Bare Knuckle Brawl (Open)

[Bloodrose]

Open to one other. Weapons at your discretion.

"So we're clear on the rules then?"

"We're clear on your suggestions, yes." The monk sighed and took Teric's sword belt when it was offered. "But again, I can't force someone to give up their weapons. If your challenger does not wish to comply, it is not within my power to stop them."

"Do me a favor and try." Teric stripped to the waist, rolling his shirt and mail into a ball before tossing them to the monk as well. For a split second he hesitated to pull the dirk from his boot, but ultimately he tossed that aside as well. Can't exactly expect someone else to follow my rules if I can't do it myself.

"You're all out of favors here, I'm afraid." The monk didn't sound angry, but resigned. Teric's relationship with the Ai'Brone over the years could be described as strained at best, but that was a polite way of saying that they would have banned him from their grounds long ago...

If it was within their power.

"Don't lose my stuff." Teric clapped the monk on the arm so hard the man stumbled. That brought a glimmer of a smile to the mercenary's face, and then he turned and stepped through the waiting door...

The sailors in the Outlander's Quarter called it "The Cistern"; a brick well thirty paces across and a dozen or so deep. The walls were rough and uneven, the mortar long dry and cracked. The floor bare sand. In the distant past it had been built beneath the tavern of the same name to store water out of the harsh Fallien sun. Like most wells in Fallien, however, this one was constantly dry. For years afterwards, in place of water, the well held a different sort of refreshment.

"Fight!" A disembodied voice called out. Above the walls of the cistern was a wooden catwalk, offering anyone leaning over the rail a birds-eye view of the pit below. The magics used by the Citadel to build arenas from the imagination of its inhabitants did well with scenery, but the phantom spectators populating the rail were another matter. They appeared hazy and incomplete; as if seen from a great distance. The shapes and colors gave the impression of people, but focus your eyes on any one shape and it became just a vaguely humanoid splotch of color.

Ghosts. Teric thought sullenly as he threw a couple of warm-up jabs. In his youth he had spent a year in the Quarter competing in all manner of bloodsport. A year of youthful, willful ignorance. Every coin earned had disappeared in a bettor's purse or the bottom of a bottle. For a time he had revelled in the cheers of those nameless, shapeless faces hanging above. There was something about the way your name sounded when the crowd screamed it, urging you on. That was why he was here.

Some might have called it sentiment. Teric was willing to settle for nostalgia. Whatever his particular motivation for walking into the Citadel that evening, the mercenary was keen on one thing. He really wanted to punch something...

[Zack Blaze]

“Really guys, there’s absolutely no need for all this formality,” Zack said as the armed guards before him followed just a couple of paces behind him. While the Aleran forces were grateful to the street fighter for his aid in the battle against Stinky the dragon, the emerald eyed warrior was still a war criminal. The country treated Zack with special permissions, including but not limited to regular use of the Citadel’s facilities. It was a liberty Zack took to like a fish to water in lieu of a normal exercise routine.

He was not allowed his sword, and even the fists of the brawler were registered as too dangerous to not be shackled. His wrists were bound with the metal links of handcuffs and he walked down the hall of what seemed to be endless doors. He sighed as he looked overhead at the doorframe themselves and noted that the rooms that met its opponent requirement glowed with a strange aura above them. This was a feature few people realized when they went for their fights, but the subtle change was not lost on the savvy manipulators eyes.

When he finally came across a door that did not seem to glow with the same purple hue as the others, he turned to his well-dressed guardsmen. He shifted his imprisoned wrists to the authorities, one of the twin elven guards reaching into his coat pocket and taking out a small bronze key. Once the key was placed into the hole of the handcuffs, Zack waited for the second armed official to remove the cuffs themselves, which came all too quickly. Zack nodded his appreciation to his stone-faced guardians, who merely kept their stoic faces even as the human turn around and entered the door before him.

When he appeared ten feet or so from his opponent a cloud of dust and debris kicked up from the ground. He could hear his name being chanted, almost moaned, from overhead. As he looked up and saw his spectral spectators, the youth could not help by smile at the concept; the thought that even in death, the compulsion to watch two people tear one another apart still drove the spirits. His shifted his gaze downwards now towards his opponent and once Zack took in every single visible wrinkle on the older fighter’s face, his smirk transformed into a full on grin.

“I see the theme for today is either dead or dying,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “there are easier ways to commit suicide than facing me old man. I hope you’re aware of that. Should we wait for the dust to settle so your lungs don’t beat me to the win, or do you think you can stand up long enough for me to knock you down?”

He scratched the back of his head and waited for the man to reply. Or die. Honestly, Zack had no idea which would happen first.

[Bloodrose]

"Someone's mommy didn't teach them how to address their elders." Teric noted, coolly. As recently as a couple of years ago he might have tried to correct the boy, teach his fellow warrior a lesson about the importance of respect. Teric was old-school like that. After a while though, it had become apparent that teaching was not one of the skills in the sellsword's wheelhouse. He was no role model to be followed. Of fatherly wisdom he had even less to offer; his only likely progeny being the untold bastards born of one night stands or less than careful whores. Really the only lessons Teric cared to impart these days were those of the "dead or dying" variety, and those were best learned the hard way.

This one's too young to know about any of that, really. Teric reflected. Look at him. He's got his whole life ahead of him.

The mercenary made a point of flexing. It was a less than subtle gesture, but subtlety was not the point. Old and worn as he might be, forty years of practice at physical combat had honed the Salvaran into a truly deadly specimen, and his musculature was the most blatant indication. Young and brash though he might be, this newcomer to Teric's arena was of a similar height and build. Like looking into a mirror, not even a brash youth could deny what was right in front of them. To often upon visiting the Citadel, Teric had found, did the fight get off to a slow start on account of brave talk and chest thumping. This time, he would much rather show than tell.

"Don't worry. I'll teach you."

The blink of an eye was all it took for Teric to flit from one spot to the other. Where before he had stood a good five paces in front of the newcomer, his new location was behind and just to his opponent's left. The distance he could travel in such a fashion was limited, but in this case it proved far enough to be useful. Quicker than a younger man might expect, the warrior pivoted in a cloud of sand and shot straight at his foe, closing fast with his arm already coiled for an explosive punch. A younger man might have swung for the fences, aimed high and gone for the knockout strike. The head was a smaller target, though. Better to aim for the bigger, meatier torso and hope to break a rib or send a jolt through the kidney.

One thing fighters always seemed to learn the hard way. Body shots could be just as devastating as any blow to the head.

[Zack Blaze]

The blow came from out of nowhere and completely caught the youth off guard. When Teric’s knuckles slammed into the back of the younger street fighter Zack nearly bit through his tongue from the sudden jolt. His whole body felt as though it had an electrical current run completely through him. His seemingly fragile form flew through the air, a move that would make most audiences gasp, cheer, or boo for the clever and sneaky move.

Their audience gave no such respite. Instead, the blurred apparitions looked on in silence as though they were judged for the bout rather than fans. Even when Zack twisted his body around through the air, his face now a stern wall as he looked at his older foe, the ghosts kept to themselves. The green eyed brawler felt the stones of the well’s wall upon the flats of his sneakers and wasted no time in using the rustic scenery as a launch pad.

The momentum from his opponent’s blow gave him enough inertia that even when he bent down and kicked off the dry blocks, it provided him with enough time to shift once again. He moved his lower body back towards Teric, his foot aimed to slam into the veteran fighter’s chest. This technique, which Zack dubbed the ‘Dynamic Entry’, was powerful enough to plow through a building if aimed correctly.

A small trickle of blood began to seep out of the blonde warrior’s mouth, a sure sign that this was not the last time crimson would leave his body this day. There was a scowl on his face mostly because he finally realized how much of a pain it was to face another teleporting combatant. He wiped the blood from his features as he kept his gaze upon his elder.

“Turnabout’s fair play, old man!”

[Bloodrose]

Sorry for the delay!

Too soon! Teric thought, kicking himself. His opponent was similar in size and stature to himself, but when his first blow struck home with enough force to send the man flying, the mercenary feared the fight was over before it really began. There were few enough who could compare in terms of sheer speed, and it seemed this young buck was not one of them. After being lucky enough to find himself with an opponent seemingly willing to play by his rules, Teric feared he had ruined it by going to one of his more potent tricks to early. So it was relief then, and perhaps a twinge of admiration, Teric felt when his opponent pirouetted in the air. The boy turned and launched himself back off the wall with more grace and power than seemed possible, and in an instant Teric's fear was replaced with the steadfast knowledge that he would get the fight he wanted.

Teric crossed his arms in front of his chest and ate the kick already knowing it was likely to hurt. The younger man hit like an angry mule, and the force of the blow knocked Teric clean over. Dust filled the air as he somersaulted backwards along the floor. Rolling onto his front, hands and feet scrabbling for purchase, the veteran drew long furrows through the sand as he slid to a stop. He came up on all fours, more sand and dust flying as he lunged forward and came streaking back towards his opponent.

Covered head to toe in dust and sand, with a sore arm and a sore chest, his heart pounding like a drum in his ears, Teric aimed a haymaker at his foe's bloodied mouth and smiled.

[Zack Blaze]

The sound of his opponent’s body as it met the ground echoed throughout the hollowed well. The street fighter quickly landed upon his feet as he watched his strange foe land on hands and heels alike. The waylaid warrior's rebound created a large blanket of grainy debris, dirt, and dust. A smirk found itself upon the youth’s face as he jumped back and forth, hands raised in anticipation of a counter attack.

“Get used to it, geezer,” he threw a couple of quick jabs into the air as the form of his unnamed rival faded into the cloud, “don’t want to put you in a wheelch—“

The old man broke through the crowd with a fist at the ready before Zack could even finish his phrase. The youth’s eye squinted as they tried to keep their focus on the veteran blur, his right shoulder placed in front of his face for protection. When his opponent’s fist found its mark, Blaze could hear the familiar sound of a freshly cracked bone. He bit his teeth and growled out an expletive. The fracture was small, he knew that much since movement was only barely hindered, but such knowledge did not stop the blow from hurting like all get out.

The force of this mystery man’s hit sent the Misery Business employee a few feet backwards, and tore through the cloth of the boy’s jacket. Shreds of what were once the shoulder area to Zack’s green wardrobe drifted harmlessly down to the ground, and left the bare skin of his shoulder exposed. A large purple whelp as large as the shoulder itself was already formed, and it throbbed in sync with the brawler’s achy mouth and rapid heartbeat.

He leapt back into the action with no quips, his eyes still narrowed as though his sole focus was now the elderly man’s defeat. He lifted his hurt arm into the air as though he planned to mirror the action of his enemy, but quickly ducked when he got within a striker’s distance of the grizzled geezer. His strike with the right hand was a feint, a hopeful ruse that would lull the man into a false sense of security. He came up quickly with his left instead; a massive uppercut that Zack felt was destined for the chin of the seasoned geriatric.

Secretly, he hoped his Scene Stealing Uppercut would launch the old fogey into the catwalk above, and disperse their spectral surveyors as well. Zack was almost as sick of their judgmental eyes as he was of the tenured fighter’s tenacity.