
Glass struck her face and Zack disappeared. Shock left her speechless as a bitter and too-fresh memory stirred. Reflexively, she willed her staff to return to her hand – her nearly bare hand. She had no time to even comprehend what that meant when he announced his presence descending swiftly from above.

Astarelle forgot the staff as it bumped upright against her fingers. Her back swveled, her body instinctively trying to find the shortest route away from the impact. It was hopeless. His foot, in an apparently 'dynamic' manner, smashed into her upper chest. The corset didn't rise high enough to protect her, and her natural cushioning there -unlike certain ladies and fauns she had met in Corone- wasn't up to the task. She was slammed to the floor, spine then head striking in rapid succession. By some god or Thayne's blessing, the 'entrance' part of the maneuver failed. In fact, Zack didn't follow her to the floor at all except for some spittle and a breathless, “Oof!”

As she squinted against the unnatural sway of her vision, Astarelle found him above her. The staff was upright and partially hidden by his hands as he braced himself on it. He was still airborne, for it caught him in the abdomen as stalwartly as any living defender she had ever hidden behind. “Ha!” she barked once, immediately regretting it, and skittered back as quickly as her swimming senses would allow. Zack responded with a moan as he toppled to the side, barely landing on his feet.

A few paces away, Astarelle let her body assume a limp seated position and brushed a hand across her face. The pain was so familiar. Just hours earlier, she had suffered the wrath of a glass pane in order to steal a revolver. She had intended to keep it as her trump card should her Knightly pressures grow unbearable, even going so far as to implicate a teenage girl in something awful just to keep the theft a secret. Yet, in this moment, her only regret was that she left the gun behind. She had shown the girl that she wasn't a monster true enough, but she had also proven herself a fool.

Her hand came away adorned and bleeding with dark chunks of thick glass. Years ago, she had seen the same kind where lightning struck the desert. It explained where her sand had gone, as well as his insult. “You think I want to be a blasted Orlouge?” Astarelle spat at him as she struggled to her feet. With one hand, she held an imaginary gun and pointed it to the side of her head. A fake pull and kickback made her point. She stood with back curled, making her look manic and haggard. Blood etched faint lines down her face and bruised cleavage. “You ruined all my sand! All my bloody sand,” she said with venom as she raised two fingers, gathering what little remained into a short stiletto blade that bound them together. “For that, I will grant your wish. This will be... awesome.”

From the gap of her blouse, a stream of blue gem chips glimmered skyward in a line as if to mark the white void with stars. Then, on shaky legs, she ran at him. The tiny blade was held out from her side like the toy of a baby ninja; adorably nonthreatening. Yet, she smirked as if dragging a claymore behind her. She knew she was better than him. Her desert senses confirmed the proof within the porous staff.

Astarelle Set'Roh was a better liar.

[Zack Blaze]

The impact of the staff into his sternum allowed a loud gasp to escape the street fighter’s mouth. The strands of dark hair of Astarelle were spread out as if they were a cushion of the girl’s head. She was lucky her head did not bounce off the granite floor like a child’s ball, but Ixian Knights always did seem to have a ridiculous lucky streak. He pushed himself off f the weapon and gained some distance, his form several feet into the hallway now.

Astarelle got up and rushed, a rather unconventional move given the girl’s frail appearance and demeanor. Zack’s mind instantly snapped into action and thought of the many ways that the Fallien hussy could perform a feint attack. Sure enough, when Astarelle got close enough t deal a blow, a cloud of sand erupted around her. He could feel the small grainy particles in his eyes as he growled, electricity already in the palms of his hands.

“Lemme get this straight. Sand doesn’t work the first time, and you attack with sand -again-?! You’re dumber than a dark elf in Lornius, Set’Roh.” Zack coursed his lightning through his headphones once again and opened his eyes. The glass fragments flew out around him and cleared some space so the youth could see that Astarelle Set’Roh had disappeared.

The eerie silence of the arena came to be the girl’s fault, as her labored breaths gave away her position behind him. The boy knew he didn’t even have time to turn; if he were in her shoes, there would already be a sword through his foe. Zack grit his teeth and hoped the speed of his speech was faster than anything the Cell champion could manage.

“Makai!” Zack ordered as if the person in question were some sort of dog. He jumped forward as the ground below shook and and nearly knocked him to his hindquarters. The gray rock floor between the two warriors and a large black form broke out from underneath the arena. A picture fell to the ground and broke out of its frame. A painting of a man dressed in a regal blue general’s outfit atop a black steed slipped harmlessly to the ground. Chunks of gravel fell to the ground among the pieces of new glass. A black humanlike figure flew out from the newly created hole. His white sharpened teeth flashed through even the dust cloud created by Zack’s opponent.

In Zack’s place now stood the seven foot ogre known as Makai, his only garb a burlap loincloth over his groin. His nails were cracked and elongated, with all sorts of darkened grime underneath. Though the beast could not see much of anything through his own red eyes, his ogre mentality told him to just attack straight ahead. He reared back a fist as wide as a grown man’s chest and swung with the hope of a squishy chest at the end of the blow. The monster cared not if said squishy parts belonged to his master or whomever Zack was fighting.

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle let her short blade waft into stray grains as the freak's thick fist surged, struck, and sent her sprawling toward the severed end of the hall. Breath tried to return to her, her form shuddering as it did so. Bury me, she thought, for she could not speak, That was going so well.

The purposely haggard charge had confused him. As she passed her staff laying on the floor, its sand had flown to embrace her. Even the teleport using her pendant's gem chips had taken him by surprise. It would have been his undoing, but this man had the strangest tricks.

With a small cry, she tried to sit up. Her forearms screamed in pain, specifically, in searing internal lines where she had crossed them to defend against the unexpected fist. Bones were broken. They didn't protrude like jagged white plateaus -thank Roh- but they were destroyed all the same. Her cry was louder as she slumped back to the floor, her nerves screeching now that shock had worn off.

Through tear-streaking eyes, she craned her head enough to look down the hall and toward the balcony. Her sand had fallen in a wide carpet around her staff. It stirred, then surged into a desperate frenzy, leaving the staff as an empty sarcophagus. Past Zack Blaze and his monster, the sand flew, whispering across the floor and unseating murals from their settings. Nearly a dozen pale, pompous faces fell and broke in succession, glass spraying in the annihilation of each. Like wreckage on a mammoth wave, the glass rode the sand. The two combined to form a blend of gold and clear, razor edges too numerous for the eye to track. Unmindful of those edges, ignoring how they cut into her skin, Astarelle wrapped her arms and hands. Sand seized into a glittering, toothy cast over each forearm, and the fingers were left free to move, for now. By the depths did it hurt to move them, though.

With renewed stability, Astarelle skittered to her feet. Her breath seethed through clenched teeth. “Bury me,” she voiced weakly as she realized that she was only two paces from the division between stone hall and absolute nothing. Her eyes snapped back to Zack. “Congratulations! You've beaten one of those stuck-up Ixian jihtas. You're such a strong man. We'll see, though, how strong you are when all of us come after you; hunt you like you hunted me. When I'm brought back...”

Behind her, the white space whispered with all the comforts of oblivion. It was a far sweeter sound than she wanted to admit. She had to stop her feet from shifting backward. If I'm even brought back, she realized. The death looming behind was unlike anything in the Citadel. That must have been Zack's plan: Consign the Ixian Knights to oblivion, one at a time.

With one shaking, golden hand, she reached into the neckline of her blouse and pulled out the pendant that had been laying askew, then dropped it. It bounced sharply over the laces and the bruising below. The gem chips that had flown free before her charge were back in their setting. Perhaps he would see that and solve the riddle. She didn't care. Once more, at her whim, the outer ring of gem chips fell upward and skimmed the ceiling in a glittering line.

“Come get me,” she demanded sharply as she crooked her hands at either side. Her fingers were curled wretchedly with pain, but she would ignore it if she had the chance to get her sand and glass-studded gloves on him.

[Zack Blaze]

“The light in your head just turned on now, Set’Roh?” Zack turned around and shrugged his shoulders. The girl’s revelation would not change what wa to happen. He would still knock her into the nether and see if the desert’s daughter would be able to recover from such a blow. He could not see the girl over the large form of Makai, who now casted a dark shadow over the street fighter.

He walked over to the hole created by his subordinate and looked down at the picture that had fallen moments earlier. The duke in the picture seemed oddly familiar to the boy, and the horse held some sort of resemblance as well. He shifted his attention back over towards where he thought his foe was, and leapt over the gap in like a child in a game of hopscotch.

Now that he stood beside his giant slave, he could feel the body heat that emanated from the beast. The small bits of brown sand that stuck to the ogre were more pronounced, just as any color in this arena seemed to be brighter by comparison to all the white. Astarelle had once again formed some sort of weapon out of whatever sand that was not glass at this point, and begged for the boy to come after her.

He leered backwards, his gaze moved towards the entrance that Makai made. Zack opened his mouth for a moment as if he were about to ask the monster about his sudden arrival, but thought better of it for now. Makai was not a patient beast, and since he obviously had no regard for Zack’s life given his sudden attack, silence was more of a valued commodity to the street fighter.

“The Ai’Brone are a mysterious bunch. They like to keep secrets and I dislike not being in the know.” Zack reached into his pocket and took out a hand full of nothing. His hand molded around the air as if he were in possession of a ball of some sort. He ‘bounced’ the imaginary toy up and down as his head moved up and down to follow the invisible movements. “Secrets are power, Set’Roh, and I prefer to be the one in control. In fact, I know the reason why you’re sticking with the knights as opposed to being a lone wolf.”

His eyes moved to meet hers, a grin across his features. “What do you think would happen if someone were to eliminate those ties you have to the Ixian Knights? What would you do if someone just up and killed all those kids whose freedom you struggle for? What if someone who could say, teleport wherever the hell he wanted, decided to pay the little Fallien fleabags a visit?”

He would not give her time to answer, for he threw down the non existent ball as hard as he could towards her. With luck, she would play into his hands and expect some sort of unseen projectile to hit her at any moment. It was the distraction he needed to once again disappear and reform at her side, his body crouched and ready to deliver his final blow. His right fist engulfed itself in flame as he rose up hand first. Zack Blazes uppercut was always something people remembered when they watched his fights and today would be no exception.

The scene stealing uppercut would also steal the show.

[Roht Mirage]

Astarelle fell for it. Unbalanced by his knowledge of her semi-adopted street children living in Ixian Castle, and expecting another ridiculous trick, she moved to catch what might have been a projectile. Pain flared just from spreading her fingers. Her feet shifted, one bracing very close to the edge in spite of herself. She simply had no time to think, and the void seemed to pull at her subconscious with a numbing, comforting song.

The invisible ball came and went, leaving her unharmed and unmoved. She barked a laugh sharply in his direction. In a blink, he was gone. She thought he had hidden behind the shovel-faced brute again, but he was so much closer. Her eyes twitched down just in time to see his obnoxious smirk – boyish yet diabolical, and brimming with dangerous potential. Then, his fist erupted upward into her jaw. She almost blacked out for a moment. Her sand left her, its collected glass tinkling against the floor. Farther down the hall, her gems chips also fell, lifeless. How her Farohtian senses could still work while her physical ones were bludgeoned into uselessness, she didn't know. But, it was those senses that first told her how this battle would end; had ended. The sand and gem chips were moving away, or her from them.

Her eyes cracked open in that direction. The arena lay just beyond her feet, shrinking rapidly. It already looked like a destructed doll house. She could still see into the hall, as apparently even gravity ended at the white threshold, and she had flown upward and horizontally... for all the good directions would do as she drifted away.

“Drift away,” she said numbly, feeling the weight of eternity crush upon her. It was over, and the ending might just last forever. She wanted to scream. Somehow, her jaw did not ache as much as she expected. By all rights, she could have screamed her breath out. However, a tranquillity was seeping into her. She no longer had to worry, it whispered. She no longer had to even breath. It was just so much habit left over from a physical world. The whiteness stole her sight, her pain. It balmed her in silence.

Not yet, she thought meekly. Then, again with greater force to honor twelve-or-so feral children. Not yet! She reached out with senses that the void could not stiffle. She felt her sand, her gems, and the footprints of Zack Blaze. He was the enemy she never wanted, just as she hadn't wished to become caretaker to urchins and a bloody Ixian Knight to boot. Though, if she had to choose, by the depths was it obvious.

Her fingers brushed the pendant that swayed weightless before her. She could barely feel the pain, now. “If you saw the Cell, bastard, you'd know how blasted stubborn I am,” she hissed. With the pendant cupped in her palm, she held it toward the shrinking arena and reached out, embracing the power of her birthright.

In the hall, the grains of sand shivered like a thousand questing hands. And amid them, the gem chips began to tumble.

[Zack Blaze]

The street fighter placed a hand over his eyes and whistled at the airborne form of Astarelle Set'Roh. His punch delivered its intended effect and the girl was now on a path towards the nothingness at the end of the hall. As she flew, pictures rattled themselves off of the studs that held them, and glass cases shattered upon the picture frame collisions. Zack winced as the girl disappeared from his view, and shook his head as she spoke something too far away for the warrior to hear.

"That was a nasty slice. I really need to get back to the clubs and improve my swing," He snickered at the mention of the elitist club of Misery Business back in Berevar. His associates would no doubt be proud that he added yet another Ixian Knight to his list of victims. He stretched his arms out and placed his headphones upon his ears as Makai's voice was drowned out by the padding provided by the device.

He should have left those damn things off.

As he turned, several pieces of what appeared to be a gem launched themselves at Zack. His eyes winded as the shards flew his way, reformed into some crystal, and slammed into his stomach. The hit quickly reminded the manipulator of the damage that the 'Fallien Flower' delivered unto his on body. He let out a raspy breath and began to shout out Makai's name, only for the ogre and the entire room to disappear in an instant. As strange as it seemed, all the boy could feel was emptiness, as if he saw his life meant nothing but a hundred times worse. His body slacked and floated in the air like he were afloat on a river. It was not as if he couldn't fight this feeling, he knew that he could. He just did not have the drive t do so. Every bit of fight that Zack Blaze was known for disappeared from his personality altogether.

Astarelle was there for only a brief moment. When Zack first arrived there was still a boy full of piss and vinegar at heart. He had slammed his fist as hard as he could into the woman's face, only for her to slip away as gently as a leaf floats along a stream. She disappeared from his vision, probably with the same apathy he now seemed t have. He wondered how long he had been adrift in this cream colored purgatory. Here, there was no perception of time. His whole form felt as if it were doing ten different things back to back only to discover three hours passed in what felt like the span of thirty minutes, only he wasn't doing anything.

As he floated, images filled his mind. He could see snippets of history as though he witnessed them seconds ago, but there was always an askew detail or two. He saw the great Corpse War of Althanas, only with the elven people allied alongside the evil necromancer Xem'Zund and his ilk. He watched as the name 'Orlouge' was spoken in legend as the underdog who defeated the great Max Dirks, only the first name of said Orlouge was 'Ciato'. He saw the mustached man again, atop a throne of bleached white skulls, his black shoes tainted a dark crimson and the familiar ebony steed at his side, held by its reigns.

That last vision was the most vivid to Zack, so much so that he could even remember the words spoken in the implanted memory. A woman whose body was made completely out of mushrooms stood before the Duke that Zack created on a whim any minutes ago. He knew it was a woman, though he did not know why he was so confident in this fact. "My Lord, just as you predicted, the last vestige of Orlouge's rebellion was crushed. We've won. Today is a great day for the Order of the Crimson Hand."

"Ha," Mr. Mustache scoffed and waved at plant figure and still sat slack acrss his throne as though nothing entertained him, "Tell me something I don't know, Madison. Ciato really thought his brother would be his saving grace, but it turned out to be his greatest weakness. They should have known better than to deal with Duke of White Noise. Now perhaps I can live in quiet contemplation."

The mushroom girl nodded and sunk away into the whiteness of the faux flashback, "As you wish, Lord Blaze..."

Zack's body sprang up from the ground at the last words. He was back in the large halls of the Citadel, Ai'Brone monks all around his form. They all tried to ask him questions that he subsequently ignored. The void, as it turned out, was not a portal to nothingness, and whatever Astarelle did, the desert bitch seemed to have the last laugh on the street fighter. He balled both of his hands into fists, the top of his lip raised into a twitchy scowl.

"What....the hell... was that...?!"

[Roht Mirage]

“You-”

The word floated off into the void, diffusing until Astarelle couldn't be sure she had spoken at all before Zack's fist struck her. She could feel the cruel intent in it, but there was no pain. It was the limp, ineffectual punch one throws in a dream. Her dream or his, she didn't know anymore. After some thought, though, she reasoned that it was her's, because he had drifted into the white-washed nothing like just another figment of her imagination.

You wanted Ai'Brone secrets? Wallow in them.

Other figments replaced him, visions of what had been. She saw flashes of the Corpse War, the battles between Raiaera and Alerar, even the War of the Tap. A distannt thought told her that, before entering the void, she knew nothing of these events aside from their names. Yet, she understood them all in a single momment as if between her ears had been planted a history book, and a used one at that. She could feel the edits; blacked-out text and notes scrawled in the margins. Astarelle knew, somehow, that the undead scourge had not swarmed into Alerar. So, why could she so clearly see Xemzund leading his horde across the border? And with a brute of a man at his side. That man's axe had carved a path for Xemzund's conquest. She knew this, and this alone. In the glut of information, he was nothing more than an eraser smudge, a residue on the page of history.

There were other men like him, blank faces in the bared expanse of time. On them hinged what could have been, for good or ill, a multitude of different pasts - and by extension, a million todays. Some of the possibilities surprised her. One in particular rattled her forced composure, nearly breaking her from it.

Suddenly, a rough hand stole her attention. It seized the front of her blouse and jerked on a body that, all at once, she remembered owning. “How did you do it, girl?” growled a mountain of a man, his shoulders wide enough to lift the world, his bald head pristine and an unreachable height above. The lines of his face twisted into craggy, wrathful plateaus.

“I didn't-” Astarelle sputtered, fumbling her tongue. The inquisitor's other hand palmed her forehead, pressing hard against her divine mark. Thick fingers wrapped her skull and applied a force that wasn't physical, yet she felt he might break her open all the same. She could feel the flow of information change. “Stop,” she sobed quietly. The torrent that had bestowed to her all the histories that could have been was used to draw out all of her's that had. She shuddered. Her mind was naked, her secrets displayed shamefully.

The man's cold Ai'Brone gaze read her, nearly tearing the pages. He saw her blessed birth, her childhood in the temple, her eventual escape from a life she never chose. And through it all, he saw the hidden city of Faroh, Fallien's last living remnant from before the Breaking. He ripped out all the secrets she would have kept to her grave, even if she never wanted to return home. Worst of all... his response. Nothing. The most preciously-kept secret in Fallien's history was painted before him, and he just looked onward for the one piece of information he sought.

“Zack Blaze.” His voice was a mountain slide that threatened to forever echo in the void.

Somewhere, Astarelle heard the sound of a door creaking open. She tried to curl into herself, not wanting any witnesses as her deepest thoughts were riffled through and found wanting.

“Astarelle?” came a familiar voice. She jerked, yearning for the familiarity, yet feeling all the more exposed in front of one who knew her.

“Brother Hoak,” the mountainous Ai'Brone thundered. His face twisted with some dark emotion. She thought it might be humor, but he certainly wasn't laughing. “Take your pet from here. If she scurries into the walls again, we will take measures.”

Astarelle was flicked like a mote of dust. Her body reeled with force that the monk had barely twitched on imparting it to her. In a rush of sound -wind outside her ears, renewed heartbeats within- she was back in the hall of the Citadel. Hoak caught her. Some time ago, she had thought his grip as strong as iron. Now, in comparison, it was willowy and waif-like.

“Are you okay?” he asked over the squeal of the door closing on its own accord. He helped her to stand on legs that had resigned themselves to obsolescence.

Astarelle blinked against the dusty air of the Citadel's bowels. The high hall stretching in both directions, utterly abandoned, felt suffocating. “I saw,” she said, forcing her tongue to obey, “The last thing I saw was-”

“Forget what you saw,” Hoak snapped. It had the force of an ultimatum, but the undercurrent of a heart-felt plea.

“I can't.” Astarelle countered. She feebly tried to push herself away from him. The other memories were beginning to fade. But, that last one, the one that had nearly broken the void's serenity, was permanent. She need only close her eyes to see a younger Hoak -full head of hair, face lined with only determination- standing over the body of a woman in white. Fresh blood dripped from a blade in his hands. Beside him, a fallieni woman smiled. Her hand lay affectionately on his shoulder, and her lips parted as if to offer gratitude. Yet, her eyes were heinous and wrathful as she looked down at the body. Hate carved lines into her brow... a brow marked by a familiar symbol. In the history that was, Astarelle was the first and only Farohtian priestess to leave the golden city's veil. She was sure of it; or had been sure.

“For her...” she said accusingly as she escaped Hoak's arms and stood on quaking legs. “For her, you killed the Jya of Fallien.”

Hoak looked down at his feet. He clasped his hands over his robes and took a deep breath, straining for Ai'Brone calm.

“But, I know that didn't happen. So... you couldn't have.” Astarelle finished, her anger fading into a meek, confused question.

“You are correct,” Hoak said without even the warmth of their first meeting, “I did not.”

[Zack Blaze]

Zack grabbed a handful of different colored pills offered to him and quickly threw them down his throat. He reached for a drink with which to swallow his medication and easily wrapped his digits around a clear glass. As he drank the beverage, he wondered where his opponent fled to, and who exactly fashioned that arena. Before the boy could finish his drink, he was pulled up from his position on the ground, and upon his feet in an instant. The monks that surrounded him seconds before had now dispersed back to their everyday activities, and beside the boy was an all to familiar face.

The crooked nose and dark shades of Robert Uccisore, Vice-President of Misery Business Incorporated tugged the arm f the street fighter. While it seemed as though the employer exerted little effort in the motion, Zack felt as though his shoulder nearly ripped out of its socket. He yelped, which brought him back into the attention of several Ai'Brone. He waved them off as though he were a kid who performed a foolish prank.

"I swear, they're like reverser buzzards," he mumbled through grit teeth, "you're dying and they'll kill one another just to get to you. Anyways Robert, what the hell are you doing here? Were you expecting me?"

"I was," the cryptic Robert answered, "when I heard about your experiment from Agnie, I knew danger was sure to follow you. It always does. When Makai came back to the base and you weren't with him, we worried more. So I came to the Citadel to look for you and beat some sense into you. What the hell were you thinking Blaze, taunting the Ai'Brone magics like that? You could have been killed, and then we would have had t waste more money finding another valuable asset."

To Robert Uccisore, the bottom line was always the most important factor.

"Sorry," Zack said as if he were a child that got scolded, his apology half-hearted, "but there was something odd about that place. I made up this whole elaborate story about a Duke and when I entered this void, it turned out the story was true, and the Duke was me. Figured it musta been a dream, too many late night pies with Makai or something. Anyways, if you know the story then maybe you can tell me whose fantasy I side-stepped into?"

Robert paused and Zack slammed into the bulky man's grey suit and almost fell to his butt again. Robert had turned around, his glasses half way down his face. Zack could see into the sea of blue and yellow that made up his employer's eyes with ease, and it sent goosebumps down his spine. "Listen to me Blaze, you do not need to g track that person down. She is dangerous, a huge liability t the company, and if you go searching for her, she may very well bring an end to Misery Business as we know it. She fancies herself a soothsayer and as big a boast as such a thing is, I've never seen her proven wrong. Leona Stevvains is one box you do not want to open."

"Phrasing," Zack said with a smile which was returned in kind by the shaded man. Their footsteps echoed through the citadel hallway as if they were two normal warriors on their way to the exit. The inquisitor would find no trace of Zack, Misery Business would see to that. However, behind the youth's playful facade was now an unquenchable curiosity. How did this Stevvains woman know that Zack would be in the Citadel at that exact time? How could she possibly time her speech to coincide with when Zack entered the door? His eyes moved to Robert's bare neck and saw sweat beads roll down the strange man's skin. The mere thought of this woman sent a man who could easily overpower Zack Blaze in a state of worry. That could have only meant one thing.

Leona Stevvains the soothsayer was someone worth looking into. It was this single thought that stopped Zack from his one man crusade against the house of Ixian, and his own self-righteous ego. In a sense, Leona Stevvains saved Zack Blaze from drowning in his own hate for the protectors of Corone by giving the boy a brand new target to acquire...

((Had this written last night, but when I hit reply, the site had already shut down. This was at 10:36 my time. All bunnying in this thread was approved.))

[Max Dirks]

Interesting battle, but it fell somewhat short of expectations. Your respective introductions and conclusions felt detached from the battle, which prevented me from giving you higher story & pacing scores respectively. While it's clear that you both had a higher overarching storylines, the inclusion of the your NPCs was also distracting. Your conclusions made the battle and your previous character interactions seem insignificant. In other words, they were very anticlimatic. As for writing, Zack missed alot of "o's" due to his keyboard issues. His choice in sentences was also bizarre in the beginning of the battle. For example, "...other than the peach like fragrances Zack graced his form with" in post 2. Don't end a sentence with a preposition. Roht's writing was clearer, but was still riddled with run-ons. "Breath tried to return to her, her form shuttering as it did so" in post 8 should have been written "Her form shuttered as her breath tried to return to her." Note passive v. active writing.
As you are veterans, commentary is limited.

Please note: even though Sei was given ample warning of the shutdown, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. His report coincides with the time I shut down the site.

Roht Mirage

Story- 5
Setting- 5
Pacing- 5
Communcation- 5
Action- 5
Persona- 5
Mechanics- 7
Clarity- 6
Technique- 5
Wildcard- 5
Total- 53/100

Zack Blaze

Story- 5
Setting- 5
Pacing- 4
Communcation- 5
Action- 5
Persona- 5
Mechanics- 6
Clarity- 5
Technique- 6
Wildcard- 5
Total- 51/100

Roht Mirage wins!

Roht Mirage is bumped to the Winner's Bracket for a rematch against Taste of Treason.
Zack Blaze is eliminated.

Lye will add rewards shortly.

[Lye]

Roht Gets:

2,100 EXP
70 GP

Zack Blaze Gets:

600 EXP
35 GP

Points added.