The flip side (open to one and all)

[Moonlit Raven]

Disclaimer

This thread is simply to make things fun. Not every battle has to be life or death. Exaggeration of abilities, physical and mental attributes, spoofing your own character is the name of this game.

To the next three people that enter. Create an arena of your choosing, fun, spooky, weird and down right odd will do. Make it something that will reflect a mockery of your char or yourself. If you are the four or fifth or millionth person to join you're outta luck. :p Have fun and come play with me! :D

The glances of the orange robed monk walking before me were beginning to annoy me, and if I were completely honest, to creep me out too. What was that smirking gleam in his eyes for? I just knew something was up, after all every other time I had visited the monks were silent, but nice in an aloof manner.

I had a moment’s warning, my nerves shrieking in alarm as I stepped into a hazy violet light. Skidding more than stopping I fell, landing on the ground, looking up at the robed man standing near my outstretched legs. For a moment everything seemed to unravel, my perceptions distorted before congealing once more. Giggling, I smiled up at the monk and slowly shifted up to my knees before crawling towards him with a leering smirk spreading across my features.

“Follow me please.” I pouted at the lack of desire I heard in the polite tone and the hand that gripped my upper arm alone. Protesting with every step I slid against the monk as often as I could was we walked the brightly-lit halls, rubbing my body against the monk’s much like an overly friendly cat. At long last we came to a door, shimmering with the same colors as the light that I had walked through earlier.

“Oh! It’s so pretty!” I squealed in an utterly girlish manner, clapping my hands and bouncing on my toes. I stepped into the open door, pausing to look at the arena set up just for me. The sensation of the door hitting me as if tried to close was a shock, snarling and instantly unhappy I spun around and grabbed the offending object. Kicking at the lower hinges, I tore the door from its frame and threw it out into the hall.

It was then that I noticed the pink and shimmery substance slowly leaking from the palms of my hands. A curious sniff of the substance had me grinning as I realized it smelled like the subtle scent of the Moontae pheromones. Waving my hands in a grand gesture a small cloud of the shimmering stuff drifted through the air. Avery eat your heart out. I thought happily as I danced further into the room, scattering the pink clouds in layers before me.

The sight of the room, lit with sultry purple and red light that seemed to come from nowhere, finally stopped my inane dancing. The sounds and smells of my arena finally came to me. Shrieks, screams and cries of pain happiness and pleasure finally register as well as a mix of scents, almost too many to separate and distinguish. I could feel my cheeks beginning to burn with blood flooding them and I giggled more than a little embarrassed as I covered my eyes for a moment. I peeked through them to look up at a man hanging from a harness. Slowly, inch by inch, being lowered into a pool of thick, black fluid as he screamed and writhed; his flesh slowly boiling from the bones.

I spotted others dipping into similar pools, each reacted differently. Columns of glass and razor blades glittered throwing the sullen red and purple light out in glittering motes. Chewing on my lower lip and staring wide-eyed at the odd and unusual things around me. The occasional enclosed room stood among the pools and glittering pillars. Lit from within, the purple tissue that made up the walls displayed the moving an writhing shadows. One required little imagination to figure out that was happening with while yet another took many long minutes to hazard a guess.

Gradually, I wandered to the edge of my arena. Looking out I saw three other sections just as large as my own. Yet they were blank and white, separated by the soft light of different colors within them. I wondered as I bounced from one foot to the other what they would look like. Oh well, I’ll go find some one to play with! With a delighted, dark smile I turned and headed for the few people I had spotted laying lazily on cushions scattered through the wonderful and somewhat scary arena.

[Shadar]

To clarify: The arena is best imagined as a diamond that is cut into four quadrants. We'll say that Raven's is the north segment and mine is the west.

Extra Disclaimer (from Moonlit)
This thread will not effect storylines. It's just for fun. So, get as goofy as you want. *hayuck!*


It was a strange sensation, as if something very familiar was missing. Shadar didn't find it the least bit disconcerting, though. In fact, he felt great, and he damn well looked it. His long, sleeveless, black coat was finely tailored with silver bordering and subtle seams of silver thread. His pants were much the same, and his boots gleamed. The white turtleneck that he wore under his coat was almost blindingly clean, and his elbow-length gloves, despite their deep, swirling darkness, were downright snazzy in some unexplainable way. It was as if, somewhere deep in his gloves, the Void that they led to was wearing pearls.

Clothes may have made the man, but they didn't make the man smile. That was done by the landscape before him. At first glance, it was a desert full of nondescript ruins, the hot sun blazing overhead with such permanence that the ruins must have been ruins for time immeasurable. But, as Shadar stepped from the disappearing doorway to the shimmering sand, he recognized it. Freestanding and dry with age, great stone steps led up to an archway that had once bordered a mighty door. Very recently, though as distant as if from another world, he knew he had seen that structure alive and vital.

Humming with curiosity, he hopped up the steps five at a time and vaulted to the top of the arch with a grasshopper's precision. The remains of the building lay before him, and he finally knew it by name. Those curving walls, now nothing more than windblown ridges where they still existed. Those numerous doors, each leading from nothing to nothing. That welcoming, grandiose tapestry, now grey, laying half-buried below his toes. He knew what this place had once been, and it filled him with such righteous joy that, for this single moment, he was a god.

In all the sea of rubble, carved by fins of ancient stone wall, there lay only one body. It was worn and discolored so severly that it could have been mistaken for a bulge on the thin peak of stone. But, its robes were still intact, if tattered, and its skull held enough form to look mournfully out over the monumental grave.

Laughing insidiously, Shadar threw himself skyward and glided to the body's side. With one hand, he grabbed the skull from behind, and with the other he towed the robe under it. Bones clattered from the cloth and all the way down the wall's pitted surface, leaving the body he held as nothing but a hollow specter. "Seeeeee?" he asked pointedly as he swept the skull's empty sockets across the landscape. "This is what you get for playing gods, for mocking death. This is what happened to your proud Citadel!" In awe, the skull's jaw fell open, and then farther until it too lay in the sand.

With a sudden burst of concentration, Shadar's obnoxious grin faded and he held the skull and robe close to him. The magic of his gloves took hold of the materials, drinking them in just enough to mold. In the shortest of moments, he had attached the robe to the base of the skull and spawned a wooden pole for it to stand upon like a scarecrow. He jammed it harshly into the stone and stood back to stare into the empty face.

Only then did he notice what lay beyond the deceptively small desert. A short distance to his right, both sand and sky ended as if cleaved away. Stretching to the invisible horizon was nothing but white nothingness and black smeers, longing to take form. To his left, however, there existed something tangible. It lay under a dark, misty shroud that bordered his blazing sky, and he almost couldn't see it for the glare of his own piece of realestate. There were bodies; suspended, seated, or concealed behind translucent screens that made every gesture erotic. It was a dark, sticky, sultry place that reached him more in screams and gasps than images. Only one piece of natural, earthy color existed within the border. It lay at the back, where a burgundy curtain decended from the dark sky and found its only resistance in a door-shaped void. The narrow view through it showed a plain stone hall with the opposite wall in wreckage from a door that had come off its frame.

"You want to remember the sins of the flesh, my fleshless friend?" He laughed, took a pace along the wall, then turned. One step. Two step. Spinning side kick! The skull blasted toward the bordello with cloak flaring behind and wind whistling through its sinus cavity. If the jaw was still attached, it might have screamed also.

[Earthwalker]

Leander had heard a great many things about the great Citadel, though the reality of the building was almost more breathtaking than the tales had lead him to believe. Though he had seen the massive structures of palaces before, the monolithic architecture of the great building seemed to dwarf those structures in his memories, regardless of their actual size relative to the Citadel's. To call him in awe would be incorrect - more than anything, the building felt intimidating, as if the entire structure was staring him down. Cowed, Leander advanced slowly and humbly through the entrance, where he was met by one of the temple's ever-present monks.

Now, Leander had heard tales of these monks, told by the same people who had informed him of the Citadel's magnificence. They had spoke of these martial monks in the highest awe, describing them as the most capable of warriors, practiced fighters so certain of their superiority that they need not carry weapons, nor wear any armor aside from the cloth of their orange robes. Though the man standing before that looked little more than a man in those same orange robes, Leander knew, from the words of his informant (a reliable-looking man he had met in a bar some weeks past), that this was but a ruse - a efficient and merciless weaponsmaster lurked beneath the casual, bald-headed exterior the monk now presented to him, ready to strike him down should he raise a weapon outside of the pits themselves.

"A first-timer to the Citadel?" The monk interrupted Leander's thoughts with his question. "Come for a fight?" The orange-clad man's voice was neither warm nor cold, but a strange mix of the two that distanced him from his speech without making it chilling.

"Aye," Leander responded, slightly taken aback by the monk's directness. He had not expected to be greeted so early on - but no matter. Surly the monks must know his kind - they had been, as he had heard, guarding and operating the Citadel for decades longer than he had been alive.

"Follow me, then. I shall explain things as we go." The monk turned on his heel and began to walk quickly into the structure. Leander hastened to catch up, listening carefully as to not miss the man's promised explanation. "First, death, unlike elsewhere, is not a final thing in these halls - those killed in battle rise again, unharmed and unmarked - so one need not worry about such things." The two of them were passing through hallways at a rapid pace, eating up ground as they moved towards their destination.

"Second, the fighters are given the opportunity to craft the field to their own choosing, imagining the area in which they wish the battle to take place. The magic of the Citadel then makes that real." Unbidden, Leander imagined a pair of fighters standing noble atop opposed rock edifices, the two of which jutted forth from an otherwise plain grass field. Their cloaks swirled dramatically away from each other, revealing the weapons with which they would do battle. To witness such a thing... Leander was eager to see the combatants in whatever duel he witnessed go at one another, regardless of the terrain. Again lost in his musings, he barely noticed that the monk had stopped, only realizing it just in time to prevent a collision. Opening a door in the wall, the monk gestured Leander inside.

"The third thing you should know, is that any expendable items you should use here will be rejuvenated after the fight. Things are designed so you can throw everything you've got at your opponents, so don't do anything less." The monk pushed Leander through the door with a firm hand, Leander too surprised to offer much in the way of resistance. The door was quickly shut behind him, and Leander could hear the sounds of the monks retreating footsteps. The monk had misunderstood - Leander had wished to watch a fight, not participate in one!

However, things had progressed too far by now. He was already expected to fight, and Leander didn't have the slightest idea about how to get out of this. It was not like there was anyone he could ask to let him out - and even so, that would almost be too embarassing. It wasn't like he had anything to lose from fighting either - as the monk had said, he would be fully healed after the fight was over, so he only really stood to gain.

Turning, he finally got a look at the arena before him. It seemed a strange place - the area directly opposate Leander appeared to be some strange red-and-violet torture chamber, where victims were held concealed behind thin walls, displaying the shadows of their agony while stripping them of their individuality. Harsh pillars of sharp broken glass, embedded with even sharper razorblades, only added to this effect. Standing close to the center, on the edge of her grim section, a woman in dark leather armor bounced from foot to foot, eager, and disturbing in her enthusiasm. To Leander's left, sandy dunes surrounded an ominous sun-baked ruin. Just before the ruin, a half-elf looked to be in the process of kicking some kind of strange ragged missile towards the torture-themed section, his expression manic and crazed. To the right of that, there was a third area, a blank, null space, with harsh and contrasting whites and blacks.

And as for the section Leander himself stood in, he somehow found himself perched upon a three-foot-high rock in the center of a grassy field, much like the one he had imagined earlier - except, hadn't he been standing right next to a door just a moment ago? His thoughts were interrupted by a brisk breeze, blowing about his cloak in what would have been a highly dramatic fashion... had his cloak not become entangled with his shortsword's scabbard. Instead, Leander stumbled slightly, not quite falling off the rock, and attempted to loosen his cloak from about him, so that he could put it away until the battle was over. The breeze (being a dramatic breeze, and a helpful one at that), cheerfully misinterpreted this action as one of dramatic flare, and, in its own brand of helpfulness, seized upon the cloak and swirled it high into the air away from Leander, who only had time for an abbreviated cry and one awkward grab at the thing before it blew away from his grasp. Sheepishly attempting to salvage what dignity he had left, Leander turned from the retreating garment and faced the field once more, the helpful breeze ruffling his hair as he went.

The air in Leander's quarter is filled with a helpful and dramatic breeze, which attempts to "assist" those in it by blowing their clothes and hair about in a highly dramatic fashion. Leander, of course, foils every attempt of the breeze - but you don't have to! Oh, poor Leander, so hopelessly outclassed...

[Zook Murnig]

Caduceus had been to the Citadel before, so the grandeur of that ancient structure came as no surprise. Still, it was awe-inspiring to say the least, with gothic archways and delicately carved gargoyles leering down at all who entered the home of the Ai'Bron.

Something was off, however. The magician could feel it distinctly, but he shook his head, telling himself it was just nerves. He made his way across the entryway, robes trailing behind him as he went, to speak with one of the orange-clad monks about joining in a battle. A barely noticeable smirk crossed the Ai'Bron's face, then disappeared, as he spoke. "Right this way, sir. Master Grimaldi, wasn't it?"

The young man's blue-grey eyes went wide when the monk guessed his surname. "How...how do you know that?" he asked. The man in orange said nothing more. Something was definitely wrong here, but again the Qaballist dismissed it. The two walked only a short distance before coming to a doorway of violet-red wood. Some sort of liviol, likely, he thought. Mahogany? The monk gestured wordlessly for him to enter, and so Caduceus grasped the smooth brass knob, a tingle running down his spine as he turned it and stepped through to an unfamiliar but easily recognized sound.

Clapping.

He found himself on a wooden stage, raised above and before a seated crowd of men and women, all wearing what appeared to be quite opulent clothing and fine jewelry. Upon closer observation, however, their faces were blank and featureless. Empty slates. After a few seconds, the applause slowed to a stop, and Caduceus looked around to see an attractive young brunette, similarly blank-faced, standing beside and grasping a rosewood framed full length mirror. She stepped slowly and gracefully over to him, bringing the mirror to where he could see himself in it.

His robes were gone. A strange assortment of garments he had heard called a "tuck seedo" enclosed his frame. A white longsleeved button-up shirt with a black velvet vest overtop and a ribbon of black cloth tied into a bow about his neck, pressing into his adam's apple. A small daisy was pinned to the left side of the vest, clearly fake. A black pair of pressed slacks had replaced his woolen pants. He looked down. Hard and square-toed leather shoes had taken the place of his boots. On top of it all, a tall cylindrical hat of black perched on his head.

He knew something was wrong.

The air is still in Cad's quarter, as it is within a stage theater. The lighting is rather dim, except on the stage where the focus of the "room" is. The ceiling above extends to the edge of the quarter and simply stops.

[Moonlit Raven]

One by one over the next hour or so each of the other arenas suddenly changed, one moment a featureless dimly lit area, the next it was different. The first, a sand blasted arena filled with ruins. Moments later a desiccated skull came flying at me, its tongue-less mouth wide open as if echoing the shrill shriek that tore itself from my throat as I dodged to the side. Wide-eyed I rolled over and sat up, watching the skull roll to a stop at the edge of one of the pools. For a moment it teetered on the edge before sliding into the thick black fluid with a hissing noise.

“Mmmm, too bad it’s dead. I think that was the woo woo pool. That was so rude! Who threw that head at me?” In a huff I scrambled to my feet, pausing a moment to brush an imaginary speck of dust from my leather armor before stomping my way out of my arena and into the other.

Several minutes later and more than slightly rumpled looking I spotted a figure, dark against the bright backdrop of sand and the dull, time eroded ruins. Unable to help myself I paused and appraised the dark, masculine figure. Nice shoulders. The lecherous thought crossed my mind an instant before my hands flew automatically to check and see if my hair was fine.

My small preening session quickly over I drifted over the sand, tossing more than a little sway to my hips. A tickling sensation in my hands let me know that the pink stuff was once more trickling from them. Once I got close enough to make out his features, I waved, letting the sparkly stuff into the air current that whipped out from one of the other arenas. I inhaled and smiled happily at the scent that seemed identical to the pheromones Avery released.

“Hi there, my name’s Elena, what’s yo…” The rolling purr of a voice I was using was suddenly cut off as the world disappeared on me. I cried, out and fought against, cloth. Cloth? What the hell? Struggling against the material I finally shoved it enough to see a… A… A cloak?

[Shadar]

As Shadar jumped down to the sand and walked to meet the woman, he wondered if he had hit her. Had that been his intention? With a shake of his frazzled head, he shrugged the thought away. She certainly didn't seem angry. In fact, she seemed to want him in a way that, despite Citadel status quo, entailed more depantsing than beheading. Maybe she sent the invitation, he wondered as he ogled her hips. The invitation in question had been blurry and fuzzy, or maybe that was just the memory of it. Either way, he couldn't remember who had signed it. What he did remember, though, was that he was taken. Kind of... maybe. Something about birds.

"I'm Shadar," he responded smugly as he crossed his arms. "And I didn't give you permission to pollinate me," he added when he saw the sparkly pink mist around her hands. Breathing wasn't a necessity for him (unlike other bodily systems that were starting to remember their start-up procedures) so he wasn't too concerned with what was clearly an airborne substance. Still, he took a step back just to be sure, and noticed the cloak swoop past him. It gave the glitter-spewing Elena a nice, warm, strangling hug, and he took the most chivalrous course of action that his mind would consider. He ignored her and looked to where the cloak had come from. Admittedly, it was only a chivalrous option because the alternative was to laugh at her, so chalk up one point for self-restraint.

To the far right, he barely made out a field with a lone person standing on a rock. It didn't hold his attention any longer than that, for farther away was something that got his fires of showmanship stoked up to crematorium proportions. A stage. Without so much as a goodbye to the woman, he launched himself into the air and glided into the dark room. The audience below him, sparkly jeweled shapes in the shadows, let out a wave of shocked gasps as he passed over. When he touched down next to the magician, a man whose stage presence seemed a bit muddled by confusion, the audience was finishing their polite, appreciate applause. A few chattered amongst themselves, wondering if this was a two-man show. Shadar faced the audience without glancing at the magician and spread his arms wide to soak up the attention. A two man show, this was not.

Taking hold of his open coat, he turned to the side and flared the fabric upward. The hem jangled with small metal plates that hadn't been there before, making the gesture feel heavy and important. Apparently, it was, because the coat fell back to reveal a life-sized silver statue of a jackal. It stood on its hind legs, its back twisted as if it were struggling for something in the air. Shadar stepped back and petted between its large, pointed ears as the audience applauded once more, for both the trick and the beauty of the sculpture. He didn't know why he had chosen it, but he had a deep fondness for it, too. It was elegant, life-like, and spoke of nature's playful side. But, there was one quality that especially appealed to him, though he couldn't put a finger on the why. The sculpture, as sculptures tend to be, was absolutely silent.

[Earthwalker]

Leander noted the path of his cloak, following the cloth with his eyes, even as the breeze whipped his hair around his face. The visual effect for onlookers was heroic - or it would have been, if Leander hadn't kept twitching his head about every time the wind blew some hair into his eyes. Seeing the cloth object snag upon something, he was about to spring when he realized just what the cloak had snagged on. He winced, seeing the woman throw it aside as she did - surely, she would be angry about its interference. Ah, well - but the other manic individual, to whom she had been speaking, dashed away, so perhaps it would be safe to go and retrieve it, so that he could stash it until the battle finished.

Leaping down from the rock might have seemed a simple gesture, but Leander had not accounted for the slipperiness of the grass, nor the helpfulness of the breeze that surrounded him. What should have been an easy hop suddenly turned into a blundering fall as the wind tried to correct his posture into a suitable dramatic position. This would not have been so bad - the breeze was not strong, merely insistent - but for the fact that the grass proved less solid a landing spot than Leander had imagined. Suddenly, limbs were flying, and Leander found himself sliding wildly towards the sandy section of the arena. His tumble, its momentum aided by the breeze, was only arrested by Leander exiting his quarter of the arena. He rolled a short ways, over a couple of smaller dunes, before his head embedded itself into a larger one, effectively arresting his movement. Spitting sand and shaking his head, Leander pulled himself from the dune, only to find himself staring up at the woman from the area opposate him, a pink mist leaking from her palms.

[Zook Murnig]

The magician was still in shock from his change of attire when a manic-looking man dropped onto the stage, between him and the void-faced spectators. His shock turned to awe as he lowered his cloak for a moment, before lifting it to reveal a sculpture.

The marble was beautiful, and the curves exactly replicated the musculature of the lupine form in its arching leap. The crowd clapped, and something strange and unfamiliar welled up within the occultist. He was jealous of the gloved man.

Reaching into his vest without thinking, he grasped a slender stick of straight and polished mahogany. Stomping loudly on the wooden stage, he drew the wand as he approached the statue. "Elohim Tzabaoth!" he exclaimed, aiming the stick with a flourish.

A pale blue ray erupted from the implement, striking the offending object and encasing it in a thin layer of ice, creating small fissures all through it before it split into two chunks of rock. With another wave of his wand, he proclaimed, "Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen, as I transmute these inert masses of stone in strange and wonderous ways for your amusement! Yehovoh Tzabaoth!"

The marble shuddered and shifted before the pieces burst into flames that reshaped into what was remarkably similar to a pair of rabbits, which promptly went streaking across the stage and around the magician, leaving trails of fire behind them. They then, directed by his wand, tore after the other man on the stage.

[Moonlit Raven]

In the struggle to loosen the cloak's overzealous grasp I heard cloth rip more than once. At last, just in time to see the man, whose reply had been lost to the surprise attack of the cloak, walk away. I huffed, tossing the cloak on the ground and stomping a booted foot on the sand. Well, that's no hero. I thought hero's help ladies in need. I was... am? In need.

The arrival of a bundle of flying limbs was brought to an abrupt halt by a rather large dune. The appearence of the cloth wrapped figure surprised me and stopped my eminent tantrum. Giggling and fascinated I watch as it dug itself out of the dune and resolve into a boy. Awe, it's too bad he's so young. Babies are a no-no. Even if they do remind me of a cute little cookie. I waved at him in greeting; the pink mist obscuring my view for a moment before it was blown in all directions by the wind.

"Well, hello there, cookie. Is this your cloak? I'm afraid it's a little ragged and torn now." I held out a hand to help the guy up and realized that my little 'cookie' was over a hand span taller than I was. Giggling, I waggled my fingers at the boy.

"Come on, I've got a bit of fun to do and it can't wait all day. That guy was very rude for not helping me out, it's not everyday a cloak attacks you. Perhaps you'd be willing to help me? "

[Earthwalker]

Leander accepted the offered hand, his mind bedazzled, partially from his recent tumble, partially from the mist he had just inhaled, and partially because of the normal teenage hormones flowing around in his fifteen-year-old body. Of course, having teenage hormones and knowing how to put them to use are two entirely different things - inexperience left Leander looking awkwardly at the beautiful woman in front of him... right up until he realized he was ogling, and glanced away, embarrassed. He only really heard the words "...help me?", and looking back, he nodded dumbly, before realizing he was ogling again and assuming his previous, shy stance. He kicked his feet together and mumbled something incoherent, as if attempting (and failing miserably) to add some emphasis to his agreement. It felt difficult to think clearly, as if the very presence of this woman was stifling his mind in the most oddly enticing way he had ever felt. He wasn't sure exactly what to make of it - never really the romantic type, he hadn't the experience to know what it was he was feeling.

He tried to think of some helpful piece of advice that his father might have given him on the matter, but couldn't seem to remember his words, muddled as his mind was. His mother, however, came through good and clear, even if he wasn't sure how to enact the advice. From the depths of his memory, he could almost her her voice, saying...

"Go for it, son!"

[Shadar]

Out in the hall, just before the door that Shadar had entered, there was a little speck of something on the floor that the janitorial monks hadn't gotten to yet. It might have been chewed gum, for it was grey and oddly shaped, and if so, then it was certainly possessed gum because a teeny tiny image of a demonic thing hovered over it.

"Shadar? Shadar! Get your ass back out here!" screamed the little image of Diamond Jackal, dream demon and (until moments ago) parasitic mental lifeform living in Shadar's brain. Apparently, that speck of grey matter wasn't gum. "I told you not to answer that invitation. These Ai-Brone guys hate you, but you had to go all manly-macho and walk into an obvious trap with your pecker hanging out."

There was no answer from the closed door that, from his perspective, stretched upward to the cosmos. So, he smoothed down his crimson robes, dimmed the fire of his eyes, and tried a different tactic. "If you're hiding cause you're embarrassed, get out here. It's not like anyone will know you fell for it. Just pick up... this piece of your brain, and we'll leave." Still, there was no answer anywhere in the huge hall that reached to infinity around him. "Grow some balls, you pussy!"

"Hello?" came a female voice from the heavens.

Jackal turned with half-hearted relief to face the body that seemed just as massive as the walls. "Whoever you are, open this door! Then I'll kill all you monks for screwing with my vessel's marbles!" he shouted venomously, though it sounded cute and helium-induced by the time it reached the woman's ears.

"No," she said spitefully.

"You bi-" Jackal snapped, but he froze when he recognized her. Those taloned feet, those feathered hips, that indignantly large bosom. "Oh shit."

Smiling evilly, the fiery-haired harpy pinched the speck of brain between two talons. "Still want to destroy me, mutt?" Brigitte asked of her creator, the very same who would have tried to undo her if Shadar hadn't stopped him all those times. "Let's have some fun before I give you back." In that moment, her voice was more sinister than Jackal's had ever been.

When you're the size of a grain of rice, no one can hear you scream.

~

"Get your own props," Shadar snarled at the magician as his sculpture was remolded. The audience seemed to like it despite the glare that he shot over them, though they seemed like an easily amused bunch. Metal began to sprout from Shadar's fingertips, and there wasn't going to be anything magical about what he was going to do with the newly born claws.

Then, the bunnies came. He stepped around them neatly and braced himself to lunge at the magician, pausing a moment to backhand one rabbit that was making a second pass. Instantly, fire shot up his arm like swarming insects, and he jerked his hand away with a scream. The rabbit landed with no signs of damage from the impact, and then they both moved toward him again. Despite the concentration required to drink up his sleeve fire with his other glove, he managed a haggard, "Bloody hell."

Though the embarrassment, as well as the audience's idiotic applause, gave him a stomach ache, he ran. He ran like a coward. Sure, once he had jumped from the right side of the stage and taken to the air he turned to throw some haphazardly formed pieces of metal at his cute tormentors, but it was still a horrible sight. The rabbits hopped quickly through the crowd without spreading any residual flames, though he doubted they'd be so kind with him, and their leaps were just high enough that they might have a chance. So, Shadar glided away as fast as he could.

The chase took him clear of the dark audience and right into Elena's love nest, or whatever it was supposed to be. He almost stopped to watch some of those bodies writhing behind the screens, the silhouettes leaving nothing to the imagination. The aura of the place was that strong. But, with the rabbits literally hot on his heels, he forced himself forward until he had crossed over a pit of bubbling black liquid.

He crashed to a halt in the air and set himself down to wait for the rabbits that approached from the other side of the pit. Though, the pit was no longer there as an illusionary floor took its place. Smiling like a child, he waited for the rabbits to reach the lip, then he wiped away the facade to let them see the wet death below them.

With high-pitched screams that pretty much compensated for the crowd's insulting applause, they sank into the bubbling black muck. Shadar looked back toward the distant stage, already plotting revenge, and then his foot bumped something. Startled, he looked down at a little metal plaque set into the floor. "Woo woo pool?" he read aloud. Suddenly, the liquid bubbled with a renewed fury and rhythmic splashing sounds radiated up from the depths. The fluid climbed higher, bulging just over the rim.

"You know what they say about bunnies," Shadar remarked dryly to himself in much the same way that one says their final words to the burning eye of a locomotive. He pushed himself into the air and drifted backward as the surface tension burst and all the matter that had displaced the fluid was released. Like a belch from Hell itself, the bunny children spewed along the floor, squirming and blazing and humping much as their parents still did below the surface. And they kept coming in wave after wave like a parade celebrating the inexhaustible lust of the noble hare.

"Flaming horny bunnies!" Shadar shouted, partly as a warning, and partly to get the emotion out of his system before it turned to irrational giggles as he skimmed along the floor in the direction of his desert ruins.

[Zook Murnig]

As his challenger fled, rabbits of fire trailing behind, Caduceus leapt down off of the stage after him. Even as he landed softly on the carpeted floor of the theater, he had no idea why he gave chase like this. It just felt right. It felt...dramatic.

Replacing his thin wand on the inside of his vest, he started off again running after the gloved man. He didn't notice that as he passed, each row of void-faced spectators rose and turned towards him, menace and anger at the lack of entertainment in their every feature. Indeed, if they had faces, it would not have been a prettier sight. A pale hand grabbed at the magician's pant leg, pulling on the fabric as it tried to drag him to the ground. Another suddenly found a hold on his ponytail, tugging harshly on the scalp.

With that, the well dressed young man's top hat came tumbling down into his hands, a whisper of a breeze escaping. The hand on his slacks lost its grip, and Caduceus turned about to smack away the man - or woman? It was hard to tell without facial cues, and with their untelling bodies - that had grabbed his hair. His left fist flew at its face, and never hit. Instead, his arm sank into the blankness up to the elbow. It felt cold and damp, and generally unpleasant, in that empty head, and he yanked the arm free, shaking off a little bit of grey matter as the creature fell, dead.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" he proclaimed, commanding the attention of the ghastly group. "I understand your want for the pleasures of my continued company, believe me. However, I regret that I must bid you adieu." With a flourish, he spun the hat around in his hand, directing the hole towards the crowd. "Shaddai el Chai," he uttered, and a near-visible blast of wind issued forth from the chapeau, throwing all of the pale skinned and empty-headed rioters backwards, a few with heads rolling off their shoulders.

And then he ran, now for his life and not for the sake of a good chase, following the airborne mage into a realm of paper walls and silhouettes, where a bubbling pool seemed to be overflowing with some sort of inner flame.

[Moonlit Raven]

A little flirting never killed anyone. Besides my little cookie won't be a baby forever. I smiled up the boy and rose up to tip toe to leave the lightest of kisses on his cheek.

"Thank you. I'm sure the two of us could create more than enough mischief. Mmm, now what can we do?" Wracking my brain for brilliant ideas I looked around the ruins and desert. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing that could be of use in this depressing area. What type of person would ever want to create something like this. I wonder if it reflects something. Pouting slightly and ignoring the sparkly mist the trickled from my palms I tapped a finger on my lips.

"What a coward! Look, he's running from a few rabbits!" I finally spotted the rabbits that the mean man was actually running from. "I hope they set his tail feathers on fire!" Delighted, I smiled and grabbed on to Cookie's shoulder to catch his attention and pointed at the rabbits. Hopping up and down in place I cheered for the rabbits.

“Go bunny go! Go bunny go! Get him! One good hop and you’ll be there!” I wished I had pompoms to wave about. Grabbing the already torn cloak I pulled it in half and wrapped sections around my hands. The waving flapping loose parts acted almost as good as the pompoms I wanted.

I held my breath as Shadar stopped and looked back at the rabbits. Hey, he’s in my side of the arena. He better not trash it. The sudden appearance of a pool right under the rabbits pulled a dismayed cry for me.

"Oh those poor things, they would have look so great as a coat too. I hope that wasn't one of the pools that dissolves things…” Near geyser like the pool erupted, spraying liquid and bunnies everywhere. Blushing and peeking at the madly humping bunnies I laughed when Shadar screamed about flaming horny bunnies and ran.

“Bunny, bunny, he's our man, if he can't hump em, No one can! Oh shit! They headed right for us.” Hiding behind my Cookie I looked at the bunnies that were rapidly spreading, many of them giving Shadar chase once more.

“Perhaps, perhaps we should head for Dodge.” My voice came out in an embarrassing breathy squeak as I started backing up through the loose crumbling sand. Cookie’s section of the arena seemed like a lovely place to be at the moment.