-
The Drow was panting heavily, still getting used to this new vision he had to endure. Everything was just slightly farther to the right than his one eye showed him. Compensating for the shift was not only annoying, but very troublesome under the circumstances of battle. The right side of his face throbbed with each beat of his heart, sending a coursing pain through his broken eye.
Yet he stood strong, weapons shaking slightly in his strong hands. The skeleton had evidently decided to face him, speaking some words that were lost to Izvilvin's foreign ears. Even if he were capable, the Drow doubted he could have mustered the fortitude to answer whatever taunt or declaration was sent his way, so wounded was his spirit.
From the staff of the monster fell a small mushroom, which Izvilvin first had declared a simple ornament. It was a great surprise to see the decoration expand and grow to look something like one of Alerar's own Hiran Kuttran, the giant mushrooms that grew next to some mountains. This fungus, however, came forward with great speed, looking to hammer the comparitively small Drow against the side of the steel cell.
Izvilvin did the only thing he had time to do, leaping to his right to avoid the bouncing mushroom. He landed hard on his wounded shoulder, wincing with the impact, but forced himself up without any further hesitation. He witnessed with surprise as the mushroom hit the cell wall, then bounced back, toward the one who had conjured it in the first place.
Were the situation different, Izvilvin might have smiled, even laughed. But his heart was wounded from the betrayal of Rheawien. There could be no doubt now that she had struck him on purpose.
Refusing to stay disheartened, Izvilvin took a moment to lean against the steel mesh, observing the others in battle. Perhaps he could regain some of his strength with a bit of rest, perhaps not, but the blood had caked on his back and his eye was pulsing in agony. The will to fight was leaving him. The broken Drow simply gasped for air.
-
He had guts grabbing her wrist like that to block her attack and she knew it had to hurt him. These flames only played nicely with her and no one else. However, the fact that it was hurting him did nothing to stop the bile from rising into her throat knowing that his skin was touching her skin. She hated it when anyone touched her, in fact most of the time when people touched her she went through painful episodes that usually resulted in her losing a little bit more of her sanity, thankfully that never seemed to happen when someone touched her hands. The exception, she could grab people with her bare hands but if they touched her anywhere else she was in big trouble.
As his foot was shoved against her chest, Witch grunted with the force of being pushed backwards, hard sole digging into yielding, soft flesh to the breastbone and pressing against in painfully. He shoved against her chest hard, letting go of her wrist at the same time she stumbled backwards, off balance but she knew this had been coming. To keep herself from falling flat on her ass, Witch bent backwards, hands touching the sand and feeling the metal beneath it, her feet pushing off the ground and coming up and around to land safely on the other side. Her hands reclaimed the daggers beneath them as she pushed herself back up into a standing position.
Her immediate reaction was to charge straight forward to her enemy but she felt that familiar presence of magic, the excitement of particles in the air, that energy and she could see the web like substance he was creating. He seemed to have a fondness for magic and seeing how powerful his last spell had been on the human Witch was not taking a chance and rushing him, instead she smirked in his direction and used her telepathy to probe into his head finding out exactly what the spell did to anyone it touched.
It was indeed interesting and a smart tactic, she wondered if her body would be able to heal the paralysis quickly but she wasn’t willing to take the chance.
Moving one hand behind her back, Witch sheathed the dagger and began to draw dark energies towards her palm. She was going to use her Shadow Flare; only she wasn’t going to allow it to power up, all she wanted was one small ball of dark energy. Flipping the Mythril dagger she still possessed in her left hand around, Witch charged at her enemy, soles digging and sliding against the sand, which provided horrible traction, she made due. Once she was close enough she brought out her right hand and shot the black ball of energy towards Canen, so dark was it that it seemed to absorb all light around it making itself a void.
She didn’t aim for him though; instead she’d carefully aimed at the cage floor right by his feet. Once the energy touched the floor it would expand to encompass an area of four feet and once the energy dissipated there would be a large hole there and hopefully Canen would have fallen though it.
-
Canen Darkflight had been thrust into a defensive role from what should have been a nicely timed counterattack, and as he pondered the prowess of his agile opponent he had wondered just how she had managed to evade his grasp. His physical grappling skills, he admitted, were a burden upon him after his wounding at the point of Izvilvin's Sai strike earlier, and the Nocturn could understand how she had been able to prevent her tumble. What he couldn't understand was how she had anticipated his Black Widow attack: although it was magically enhanced, it gave off far less magical resonance than his other spells.
"How the hell...?!" He exclaimed, panting for breath as the implications of his wounds starting to take greater effect.
He was about to reach for the hilt of The Valiance when the air in front of him pulsed and hummed in a wave of sickening vibrations. Shrill, horrid vibrations that seemed to attack the lining of his stomach in the same way that a concussive punch to the gut might of done, the ill feeling spreading into his wound like an infection. An expression of horror spread quickly over his face as he watched his opponent dash at him from her now upright position, a small orb of black material lining the palm of her hand, very similar in appearance to his own Dark Matter spell that he frequented upon his most despised enemies.
He had to act, or he was going to die a lonely, cold death in a cage like a dog. The sleeves and the torso of his attire was moist with blood from his injuries, his rapid movements worsening the bleeding somewhat. Any hold-up now would almost certainly end his tournament in tears.
Making a serious effort to ignore the pain, he raised his right hand towards the charging female, the lead protagonist in his Cell campaign so far, and his arm began to throb with the pounding of magical particles racing to the tips of his bony white fingers. The formation of the outer shell of the Dark Matter orb was quick and effective, a technique he had been honing for a long time since his Lornius defeat and it was only mere seconds before the cannonball size sphere of pulsating black matter rotated in his palm, pounding and sparking with electrical activity. The burns that he had endured whilst grasping the skin of his opponent suddenly numbed due to the gravitational effect of his spell, and instead went from a sharp, stinging pain to a cool tingling sensation.
Witch was only several yards away now, and with a sound akin to the striking of a kettle drum, released her attack towards the Nocturn.
His opportunity was here.
With a mighty, pain fuelled roar the Nocturn slammed his right palm forwards with every bit of energy he had in his body, each droplet fuelling his ever expanding abhorrence for his growing number of failures. The Dark Matter orb span straight out of its caster's hand and careered with great force into the opposing sphere of dark energy, colliding in mid air with its vile counterpart in a vicious implosion. A cloud of translucent, electrified anti-matter suddenly enveloped a four metre radius, snaring Canen and Witch in its blast. The Nocturn shut his eyes quickly as the concussive wave of power swept over and through him, further rupturing his Sai wound and sending him skidding across the floor of the cage, slamming his unprotected skull harshly into the steel corner support strut. A gush of pure, jet black blood matted his tangled hair and soaked his face, making him look like the very spit of hell itself.
As he lay there, his vision blurred almost into white noise, his hearing impaired by the ringing of the impact, he clasped a hand onto the corner of the honeycombed mesh and tried to pull himself to his feet, pondering with a confused mind the fate of his opponent...he was temporarily stunned, but he was still holding on. Just.
-
Quickly the skeleton skidded to a stop as the athletic Drow dodged the charging mushroom. Bouncing hard on the side of the cage it came flying back and Krugor had to act fast. As the thing came rushing towards he held the spoon up in front of him and just when the mushroom was about to slam into Krugor he hit the thing as hard as he could, the steel spoon even bending a little. It immediately continued its way, though now on a different course. Speeding across the cell’s floor the mushroom made its way towards Rheawien, Krugor’s beloved elephant.
But was it really an elephant? Krugor questioned his actions out loud as the intoxication slowly left his body. The green haze that once seemed to cover everything had fallen off him as if someone harshly yanked your sheet away after a good night sleep. The rising action and pumping adrenaline probably drove it away. Looking around in awe he saw that his former love was in fact a woman, Krugor hadn’t been mistaken when he was close to her a few minutes ago. And the person battling with him now was some sort of dark Elf, and heavily beaten at that.
All sorts of thoughts raced through his mind now. What did I do? What should I do now? In doubt he stood there, watching his creation speeding towards the battling woman. Suddenly he screamed at her; “I’m sorry, miss! I thought you were an elephant! Please watch out for my mushroom!” Krugor rubbed his cheek as he giggled at the thought that he never ever dreamed of saying such a thing.
He then faced the Drow again. Gracefully sliding across the dirt he made his way next to him. Standing right there with his former enemy he held up his hand. “I’m sorry, sir. I thought you wanted to hurt my elephant but now I know that the elephant is just some woman.” He smiled at Izvilvin. “Maybe a bit overweight” Krugor softly mumbled. “Anyway,” he continued, now a bit louder “I hope you can forgive me. Friends?”
Krugor knew that he was in a tough situation. Being drugged made everything more acceptable but now he realised that if he didn’t made some friends he was going to be killed very soon. It was a miracle that he survived as long as he did, running around like a headless chicken.
He placed the bended spoon back in it’s holder, with the other iron tableware. But he also pulled out a slender, shiny knife. Freshly sharpened for luxurious dinners he waved in the air, the sun blistering on the iron. “Let’s draw some blood” he smiled at Izvilvin.
-
As Canen’s energy collided with her own, Witch raised her arms in front of her face, shielding herself from the force of the blast. Her feet ground into the sand and the metal lying beneath it, soles sliding and grinding against the small pieces of earth. The wave increased in power for a fraction longer, Witch lost her footing as it slammed into her, sending her flying onto her back then rolling once, twice, three times until she slammed up against the metal messing of the cage’s wall.
Snarling as sharp metal dug into her skin, Witch was finally relieved when the energy surged stopped and the force holding her pinned against the wall ceased. Her shoulder had hit it pretty hard and the resulting force had split open flesh, sending lines of dark blue blood down her shoulder blade and back. It wasn’t bad, in fact rolling her shoulder she still had pretty good use of her left arm but it was definitely going to be annoying and Witch hated annoying.
Shaking her head, Witch slowly pulled herself to a standing position, being thrown around by the blast had certainly knocked a few too many screws loose upstairs but it didn’t take long for her senses to return to her. And with the return of those came the assault of the noise from the crowd, screaming and yelling, probably not even knowing what had just occurred. They didn’t care, something had happened and someone was hurt. Looking across the expanse of the cage Witch saw Canen sprawled against the opposite wall, black blood pouring from a wound inflected by his own attack, or defence, she wasn’t sure. Next time he should have thought more carefully before colliding two dark energies together, after all, she’d been left relatively unscathed while he was in some serious pain right now, all the better for her though.
Now the arrogant little bastard was going to learn never to under estimate his enemy, especially a woman.
Walking forward, Witch retrieved her Mythril dagger, she’d dropped it at some point during her rolling adventure on the cage floor—which had left her back rather bruised and sore—and returned it to it’s sheathe. In the area where the two dark energies had collided now lay a hole in the bottom of the cage, to which sand was slowly leaking through. It was just less than three meters in diameter but Witch skirted it, not wanting to leave this environment yet, she’d use that strategy to her advantage later.
Forming another ball of dark energy in her palm, Witch continued to approach the fallen ‘warrior’, who seemed to be still out of sorts due to the hit to his head. Smirking, Witch stopped a few meters away from him and threw her second attack straight at him. No point in aiming for the ground this time, she was planning on taking him out while he was still down and couldn’t get back up.
-
After a few moments, the watery blur of the caged surroundings settled, no longer vibrating left to right in a tremor like fashion. Several yards to Canen's left, the lights of the torches surrounding the perimeter of the ampitheatre caught his eye, the single westerly wall lined with rows and rows of trembling figures waving banners and screaming profanities usually unheard of in Corone. However, it wasn't long before his attention reverted back to his own situation: his limp, unflung arms were spattered with patches of dark liquid from his head and waist wounds, the material of his sleeves stenching of blood and ripped flesh where the cuts he had sustained had gushed uncontrollably for a while, before sealing themselves off by clotting.
Canen looked away from the cloth, moving his gaze out along the perimiter fence where the others were battling for their lives, dark blurs against the deeper darkness of the arena. He had stepped into the cell with a minute by minute plan, a pre-prepared itemised list of tactics to which he would have adhered to had it not been for that woman. That loathsome, interfering woman.
Then, as he recalled his plan into the forefront of his mind, he realised his mistake. It dawned on Canen for the first time that the whole reason for his failings had been that he had tried to anctipate events before they had happened. He had already set himself at a disadvantage before he had begun, because he expected the improbable. Because of this he had deviated from his usual style of fighting and had become horribly, terribly predictable, evident in the fact he was lying in a pool of his own blood, wounded and about to be eradicated by his antagonist.
He inhaled to clear his head, then grasped a handful of the dry, arid soil from underneath him, clenching it tightly in frustration.
Get up...
The voice rang round his head, rapping against the inside of his skull like a drum. A ferocious, familiar drum.
Get up...Canen
The voice spoke again, it's tone becoming more and more familiar as shape came to the deep booming. Canen looked around, confused. He could hear...that...voice....the voice of his brother.
It couldn't be.
..........Gideon!
Canen eyed the femlae in front of him, who had recovered from the blast of the collision of dark energies and was approaching him again. In her palm he noticed that familiar black orb, the same one she had used before, raised level with his crumpled body. It seemed to scream at him, torturing his mind, reminding him he was still perishable and by no means invincible. Witch, bruised and broken, was intending to end this once and for all, and Canen knew it.
Canen, you do not have to fall. Do not succomb to the pain. Do not give in to your enemies, and show them no mercy! Each of your opponents is no different from the Haicheyanne that razed our lands to the ground, burned our children and women. Their intention was to end your life, strip you of your pride and dignity. Here today, the cage has you imprisoned. Your enemy wishes to end your life, strip you bare in front of the very people you once protected. Do not allow them to degrade you! You, oh sweet Canen, are the only hope I have! Eour lest entriniion!
Canen pictured Gideon's young, handsome face dance in front of him momentarily, for a second replacing the face of his enraged adversary, before fading into the sea of spectators in the background. He found himself sucked back into the event horizon, back into real time, and began to struggle. His arms flailed lightly as the Nocturn's clawed, bloodied hands clenched the hived mesh and pulled on it violently, bringing him back to his feet in an awe inspriring feat of willpower as the mesh clattered and rattled.
He could not ignore the guideposts of his own experience, and commanding a partisan unit in Alerar, Erebus and Karak had taught him plenty. The dark orb still in the grasp of its castor, Canen used every reserve of energy he had left in his broken and battered body to vault forward on the break, unsheathing his mighty Valiance sword mid-dash, and thrust its powerful blade in a downward arc towards Witch's magic arm. His cry could have shaken the very heavens themselves, the blood of Nocturnis itself running in lurid forks over his face and down his attire, soaking both his clothes and his soul.
"I WILL NOT ALLOW MYSELF TO BE ERADICATED BY THE LIKES YOU YOU! THIS IS FOR YOU, BROTHER!!!"
-
He was slowly pushing himself to his feet, struggling under the weight of his own body and it put a smile on her face. There was still fight in her adversary and things could get interesting rather quickly. Good, things had been a little on the boring side, predictable moves, predictable outcomes, she could only hope that Canen was not up for some real fighting. After all, what was the point of joining a tournament and being stuck in a cage with seven other people if one of them didn’t give her a run for her money? She’d be disappointed, yes she’d get in some practice on rusty skills since she hadn’t fought anyone in a while, but she wanted a challenge. She wanted, blood, sweat, tears, broken bones and bruised skin, she wanted it all even if they were her broken bones, even if it was her blood, then it would have been a great fight. Losing was nothing big to her, neither was winning, it was the battled that mattered, not the outcome.
As he pulled his swords from his sheath and attempted to attack her arm, Witch shook her head. He was getting ahead of himself, he wasn’t assessing her, he wasn’t looking! She made no move to take her arm out of harms way, in fact her only tensed her muscles and readied herself for the blow, bringing her arm up higher and smiling at his sword crashed against it, metal hitting metal for his was not strong enough to break through the Titanium plating she had there.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, little fly on the wall.” It was said inside of his head for it was painful to speak otherwise and she wondered if the surprise of it would give him pause and just enough time for her to attack. To further interfere with his mental stability Witch pushed through his mind to find painful memories of his past, scars that never healed about some war and some race she didn’t care about. With a little bit of a push she shoved them to the forefront of his thoughts, whether or not he wanted to he was now going to revisit all of his Nocturnian memories about how he was the only one left alive and everyone else was dead, or crazy, and mad and soon going to be dead.
She didn’t know if it would do anything to affect him, most people gave pause when memories involuntarily surfaced, especially painful ones but she didn’t know how it would affect this man. Either way, with his attack now blocked, Witch used her strength to push away at his sword, the sound of the two metals scraping against one another until she gave it a final thrust. With Canen off balance, Witch grabbed the collar of his shirt and stepped forward, her foot reaching out to rest behind his leg she pushed him back with her hand and hit him in the back of his knee with her foot at the same time, sending him sprawling to the ground. Letting go of his shirt, Witch thrust her hand out, the black ball of energy still carefully centred between her fingertips yet never touching aiming directly for his gut.
-
A feeling rushed back through his body, coursing all over his skin and making the flesh creep as Canen breathed heavily and felt the wrench of the female's feet knocking the back of his knees, sending him crashing to the floor again in a crumpled heap. Even as the pain of his wounds once again shot up his side in a sharp bolt, he had not felt this way since he had felt his hands turn white, his knuckles protrude up like horrid sores as he attempted to hold on to his towering sword, back at the city of Nocturnis as he was led away by his brother Gideon on their final night fighting the Haicheyanne.
"What is your name?"
Canen looked up through his mass of blooded, knotted hair as he tumbled to the floor, his ever persistant female standing over him with the deathly cold orb of shadow. He had been made to remember those other of his cadre having tied trinkets and charms into some of his locks and strands, and then noticed, rather to his surprise, that many of them still swung and clattered around his head. He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction, knowing that their cultural significance would only fuel his utter, uncontrollable rage. Suddenly, as if forced, as if called forth from the recesses of his brain, visions of his past, slowly, painfully, started to overtake him.
"Your murdering bastards killed my mother before she could name me," droned Canen, altering the pitch and intonation of his voice not once from the first word to the last.
"Tell me, please. How many of your kind do you believe have knelt where you now kneel? I have heard this reply many hundreds of times. I know that it is common practice of your little resistance force. It is conduct and conduct alone. You cannot surely tell me that the Haicheyanne stormed your forest before a single one of you was named? Your name is Canen Darkflight, son of Maxmillian. Don’t fool yourself into thinking I know nothing of your little operations over the past ten years. It insults the image I grudgingly, most sickeningly bear of you..."
Canen sank once more with a disenchanted breath. He seemed to collapse entirely inside, not exactly at the words of his tormentor, but more at the implications of his question. The demon was right. Hundreds would have knelt here, or somewhere much less civilized. Oh how he begged now to be in some soaking wet, dark cell. How he begged to be away from the old whisky decanters, the oak furniture and the heavy silk curtains of this dark palace and its trespassing occupants. He pleaded in his mind for the thud of a heavy baton across his shoulder or face, the lash of a barbed whip upon his naked back; anything but this. It didn't draw this hateful spew of truth that began to surge into his consciousness. The truth did not make one truly see that hope was, in fact, nowhere in sight, but that it was truly, truly lost. He summoned some strength to talk, if only in order not to be silenced.
"I am. My master Armedis named me. My mother was killed in the fires of the last remenants of Nocturnis. You know this, and therefore know that I do not lie. Had I lied or told the truth, in any case, what difference would it make?"
Canen had been at the depths of his endurance for nearly half an hour before Witch had made her first true, unforgivable mistake. He could feel the world slipping away. He was trying to hold onto it, trying desperately, but it was loose and runny around the edges like melting butter, and out beyond where it waned off into formlessness he could sense a horrible black mass waiting to swallow it all up. Canen knew what was happening to him as he rolled around on the floor wildly, clutching his head in an agonising display of inbalance. It was blood loss, it was traumatic shock, it was how it felt to be consumed by complete and utter hatred.
The world was slipping away, and though he preferred it didn't, the choice didn't seem to be within his making.
Canen breathed hard through his mouth and coughed a thick liquidy sound that admittedly frightened him a little, the air feeling too cold entering his lungs, althought the pain had receeded a little. He saw the woman who had fought him from the blurred corners of his vision. He had held her off for as long as he could, exhausting his wounded body and sword arm. Now, he wasn't even sure if the weapon was still in his grasp.
The Nocturn took another breath, and managed to lift his cheek off of the arena's dusty floor. Its grooves had marked his cheek with smears off his own blood. He could feel the rumblings, the inner stirrings of a familiar chemical reaction, his veins pumping with adrenaline so much that his muscles ached and pounded with every passing second. His limbs started to tremble violently, as if having a fit, and the sickening sound of tearing skin filled the arena. In an instant, a pair of blood soaked, ripped black wings unfurled from the Nocturn's shoulder blades, the very bone shattering underneath with the sheer force of the transformation.
The splinters of white fragmented and scattered in a stomach wrenching display over the gore-soaked earth where Canen lay, but as the pieces of bone came to a standstill, the Nocturn slowly got on to one knee, wrapped in his feathery, oil black wings.
"TSAOYUS VENITHEM, NOSOU DRI FENTIOS" The beast that Canen had became screamed, speaking not in the common language but instead in his native Khaian tongue. Its eyes, no longer emerald green but completely ink black, locked onto the female ahead of him whilst the new wounds from his sprouted wings gushed heavy torrents of black liquid.
The beast, still humanoid bar the protruding wings, shivered on one knee as the final fragments of Canen's anger settled into its new manifestation.
Icarus Nocturnia
[Please note: this transformation does not alter Canen's power, give him any extra abilities or heal his injuries, but instead causes him to enter a state of beserk. If there are any problems with this please let me know via pm. ]
-
Her attack was lost in the flailing of Canen, his arm knocking hers away and sending the ball of energy flying for a few feet before impacting the wall of the cage, creating a four-foot hole in it. She didn’t really know what was happening to the man, all she did know was that he was in a lot of internal pain and that perhaps surfacing his memories had not been such a good idea. However, the moment Witch saw the wings sprouting from Canen’s back she knew she’d done the right thing. She’d unleashed something she’d been waiting for, for quite some time, a good fight. At least, that’s what she was hoping this would turn into, he more or less looked very pissed off, she could tell his power hadn’t risen any and none of his wounds were healing but still, anger was a powerful motive for fighting and could make a person fight really well or really, really bad.
Speaking of wounds, the one on her cheeks\ had long since healed and Witch wiped away at the still wet blood, the fact that sweat was trickling down from her brow prevented the blood was clotting over. The gash on her shoulder was healing too, but it was deeper and would take her body longer. The bleeding had stopped and new cells were forming, the only time she felt pain from it was when she moved skin in that area, which was basically anytime she moved her left arm so she dealt with it. Pain was nothing new to her.
“Now this is definitely interesting, you certainly have become a little fly now haven’t you? I think we should take this outside…”
Grinning from ear to ear, with a look of pure bloodlust in her eyes, Witch turned away from Canen and ran towards the hole her energy had made in the metal meshing. Her eyes glanced to the dirt floor of the stadium at least twenty feet below them, which gave her plenty of time. Diving head first out of the hole, Witch could hear the silencing of the crowd in the stadium as they watched her plummet to the ground, perhaps waiting for that sickening pop as she impacted the dirt. But it was never going to happen.
The flesh on her shoulder blades began to split and tear as a set of black demonic type wings sprouted through. Blue blood trailing down her back and coating what was left of the back of her shirt. The wings were ripped and torn in the ends as if they had been through one too many battles and a sharp piece of bone protruded from the top end.
Flapping her wings—an appendage she hadn’t used in a long time—sent blood flying off in all directions. As she picked up speed she began to level off and finally a few feet before she hit the ground Witch was soaring back up into the open sky. The crowd was momentarily stunned, barely a sound came from them and for once her sensitive hearing was given a break. She didn’t know how long it would last though, probably until someone started spilling blood again. Turning herself to face the cage, Witch waited for her opponent to emerge, hoping his wings weren’t just for show and that he could actually use them.
-
The earth of the cage floor was slick with a lurid concoction of black, blue and beige below Canen's feet as he watched his opponent swan dive out of the steel mesh arena, appearing to be lost to gravity. Whilst the crowd fell into a sickly silence, almost a shocked muteness that gripped and changed the atmosphere of the theatre from an electrified room to an awed one, he paced slowly towards the hive like wiring and peered down, the blood flow from his wounds finally starting to clot and the gushing temporarily subdued. The ground below him was silent, nothing appeared to move amid the shadow of the floor, nor did there appear any motion to the outer of the opposing sides of the arena. As he raked a clawed hand down the steel netting slowly, Canen's murky black eyes did not move from where the woman had exited the cage.
He was not convinced she had plummeted to her death.
Then, rising as gracefully as a bald eagle on an updraft, the winged form of Witch soared up and twirled into the air, hovering roughly ten metres away from the side of the cage. Spatters of her inky blue blood dripped from the new appendages and sprayed the side of the mesh for three consecutive flaps, before keeping her steady in the air, awaiting for her opponent to follow.
"TYRU NOS MORTE" The beasts' shrill, deep voice growled as his right hand clasped the mesh so tightly that the wire scoured deep impressions into his palm, a honeycombed black wound appearing in the pit of his hand. He released his grip on the corten steel, and took a few paces back, careful to check that he wasn't about to be blindsided by another of the cage's occupants whilst his back was turned. Canen tucked in his wings until they appeared nothing more than isosceles triangles, powered his legs over the dirt and launched out of the cage with tremendous force, unfurling his feathery, oil-slick black wings mid dive.
His long outspread wings a serrate outline against the backdrop of the lantern lit arena, the untinged blackness of their feathers contrasting so strikingly with his pale skin they seemed almost void-like in contrast, Canen dived for a couple of metres and used the momentum to soar up to Witch's right. A couple of powerful, driving flaps ensured that the Nocturn remained in a hovering position only five or so metres away from his target, and he remained still.
"TYRU NOS MORTE" He repeated in a booming tone. "TYRU NOS MORTE A VEHEMETI"
His speech was delivered with an almost operatic force, the tone deep but monotonous. Although the words bore no meaning to anyone but himself, translating only as 'Messenger of the Black' in broken Khaian phrase, there seemed to be an element of power in them. Something underlying.
Suddenly, he turned a hundred and eighty degrees, and with a pulsating flap of his black, gore soaked wings made for the side of the steel meshing, perching perfectly a metre from the top. His hand clamped onto the wire and the Nocturn clambered the final metre, log rolling on top of the cage. As he regained his vertical balance he could see Witch darting from left to right, trying to catch a glimpse of what he was getting up to, what he was planning.
His face remained locked in a frown. The familiar, frigid cold air started to settle around him once again, but this time the excitement of particles in the air was different, somewhat subdued, suppressed. As vapour in the air was harnessed and frozen, the particles of ice collided and fused quicker than usual, creating not a cloud of needles as before but instead five large icicles that levitated in the magical propulsion Canen was controlling, each almost a half metre in length from base to tip. They glimmered in what light was available, twisting and rotating on an invisible axis around the Nocturn's feathery wings and ghostly white body. With a tremendous push of his magical power, three of the five icicles propelled through the air quickly like razor sharp darts, aiming specifically for Witch's left and right wings, the final one aimed directly for her face.
"TYRU NOS MORTE A VEHEMETI, IRA ESTUANTSTUN DOS TREA"