From: Reaper77 | Posted: 2/23/2005 6:50:02 PM
Street Struggles
As if to insult the injury, Amarouk was expected to fight another person. He hoped the quality would be better than before, but in some backward portion of his mind, he didn't quite hold that hope on high above himself. Neither did he bury that hope deep within his being. He outright obliterated that hope because he didn't feel it. What he did feel was a calm assurance that he would win, and you couldn't blame the four hundred plus aged Vadasian. He was already a Fleet Commander in the Gre'kuquen Confederation Navy and a celebrated tactician. But today, he was fooling around, participating in a tournament to sate his animalistic tendencies.
Amarouk, essentially, was a savage beast. He was nothing more than an animal with a heightened sense of self, a knowledge of self, and the ability to think and reflect upon himself. But for all extensive purposes, he was nothing more than an animal sheathed within the skin of something humanlike in appearance. Of course, he could don this appearance at will, and it also made him look all the more civilized for it.
He was still dressed in his navy blue slacks and white dress shirt (the collar still undone). His snarling wolf-head pendant with blood red Jorgani stone wrapped in its jaws hung from his neck, and the small silver band about his left arm--the ever present Echo armor that never left his person. Of course he still had the sleeves to his dress shirt done up above the elbows to facilitate better movement, and the finishing touch to the ensemble were his black dress shoes, although they were dirtied from his last scuffle in the parking lot earlier.
Amarouk carried along his cane in his right hand. He had taken off his forearm bracers. He hadn't needed them earlier, and certainly felt they wouldn't be needed now. Of course, if push ever came to shove, Amarouk could easily don his Echo armor, but he felt, and this was very arrogant of the Vadasian, that he would never need the armor. He did, however, believe that there might come a time later in this tournament that he might have need of the multi-purpose armor, but not now.
The sun continued to shine brightly in the sky, draped and outlined by soft, puffy clouds that wavered through the sky on wisps of hot summer convex. Buildings lined the streets, small shops, a used bookstore, cafes and other buildings of similar ilk and design. The temperature had since risen, but Amarouk never felt the heat. As a Vadasian, his own internal heat was much higher.
There was also the main highway off a distance where screams and wails of car horns from vehicles trapped in traffic emanated. Amarouk, with his sensitive hearing, also heard the cries of profanities that wafted through the hot summer air from the highway. He smiled. Now as he wandered the streets, he waited for his proverbial opponent to bother to show his face. Amarouk hoped it would be a good showing. He was tired of half-witted individuals better suited to acting as cannon fodder instead of tournament opponents.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 2/24/2005 10:05:50 AM
Right foot forward. Left foot. Right. Left. Right. Left.
An instinct, a part of her body that was a second nature even though she still periodically paid attention to the choreography of her fluid steps. Right. The pavement pressed back against her foot solidly, offering its usually unfaltering support as she shifted her weight on it. Left. Solid support again. Right and repeat. Already, her prosthetic legs were getting slightly warmed up from all the brisk walking in the sunny day when the sky was just a blue canvas with globs of white paints and streaks of yellowish-golden weaving into one single collective point. The trees were blooming again, their priceless emerald petals stirring slowly in the gently airy hands stroking them with parental love. As old as the existence of life itself, the golden radiance continued sharing her unconditional love for the green children and watching out for the vile creatures that so often threatened her children.
Ketten looked up and saw it, holding a hand in front of her face and letting the ethereal gold seep through between her fingers. At the same time it adore its children, Sol was a glaring eye examining the miniature concrete colony bustling with fierily passive ants and their daily roles inside the gaseous glass sphere. After deciding she had looked at the sun directly for too long for human eyes, she lowered her unaffected sights without any blue or greenish spots in her vision. Again, her attention returned to her surrounding, her fake legs moving in a programmed fashion and her fake hands in the pockets of her black attire. Even though she tired to ignore it, she could feel countless eyes falling on her as she strode down the concrete pathway along the crowded beach. It wasn’t hard to see how many people were looking at her. Just listened for rollerbladers and bikers crashing into other path users.
That was probably how suspicious and out of season she looked to other people in the forty degree, in Celsius, temperature when shimmering mirages dominated the vehicular roads. The paths for non-motorists by straw hats, sleeveless tank tops, and short-shorts. The beaches by almost-nudists and their best friends, 50 SPF. It would be hard-pressed for the ignorance humans to not look at the young woman walking down the busy path wearing not summer attire but a long-sleeved black tuxedo with a white shirt buttoned all the way up to the collar that it would have strangled anyone. Not for the fair-haired woman whom had her shoulder-length hair tied into a spiraling bun. She was moderately tall, at just below six feet with the long, lanky legs of a ballet dancer—the models of what her once-beautiful legs used to be.
However the main attraction was not entirely her otherworldly attire but the single, large object on her back that she dragged around effortlessly like an oversized backpack with thick straps on her shoulders. After all, it was not a common sight to see someone in long-sleeved black tuxedo in the middle of a summer day, by the beach alone. But having the said person carrying a metallic coffin bigger than herself around with her hands in her pockets was beyond ignorable. Who would carry a steel coffin around in the middle of an exceedingly hot day? Apparently just her, with the coffin’s door decorated with a large catholic cross and swirling, ethereal patterns that brings out the abstract side of an artist while resembling countless angel wings at the same time. The sides of the cross were covered by what seemed like dozens of seriously worn and scratched small panels in the contradiction to the elegant and fluidic design on the door. The bottom edge of the coffin dragging along the ground had been rounded off. She didn’t rest.
If it wasn’t for the obnoxious bus drivers and taxi drivers who refused her oversized luggage, she’d be at her destination by now, but nooooooo—it was going to be a very long walk with people staring at her. She hated it, how all those peop Even throughout the walk, she kept her body straight and stiff but the back was always pressed against the odd coffin so close that there was no daylight between them all the time. Her facial expression was stiff and blank, a doll posed behind a store window for all to view. She didn’t sweat even if she could felt the heat roasting her body like a Peking duck.
Finally reaching the less-populated area of the path, she cut herself some slack by producing a cigarette pack from her pocket, shook out one, and wedged it between her lips, not even bothering to open the pink lips. A golden lighter with a phoenix-like insignia on its sides came out of her pocket next. A flick of her thumb opened it and she pressed the igniting lever hard. A spark born and died. The phoenix didn’t rise from the ashes of the spark. Another spark. Nothing. Third try, a long bluish flame with orange contour rose out of the spark’s death. She held it to the tip of her cigarette for a second and flicked the lighter off, tossing it back into her pocket. She inhaled without rising her chest or shoulders. In fact, the only indication that she was inhaling was the change in the burning’s luminance as the grey smoke billowed lightly into the air, its wispy life fading away ever-slowly and lingering in her wake. She never removed the burning cigarette from her lips until it burned out completely.
For a moment on the walk, she found herself counting her steps again and searching for the rhythm in a fashion not dissimilar to her first year of ballet training. Counting the steps in a simple rhythm, right foot, left foot, right, left. She recalled how back in her childhood she moved herself so lightly that she thought she was floating and dancing with the clouds. She could dance all day, searching and keeping the rhythm like a kid with his newfound talent. Right, left, right, left, right, left. It was only the basic steps, but it met everything to her. The gracious beginning of it all, the gruesome fall of it all.
Nearing her destination, she took a turn into the innard of the city. More staring ensured. She wanted to tear out those white orbs out of their places and squash them under her feet. Forcing herself to endure the judgment of the public, she finally reached her destination. A street lined with Pop and Mom's stores. Less people, the better. Flickering the dying cigarette away, she replaced it and left it unlit. There he was. The next person in the little tournament she joined for the sake of fighting itself, to satisfy the unsatisfaction within herself. With her last opponent easily dismissed, she would personally chat with the organizer of the tournament if the other man in suit happen to be just some skillless bastard. She stopped at a respectable distance away from her opponent and did nothing to catch his attention.
Dismissing the thought of maiming the organizer, she shot a look at her opponent with heaviness in her eyes. She lowered her head and flicked on the lighter for the seventh time today. After lighting up up the cigarette, she lowered it but kept the flame alive and it erupted, shooting out through the air like a serpent with the sounds of chains clanging. A length of barbed chain could be seen faintly under the scorching flames, stained with burnt blood. Keeping her other hand inside the pocket of her attire, she said nothing as the flaming whip quickly crackled for her opponent. Short, simple, and sufficient for testing her opponent.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 2/25/2005 12:20:45 AM
Amarouk was walking, although perhaps it was falling with only his legs to catch him. He could never be sure. His back was straight and his posture stiff yet loose--something brought about by years of military service. His ice blue eyes wandered, taking in the view of everything around him. The shops, the people, the children, all of it enjoying the summer and the business it brought. Summer was in full swing, and those who could wear less clothing because of it did. Amarouk, though, wore his partial suit. Of course, it wouldn't have been hard to turn the ensemble into his military dress uniform, but that would have been far too conspicuous for his tastes and he already drew some attention with the dress shirt and slacks.
No breeze, at least down here in the narrow streets full of common day drudgery, buzzed through the streets. A pair of delightfully, and very scantily clad, young woman passed Amarouk by. He nodded and grinned widely, only to receive a strange look from the two, a conspiring whisper between the young women followed by a laugh. They waved back at him, smiling. Too bad they didn't know the truth about him, else they would be running flat out for their lives. Amarouk wasn't human, didn't tried to be, and was a very bloodthirsty creature if you ever saw one. After all, xenophobia combined with racially bred hatred toward all outside species is a powerful tool in creating creatures that desire only the death of anything _not_ of their own kind. Amarouk fit that description, but only so far. Constant contact with other species had since tempered this attitude, but it was by no means gone from him. It dwelled beneath the surface, waiting for the perfect moment to break forth and savage the land.
Amarouk walked past the young women, clicking his cane along the pavement with each step in a strange beat. This beat was accompanied by a leisurely stride. Amarouk would have whistled had it been in his nature to do so, but it wasn't, so he strode forward with purpose--that purpose being the defeat of whatever opponent he came across.
A child ran past him, followed by a second hot on the firsts' heals, both wailing an insipid howl as they played some sort of game. Amarouk was taken off guard, and because of such didn't quite notice the oncoming woman in dress suit carrying what appeared to be a giant, and ornate looking, slab of metal upon her shoulders. He did have enough time to glance in her direction. She was eyeing him with what looked to Amarouk like a stick in her mouth. The term he was looking for in reference to the stick was cigarette, or coffin nail as others more appropriately called it.
He watched her light the thing from the corner of his eye, his attention returned to the children at play which reminded him of his own two sons now fully grown. This lapse in attention toward the strange woman would have been rather detrimental toward Amarouk's health had it not been for his cane.
You see, Amarouk's cane wasn't necessarily a cane so much as a weapon that would be underestimated. He saw the flash of flame erupt from the woman's lighter and the thin spike chain attached launch toward him. He simply brought up his cane, twisted one of the ornate looking rings near the head (there were a total of four) which caused the end to open up like an umbrella--a rather metal umbrella, actually. The flaming spike hit the impromptu shield and Amarouk smirked while saying, "Holy Brimstone! I think it's raining fire, Captain!"
As Amarouk lowered his umbrella-shield/cane, he searched the street quickly for a loose cobblestone or a rock. Finding a rock of appropriate size, just slightly smaller then a golf ball, Amarouk reached out with his psionically gifted mind. Once he had seized the rock with his mind, he turned to his opponent and smiled happily.
"I asked the last guy if he's ever played Raturak. So, ever heard of it?"
With that as his warning, very much a sense of deja vu for Amarouk, the rock leapt from the ground and went zipping toward the woman at a blistering speed. He hoped this woman wouldn't want some kind of introduction. Why the hell would you need an introduction from the person you planned on beating into the ground, anyway? Amarouk was here to fight, not get names. After all, he truly did believe in the mantra of shooting first and asking questions later.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 2/25/2005 11:45:52 AM
Ketten--actually Suruma-- didn't make any sounds when her chain struck the umbrella shield. At least the guy had the sense to carry some form of gadgets instead of just a simple sword. The whip of flame extinguished to reveal the slender chain with thorns as long as one inch, extending from the right sleeve. Dropping the lighter back into its pocket, she held her hand before her as the barbed chain quickly retreated into into the sleeve like a serpent slithering back into its nest. While Ketten stood silently, Suruma said nothing as her opponent referred to his previous battle. Without paying the slightest attention, the cigarrette's burning end brightened into orange-yellow, then dimmed back to orange-red. When the rock began moving, the attack was so obvious that Suruma let out a mental sigh, that her opponent was also testing her. Without opening her lips, she used her skills as a ventrioliquist to merely reply her opponent's words, the voice harsh and rough.
"I'm not interested in a child's play. I'd also recommend reconsidering before flirting with me."
She didn't move as the rock zipped through the air, aiming directly for her chest. She just stood there with her coffin attached to her back motionlessly. It was not until the rock was within a foot when a black streak swept in the air, easily sending the rock flying away. The length of barbed chain retreated inside the coffin through an open hatch on one side, closing the minature hatch with a faint click. It wasn't even testing the speed of her chains. She did not say anything, just smoking with her head slightly bowed. The man in suit was obviously a telekinetic, but she doubted his powers was reliance on the telekinesis. The arrogance dripping from his voice was an obvious tip-off of either his skills or his confidence.
Hrmph, defeating a simple warrior was like swatting a fly. Those selfish people lately had been retreating closer and closer into their own little world, believing that a sword or a gun would make them invincible--guess what? You aren't. She had shattered her shares of amateurs. The only thing she hoped for was someone who actually possess the skills to back up his words. He just may be one of those. Or not, considering how exceedingly rare the real gentlemen were lately. Maybe she would just snooze off for a minute... She almost caught herself falling asleep in the heat, but her opponent would have no way of noticing unless he could see through the coffin.
She didn't exhale, nor announce her intention to attack. Only a fool or a god would announce an oncoming attack to someone who you had set your eyes on maiming or disembowel, and she was neither. What was the point of an attack if it was just going to be simply sidestepped because your opponent knows? Why not just say "Hey, I'm going to do a diving kick to your face, so you can just duck and rip my heart out!"?
The funny thing was one of her previous opponents actually said it, and she didn't take it jokingly.
Without as much as a warning, the concrete underneath the man's feet cracked and split open as four seperate barbed chains, each as thick as one inch with thorns longer than one inch, shot out in a square formation. The living chains didn't bother slowing down and just burst through, two of them whipping through the air toward the man's ankles with the intention to entangle the said body parts while the remaining two attacked to remove the umbrella-cane from the man's hands.
She might just as well as enjoy the man's anticipated scream, be it from fury or anguish. All she wanted was the sounds of something,
anything screaming to shake her drowsiness away. She inhaled again as more and more chains slipped from her pant legs into the ground underneath.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 2/25/2005 2:19:08 PM
Amarouk was somewhat disappointed. Of course, he always was disappointed when no one wanted to share in a game of Raturak. At least the woman had some idea of how to play, although the shattering of the rock downed his hopes. It really was a good game and the only one he, as a Vadasian would play, unless it involved alcohol--anything involving alcohol had to be good. Of course, as Amarouk was Vadasian, he drank, and drank quite a bit--it was the Vadasian national past time, drinking, so it shouldn't have been surprising to see the mane down a bottle of Port mid-battle if it came down to it.
Now getting back to the rock, Amarouk watched with downward spiraling hopes for a game of Raturak as the woman ripped the rock to shreds, or rather, the giant, ornate looking slab of metal on her back did. Several chains flashed out to crush it mid flight long before it reached his opponent. Well that's interesting, was the only thought that came into Amarouk's mind as he watched this happening. Of course, he had fought against a person who used a similar trick, but only with a sword that cast its shadow. That meant something else was quite ready to happen.
"Ah, to be young and ignorant," Amarouk said disdainfully, making a tsk tsk sound.
It was at about that moment in time that the ground erupted. Or rather, the pavement felt it needed to expunge some very violent chains with barbs that felt the need to thrash the standing Amarouk. He would be having none of that, at least at the current time, and twisted three of the four ornate rings round the top of his cane. The first caused the umbrella-shield to collapse while the second made short spike emerge from the tip of the cane. The third allowed Amarouk to rip free the hidden sword from the cane and use it as the weapon is was.
Of course, Amarouk had no intention of fighting chains. He was never much of a fan of them, and so leapt into the air. His leap was directed to his left, but he flipped sideways at the same moment. The next interesting thing that happened, however, was that he was suddenly standing mid-air for a spilt second before leaping again, this time to the right and rotating sideways in the air. What happened was that as Amarouk jumped, he set a small telekinetic barrier in place for him to land on. The barrier was seen yet not, looking like nothing more than a slight stiffening of the air or some such. To the untrained eye, it looked almost as if Amarouk was flying, but he really wasn't capable of such a feat.
After the second barrier had been landed upon, Amarouk jumped higher still, being able to see over the rooftops of the low lying nearby buildings. What he planed was probably the only technique he knew, and despite it being his only true magical technique, it came with probably the worst and most cliched of names for such. Simply put, it was called 'Wind Slash'--although it was called such for lack of a better term. Wind Slash was exactly that, a slash of molecule thin air particles that traveled in a single, greenish hued wave toward a target. The drawback to it was that that it only traveled in a straight line. But, despite this, it was a deadly weapon in Amarouk's arsenal. It would cut through anything it came in contact with, including the chains that had so readily sought Amarouk out. And if it missed the chains, it would drive a long, six-foot deep trench into the ground several feet in front of the woman.
It was released simply by a mental command to the Jorgani stone around his neck and horizonal slash at chest level. Rather amusing to see a person perform such in mid-air, but Amarouk was currently stalling for time. He had an idea as to where the chains were coming from, and despite himself, wanted to see the weapon in action a little longer. After all, this Fleet Commander was the head of an R&D facility, and new weapons ideas and designs were always appreciated in the more sadistic portion of Amarouk's mind.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 2/25/2005 5:10:08 PM
He called her ‘young’. Young? She didn’t think so anymore. She preferred the term ‘jaded’ despite the fact that she was not even thirty years old.
Uncaring about the result of her opponent’s evasive action, Suruma remained silent as her opponent unsheathed the hidden blade from within his cane. For a second, she was disappointed at the choice of weapon by the man. A close-range bout against the Chain Manipulator, as she was better known as would be the equivalent of a baby frog still with its tail proclaiming its delusional feeling of being special to a serpent. Maybe the baby frog did have some tricks up its sleeves, but whatever was coming, her experience pointed to only one thing, as he didn’t even try to close in on her. It was a giveaway of intention to one as experienced and battle-scarred as the deceptively deadly woman.
At least he did possess the speed and agility to evade the first attack, unlike the helpless warrior who expected her to charge in and whack him on the head with the massive coffin. Of course, her ornate coffin was neither an effective weapon nor a sumptuous decoration. She did, through, crushed his head with the coffin long after stripping his shins of flesh. How the eyes so helplessly bulged outward and simply popped out of their places in a splatter of grey matter with their tethers severed, was what came to her mind first every times she visualized a death. So pathetic, those amateurs! Those charged her right-on were now nothing more than dog food, both literally and figuratively. Those who assumed they could attack and cast a spell at the same time suffered elongated deaths thanks to their own attempts to conjure up a healing spell. Those smart enough to stay back lasted only as long as it took her to drag them toward the arched gateway to Hell. All those kills, she rarely had to dye her lonely hand with those steaming crimson. The chains, and Ketten, were doing the best of their jobs anyway. How pathetic, those self-claimed professional assassins who needed to get within a foot of their targets to kill them. One kick from her, and they’d drop down in agony like maggots squirming on the ground and whining about their lost body parts. Excuse me, sir, you only lost your right hand and your kneecaps. That was how *****y those people had been lately.
You just couldn’t expect to come out alive if you wanted to get within a metre of hostility, or within ten metres in Suruma’s case. With her intricate web of underground chains completed, she just remained motionless with her hands in pockets and eyes attracted to an oil stain in front of her. The truly ignorant could learn his mistakes from the sulfuric flames of the underworld. He could learn how to truly dance with the devil himself. Step. Step. Tap. Step. Step. Tap. Just like that. Step. Step. Tap. The curtain fell, the crowd burst into appalling applause. Easy, like swatting an overconfident mosquito.
She didn’t reply her opponent. He could teach himself. After all—killing is an art just like dancing, plunging the dagger or pulling the trigger was merely a simple step in the show, a small yet essential part of the steady flow of the music and choreography. Right. Left. Right. Left. Follow the rhythm. Listen to the beat. Feel the words of the music. Be a part of it all.
The compressed wave of air molecules sped through the air, just as she had predicted. However she did not move her chains away, but added even more chains instead to form a barrier between the airy slash and herself. A dozen lengths of chains simply sprouted out of the ground, tall, straight, and proud like wall of bamboos. They fell apart graciously with no complaints in their death rattle, their purpose served woefully. The compressed line of air was nothing more than an unnoticeable breeze when it reached the ground with sixteen-something severed segments of chains lying on the ground like deflowered stems of roses tore from their roots. The immobile stems of roses did not remain just stems of roses for long as the cigarette between her lips brightened. It was just a tremble at first, shuddering in a way not dissimilar to the way her disembodied right arm quivered. Except the chains weren’t on fire, their skin wasn’t blackening and curling to reveal the once-pinkish muscles underneath. They were very much alive in a sense as the severed segments of chains suddenly started slithering all over the place agilely, avoiding entanglement and waiting for him to set his foot on the dangerous ground.
The qualifying round had started, ladies and gentlemen. Take your partner in hands and dance. One certain person would say with the wide grin she used to adore until the blaze of glory that came and went.
Quickly kicking into offense, Suruma only had to concentrate on the serpentine severed chains surrounding the man and caused them to sprung high into air, attempting to latch their needle-like thorns deep into the man’s legs and tear his appendages asunder as merciless as the inferno devouring her trembling right arm. She quietly instructed five chains still attached to her to sprout of the ground, caused them to rise high over his head before falling down toward him with their sharp bodies coiling and tangling to form a net descending upon the insect. Devouring him would not be enough to make up for the disappointment he had given her. She wanted to see him dance with Death, to study the man’s steps as a judge. Keeping her head bowed, she waited for the anticipated escape by the man.
Please, no distraction from you, the best, the most lovable audience in the entire world! The traitor who she loved would follow up if he was alive to be there.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 2/28/2005 6:04:10 PM
In some portion of Amarouk's mind, he knew innately that this would not be easy. When the chains had broken ground, he had known that they would be a problem, and somehow in the deepest reaches of his subconscious, he had known that simply cutting them off wouldn't work. And that is where Amarouk found himself now, stuck in a dillema of figuring out just how to deal with the upstart little chains--that even while severed from the master, were still being pulled along like good little marionets.
Firstly, they had jumped into the air aimed for his feet, those severed chains ascending while he descended into them. A new problem arose when a second set of chains burst from the ground and rose to tower before him, five in all, with the intent of coming down on his head. Amarouk would be having none of that. He hadn't survived over four hundred years of life to have it ended by some nobody on the street who slung metal chains around, so Amarouk did what he thought was best for the split second moments available to him before the worst would happen--he evaded. Of course, the evasion did have a process of thought, but Amarouk had become a warrior such that sometimes thought never came into it. It was all nothing more than reflex, and that was what he relied on now, his highly trained and tuned reflexes.
Amarouk felt that his rate of descent was far too great, and even with the chains lashing down from above, the ones below would get him first--this left open a single option. He created another telekinteic barrier, but only one, this one below him and at a forty-five degree angle. One, it would act as a shield against the upward rising spikes, and two, would provide a means of backflipping through the air away from the downward plying chains that so sought him. His feet touched the slightly shimmering air, his legs bent, and he pushed off and back in a graceful flip, his arms out at his sides.
But, something strange happened during this jump. His cane and sword disappeared amid a reddish glow (they were actually stored within the Jorgani stone now), and the silver armband around Amarouk's left biceps turned black and began to melt. It melted, and quickly slipped across the whole of his body, looking like a thick, jet oil sleeting along the surface of his skin. When it solidified, Amarouk was at the apex of his jump, and the only portion of him untouched by this strange phenomenon was his head.
Amarouk was now encased in a black suit with navy accentuation along the forearms, shins, upper thighs, upper chest and back. Those regions in particular were reinforced with armor. The armor itself was Echo armor, Amarouk's own personal kind, and he was about to turn the tables with the multi-purpose device. His ice blue eyes darted back and forth quickly, seeking out every one of the severed chains, and upon seeing them still in ascent, opened fire. Two small lasers on his shoulders erupted with coherent red light, flashing past to insinerate the small barbs that had so saught him. Amarouk wanted to deal with his immediate threat, and that included the chains that had been falling toward him.
His jump suspended suddenly (stopped by the aquamarine-glowing antigrav coils on the suits shoulder blades) leaving Amarouk to hang in the air. His left arm then appeared to melt, but in a different sense. It elongated as Amarouk made a fist, turning into a barrel-shaped weapon with the appropriate opening at the end. His left arm was now a whole six inches longer than it had been moments before, and with it, he fired off two laser blasts at his distant foe (the woman) before turning his attention toward the chains. The left-arm-mounted cannon opened like a flower then, one with four petals, and erupted with two micronized missiles that sped toward the chains in the hopes of consuming them in enough heat to melt the damn things or incinerate them outright.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 3/2/2005 8:43:41 AM
The lover who she later hated would have proclaimed in this kind of situation. What a dazzling show of flawlessly choreographed steps! Such fluidic flow, so smooth, so passionate with the music! Those were the words from the first night, but she remembered how he could have spewed out such childish exaggeration forever and ever. Suruma mentally gave the suited man credits for dealing with the soaring serpents with telekinetic powers. The tip of her cigarette lit up for a very long time. Maybe he was not an utter waste of time after all. His airy steps were beautiful with the toes elegantly pointed. If it was an international dance competition, he certainly would receive a considerably high ranking. Not the best of all, but enough for her to clap her hands lightly, making the sounds of ceramic tapping against each other.
Suruma watched observantly, studying how he agilely pulled a magician act on his can and put on a kind of liquid metal armour. She stopped clapping, remained silent and motionless, and readied herself for the expected attack. Watching the armor move, she predicted a move and already prepared herself against it. With the rest of the chains still chasing him, she would not count on her opponent being out of the duel already. He was only stepping lightly and building up to the big moves, the tiebreaker of the entire show. Chains wrapped themselves around the casket and began circling the portable grave with several chains forming a cone below the coffin. Loud grating sounds and orange-red sparks ensued and the coffin sunk into the ground, the barbed chains tearing asunder the pavement with ease. The woman removed her shoulders from the straps of her coffin and stood watching with her arms dangling beside her side. Her back and the sarcophagus separated to reveal what seemed like a thick bundle of chains connecting both, pulsating in an almost organic manner. As the coffin went deeper, the chains within the fair-haired puppet’s body remained. Not for long as the severed chains ended up obliterated by the lasers zooming from the obviously technologically superior man’s shoulders. The woman in suit stood motionless and said nothing as cigarette smoke slowly escaped her back.
The coffin nail lit up for one last time as it suddenly ceased to exist in a flash of laser blast. The woman’s body shuddered painfully, reclining and recoiling from the direct hit. Bull’s eye! Right into her face as charred fragments of the silent face flew into the air. One of her eyeballs, partially destroyed, bounced off the pavement and rolled to a storm drain, plummeting into an abyss of darkness. The woman’s body shuddered again with just a little more than half of her face cleanly wiped off the face of the planet to reveal slender chains squirming within like a nest of entangled infant snakes. Even that was gone as the second laser blast tore through a methane canister stored within her chest, causing her body to burst into a fireball with the coffin safely in the ground. Though, chains were still attached to the flaming body even though it was missing a head and burning with a gaping hole in its chest. The body jerked forward as Suruma put her efforts into moving the body, telling the chains to move systematically. The deformed puppet held out its arms for balance and took a few steps forward before it was completely obliterated by two missiles in a loud bang of fiery white light.
There you go! The big and final ultimatum between our beloved contestants!
Later, the chains were gone, nothing more than cooling puddles of molten metals and shattered chain links. Half of the surroundings were also set aflame. In the middle of the charred road where a hole indicated the underground coffin’s location, six chains shot out and anchored themselves to the road. In one uniform effort they pulled up the coffin proudly before retreating inside the open side panels. She had not gotten outside for a considerable amount of time, but the man was impressive enough to force her to do so even if it was done with the aid of explosive weapons. She could do without those, actually.
The coffin door snapped open and she trembled out, falling on her first step outside. Her hand stretched out for the floor and broke the embarrassing descent quickly enough that she was only in the crouching position for the beginning of a run. As soon as she felt her weight stabilized and her artificial leg compressed for optimum elastic force, she abruptly broke into a dash with a loud nasal release of air. At the same time, a length of chain shot out before her and stiffened to form a pole in front of her. Coiling an end of the stiffened chain around her organic arm, she rammed the chain-pole into the ground before her and the next thing she knew was being vaulted high into air and over her opponent’s head. The improvised vaulting pole followed her and returned to its whip-like state, already coiling around the hovering man by a far radius.
Suruma was right above him, the white flowery wedding dress fluttering to show that she was wearing a pair of black leather pants underneath with one leg cut short to accommodate her artificial right leg; a curved piece of carbon fiber encased material with a disk at the bottom, the same design as those used by one-legged runners. Flowing from her shoulders was a large cloak made of innumerable dark, barbed chains like a wave of darkness threatening to swallow the technologically based man on one single chomp. It was a strange contrast to her large voluptuous wedding dress, even if the chest part was actually filled by silicon pads with accurately detailed nipples to compensate for her amputated breasts. Her right arm was but a crude metallic arm with three talons at the end of the forearm. Her left arm was bony and full of mountainous scars with various popping flesh and twisted evidences of failed skin grafts, the hand missing its pinky and ring finger with the rest of the appendages immobilized at an awkward angle. The same could be said for the face that looked as if it jumped right out of a frying pan full of burning oil literally. Her right eye was but a fleshy crater of mangled scars caused by a luckily angled point-blank shot from a .45. Her scalp was bald and resembled a geographic map of the Rockies with various shades of pink and burgundy. She had no cheeks, nor tongue, revealing the entirety of her incomplete and disorganized set of chipped teeth. A walking skeleton with Death’s grin, some had dared to call her. It all was simply a drastic escape from the musical beauty she once was.
Without even giving her opponent the opportunity to oppose her oppressed face, she quickly summoned a dozen loops of barbed chains in the air, all of them quickly whirring with the same effects of ultra-high velocity chainsaws. She also caused the chains coiled around her limbs to move in a high speed, potentially turning herself into a human chainsaw or a meat grinder depending on your style of describing it. Without a single warning, she caused the sawing loops to bear down upon the man’s exposed head with the support of six barbed whips from her back aiming to hold the man’s limbs. With her death grin fixated, she bomb dived toward the man with many vines ready to defend at a thought’s notice.
Evasion skills, highly advanced technology, or not, he still was more meat for the grinder.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 3/2/2005 10:50:36 AM
Amarouk watched the whole thing stoically. He had met up with many strange species, seen many strange things in war and battle, and even in this odd little scene, despite all its strangeness, he could only feel like something of this caliber would happen sooner or later. He felt that destiny was out there writing a script, and would have created at some point a horror show just for those who felt they needed to be shocked at one point in their lives. Amarouk had been shocked only once. Since then, nothing could ever actually bring about a feeling of unease in him.
He forced the thoughts of his long dead wife down, burying them deep as his mind worked. The neural connection between him and his suit caused a holographic overlay to appear inside his eyes, although placed there by the suit through the neural link. It made it so Amarouk became essentially a piece of hardware for the computer, a plug in, a place where the weapons and systems to jack in. The different was, though, that his own software, or personality and thoughts, was the overarching operating system that controlled the whole of it. And though his eyes, small triangular targeting reticule flashed out to encompass every chain and link.
After the woman had stepped out, Amarouk suddenly knew exactly where the source of those chains was. This woman, or whatever it is that she happened to be, appeared to be the puppeteer of the whole thing. How she had come across this weapon, he didn't know. He only had one thought to offer toward it: why do the morons of ancient civilizations leave their most powerful weapons, magical or otherwise, lying about for the morons of today to find?
At this point, with chains rising and lowering in a tandem once more, Amarouk found himself backpedaling and wondering how often that move would repeat. Maybe her mind is so rotted she can't see she's been doing much of the same thing again and again, he thought as he flashed backward on aquamarine glowing antigrav coils. He moved faster than he had previously and was quickly out of range before the chains clashed together in a cacophony and chaotic mingling of metallic sound--a continuous screech to Amarouk's sensitive and very much prone ears.
Although, even had the chains attack him outright, Amarouk had shields and could survive, but shield only lasted for so long and he would rather survive off his own agility, or rather the agility proffered by his suit of Echo armor. Amarouk flashed a smile at the woman as he retreated back and upward. It wasn't over, and this was by no means a goodbye smile, he just wanted to let her know it had been a nice attempt.
From a much higher distance, and keeping his left-arm-turned-laser-cannon trained on the woman, Amarouk felt he needed to make the woman feel a little more anxious. Instead, he looked toward the point where the coffin was and with grin still transfixed on his face, pointed his right arm toward it. A small slot at the bottom of his right wrist opened up and from it he shot three small, flat disks toward the coffin--grenades. Essentially, he was going to blow of the figures house. And to make it seem more interesting.
But, even with his attention turned toward the coffin below, the suits scanners and targeting software still had a lock on the airborne-encroached-pole-vaulting femme fatale, and with that lock, Amarouk opened fire with a single blast of coherent red energy. He felt deep in the core of his stomach that she would block this blast as readily as she blocked all the others, but Amarouk was only waiting for the woman to touch ground again. That was where the fun would begin anew, and certainly not for the woman.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 3/2/2005 5:06:37 PM
The suited man had once again managed to evaded her action, but Suruma wasn't done yet. Even with the loops of chains missing, she merely let them descent rapidly toward the ground and stiffened the straight chains quickly and let them stab into the pavement below, halting her fall. Quickly standing tall on the stilts of chians, she looked at her opponent to find him pointing at the coffin downward. She merely told her chains to hold her body higher in the air to greet him.
The mangled face showed no concern as he wasted his time attacking the coffin instead. Sadly, he wasn't the only one who mistaken her coffin as her source of the magical chains forged with the aid of Justice's dimensional powers. If she could smile voluntarily, she would have grinned back at her opponent. The coffin on the ground went and sent deadly metallic shards flying, easily blocked by the cloak of chains. Undoubting her opponent's destructive abilities, she doubted his abilty to reason. It seemed that lately those kind of people who couldn't reason out the conclusion even with clearly obvious hints staring right at them in the face are getting the best of the weapons. All she got and needed was just a self-replicating chain.
Hobbling on the barbed stilts, she was able to approached the man rapidly. Just in time for the arm cannon to be pointed right into her face. The deathly grin's teeth clicked together mockingly as she could sense the energy channelled within. With a simple jerk of her head, the beam merely cut a cauterized groove into her already mangled shoulder. No pain, not with the synthetic skin. The moment the cannon blast went off, the cloak of chains was already distantly wrapped around both Suruma and the suited man. The cloak quickly split apart and multiplied into countless, weaving an intricate bubble of chains supported by bundles of chains that were its legs. He was within her ravenous range, and she would take the pleasure.
A mere thought of her mind, and she had slender chains stabbing toward the man's body from all directions within her realm. If there were any signs of weaknesses within the armour, she would find it eventually. Quickly moving around inside the sphere by her chains, she watched cautiously like a spider studying a caught prey. At the same time, she moved her body to the edge of the sphere for a quick escape, if needed. Grinning, she waited for the explosive counterattack to come to her like a foolish predator running right into a trap...
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 3/2/2005 5:49:17 PM
It was an age-old game of cat and mouse. One moment you were the cat, chasing the mouse, the next the tables turned and it was you who ran for your life. Amarouk knew this sensation and despised it. He was a predator by nature, and although his attack on the coffin had been a bad move, it also suited another purpose. He had a set of grenades, but he needed to fire off a few before he could rotate the grenade types. A drawback in the suit design, but Amarouk wasn't too worried.
The woman on her stilted chains rose higher and higher yet, moving toward him, and when he pulled the proverbial trigger hidden within the arm of his suit and catapulted a lethal amount of red-hued energy at it, she found herself touched in a sense. The only problem was she jerked back and the attack only grazed her arm. Too bad.
Amarouk was aware of exactly how fast her chains were moving, creating a swirling sphere of metal to surround them and blot out the sky. Bits of light filtered in through the links in those chains. Amarouk decided now was a good time to start playing a true game of Raturak. His suit turned liquid again, black and oozing, only this time it crept up over his head to encompass it in a smooth helmet, the only feature being a blood-red slight where his eyes were. It was then that several chains flashed at him.
He tracked the woman as the chains hit him--or rather, hit the invisible shields surrounding his suit and ricocheted off them. Amarouk didn't smile beneath his helmet, only grunted, but the noise never escaped from the armor he wore. The suit might have shields, but it didn't have dampeners to soften some of the blows. Amarouk would be feeling that one in the morning.
He raised his right arm in salute to her, the slit under his right wrist glinting a little silver with the motion. He then pointed the arm downward and let the new kind of grenade drop. The grenade was unlike its previous brethren in the fact that its purpose was only to disintegrate the ground around it. The end result would be a seismic wave that would cause the surrounding land to drop at least a few hundred meters in elevation. Amarouk only carried two, but only needed one.
Of course, the woman might realize some sort of threat, but not matter. The laser cannon opened like a flower at that point, but instead of staying like that, the four petal configuration at the end of the barrel rotated clockwise. After a quarter turn, a click resonated in the air. Amarouk pointed his left arm at her and fired the fragmentation missile. He hoped she liked shrapnel, and lots of it.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 3/2/2005 6:24:51 PM
There were always moments when your opponent's stupid luck or ridiculous experience evaded traps, especially if said trap was hastily made. This was obviouly one of those examples where she not only did not receive the upper hand, but also learned that her opponent did possess enough telekinetic powers to create invisible barrier. As soon as she learned of it, she quickly constricted the sphere of chain, opened the wall behind her, and removed herself from the sphere. She planned to trap him, but not quickly enough that a grenade-like object was able to slip through the gaps within the sphere. Maybe he'd like a taste of his own medicine.
She lashed out for the falling object with several chains and quickly caught it, sending it back toward its owner. She intentionally let the said object hit the sphere of the chain. However it did not explode like she expected, bouncing off harmlessly. To think she was hoping for a light to a cigarette, she was slightly disappointed in herself. But the show must go on even if there was one misstep. Fortunately it was only a charity show where they don't pick you apart at the slightest offset. Just a dance where mistakes are not so punishing, or so she hoped. While she watched the sphere shrinking upon her opponent, an explosion tore through the side of the sphere and sent countless shards flying through the air. Still, no flames were involved. She reacted merely by coiling chains around her, forming a cocoon as the newly made hole on the sphere quickly closed. Shards bounced off the cocoon, but some of the smaller ones did make it through the gaps and ended up embedding within her body. She let out a raspy release of breath, unable to even let out a grunt with her vocal cords removed. Letting the sphere continuing its shrinking of death, she did not see the grenade landing.
She found herself falling literally from the sky, but concentrated on keeping the sphere intact as the thick legs supporting her quicly curved and elongated, groping for supports on the collapsing ground. She fell a good hundred metre and stopped just in time, caught by a web with its barbaric strands attached to the nearby buildings. Hanging over the sinkhole, she found firm ground again and decided to finish the shrinking of the sphere. All she wanted was just a light to enjoy the cigarette.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 3/2/2005 7:58:11 PM
Amarouk swore. The woman was outside the ever-constricting sphere and he was inside. There was only one option left, really--high tail it out of the mass of chain sphere and fast. Amarouk had had a good many close calls in his life, and this one just might be another to add to the list of them. At least it'd provide a good story for his two sons, as well as a few comrades back in the military. He'd look back and have a laugh at the whole thing, talk about how stupid some of his choices were and move on. But of course before he could even begin to contemplate that he needed to get out.
So, reverting his laser-cannon-turned-micro-missile-launcher back into its usual forearm-turned-medium-laser-cannon, he decided upon a bit of encroaching chain and opened fire. Blast after blast after blast of coherent red energy splayed out to incinerate and disintegrate the chains. The two, much smaller lasers on his shoulders, too, fired, splitting apart links of chain. Of course, there was the problem of his death if he couldn't get out...But Amarouk didn't think about that. Besides, if he died his suit upon reading his failed vital signs would explode and create a crater three kilometers in diameter from whatever energy was leftover in the power packs of the suit, not to mention the overload of the generator.
Amarouk's eyes darted to his power levels on his HUD. Still good, and his shields would hold out for a bit, but there was always the eventuality that that might not be true. He concentrated on blowing apart the chains. They were easy enough to destroy, the only problem being that they seemed to replicate themselves. A thought struck Amarouk that maybe they were a kind of nanotechnology, but dismissed it, and vaguely felt himself wishing he had bothered to get the suit upgrade that allowed him to phase through solid objects. That would have proven worthwhile...
Then a thought struck him and he grinned maliciously. He had holographic projectors, why not use those? Not to mention his suit's cloaking ability, so he did. Amarouk overlay a holographic image of himself just overtop of himself. The imagery was lifelike, and was shooting in the pattern he was shooting in. Then he cloaked, keeping the charade up before he holographically simulated himself shooting up and out of the encircling sphere of metal.
The facade would only work for so long, but Amarouk had the slim hope the woman would fall for it. Besides, the holograph looked for all intensive purposes as real and would fool anyone, himself included, were he not the originator of that hologram. The hologram oriented itself toward the woman, still on her stilted chain-legs and holding herself up via whatever buildings hadn't collapsed during the seismic grenade. Then the hologram darted a distance away from the sphere before stopped in opening fire with a holographic version of Amarouk's laser cannon.
The blast was fake, but the woman would try and evade anyway. Real or not, if you couldn't tell the difference, it was better to be safe than sorry. And currently, Amarouk was sorry he hadn't bothered to move around a bit more. He shouldn't have stayed in one spot, and once he got out of this sphere, he promised himself that he'd begin moving a lot more and remain doing so. A moving target was, after all, harder to hit.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 3/3/2005 10:31:05 AM
Suruma didn't even try to prevent her opponent's escape and just watched as holes were blasted into the sphere of chains. She was still waiting, for the spark of the heat enough to ignite, but those laser blasts wouldn't suffice unless she was the target. Might as well as let him fire the flashlight at her just once, then he would surely pay. Her death grin immobilized, she waited as broken chain links fell onto the sunken ground.
However, she did notice something. While the man dashed out of her trap, his energy signature had split into two. She tilted her head upon sensing the man's energy signature being split into two. From the moment she arrived at the duel, she could sense a very fierce energy signature from the suited man, the kind of energy signatures usually seen within people with innate fire attributes. So far, he hadn't shown any elemental magics yet. He probably used to be a fire mage and switched over to technology. Whatever it was, she was positive it wasn't the liquid metal armor: It's too cool compared to the energy signature.
However the man was arleady before her with a cannon foolishly ready to blast. Peeking at the man through her cocoon, he still looked the same. The other moving energy signature was just a shimmering spot in the air. Quickly she turned her attention to the man as the sphere pulled itself apart, retreating to coil around the man's body. He fired before the further chains could reach him and after chains closer to her quickly rose to block the blow and absorb the energy.
Like a fuelless lighter, it was only a spark that gave birth to no fire. There wasn't even any heat from the blast and when the chains reached him, they passed through his body as if he had an ethereal body. Suddenly the thought struck her as the man faded away. A mirage. An illusion, he was. She cursed at herself inside her mind as she quickly locked onto the other energy signature, easily isolated from the thermal disturbance within the air. He was definitely moving faster, but Suruma wasn't about to light up.
With a series of loud grating sounds, she imitated one of her opponent's previous attacks by whipping a dozen chains swiftly through the air. By imitating the attack, she was compressing the air with the chains. With the advantages of having multiple 'appendages', she swiftly let several dozens crescents of compressed air slice toward the energy signature of the man without any signs of letting it slow down. If he could cloak and create holographs, certainly he must have other forms of technology to make a fool out of her. One of the best thing she could do would be to keep a tremendous amount of pressures upon his opponent--until he makes some mistakes that she could exploit.
If needed, she would keep the volley of dangerously sharp waves of air going for a long time.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 3/3/2005 1:06:38 PM
The ploy had worked and that was all Amarouk needed. The chains came out and sought his doppelganger only to breeze through it as though it weren't there. Amarouk decided to let the thing die, so to say, and the hologram faded from view. What he hadn't expected was that the woman, despite his still being cloaked, turned her attention back to him. That meant one of many things to Amarouk. Either she was telepathic and could get some sense of him, had a natural attunement to life and the ability to seek it out (and kill it) or she had some technology of her own to eat through his cloak and see the hidden Amarouk beyond. Either way, it meant the charade was over and time for Amarouk to move up into a better, more lovely (and breathtaking with that gorgeous sun looming high in the air he had so missed) world beyond the chains.
Amarouk chose this time to do one of two things. Firstly, he disengaged his cloak, and secondly he kicked in the thrusters on the back of his shins. He could achieve a speed of roughly mach two in atmosphere with Echo armor, much faster in space, and either way, he wasn't going to sit still and let the lovely princess on her high stilettos swing at him from afar. Besides, weren't princesses supposed to receiving a kiss from their prince charming? Amarouk almost snickered at the thought--he was a prince, but surely didn't want to be kissing this princess. That and the woman probably wouldn't let him near enough to do so had he ever wanted to. No, Amarouk thought it best to play a hit and fade; besides, why play with the poisonous spider when you can squash it?
Now free of the chains, Amarouk flew through the air using what remaining buildings still stood (probably those with some kind of earthquake countermeasures) and weaved through them as the chains sought him. He decided sticking to the air, and high up in it, was a bad thing. He didn't feel like being easily spotted. Of course, those buildings that he was flashing behind and around were slowly being leveled by whatever new attack the woman had dreamed up that was currently following him. Amarouk wouldn't have cover for much longer, so felt no compunctions in letting the woman have it.
It, however, was the same fragmentation missiles he had used earlier. While not as powerful as his usual missile, they would rip through light armor quite easily, and Amarouk hadn't expected anyone in this tournament to be wearing anything too heavy in the way of armor anyway. Amarouk crested the top of a building, shot a look in the direction of the woman, the spider strung in her web, and shot a single missile. She could shatter it. The frag would still reach her by way of momentum. Plus the splatter effect would be on Amarouk's side in this little endeavor.
Of course Amarouk had to duck down fast as the building he flashed past began to crumble under the onslaught of whatever technique the fine lad was using at the moment. Redecorating was truly something to behold when being done by the hands of a master, and currently, this area of eight blocks was looking like a jumbled mass of new-age art. Fire hydrants spewed water, buildings had crumbled, some gas mains had decided now was the perfect time to explode, and there was a screaming in the air that just made Amarouk feel like he was doing what any Vadasian should; cleansing the universe of anything not of his species.
He kept a sensor lock on the woman and hoped to the Goddess she would fall sometime soon, either by his hand or exhaustion. Amarouk only had four frag missiles left, and after that was only six other missiles and he didn't exactly have time to settle down and restock from his Jorgani stone at the moment. Hopefully some part of the frag grenades would get her. Until then, Amarouk was now the mouse in this game...only he was nibbling away at the cat with a rather cruel bite.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 3/3/2005 3:53:06 PM
Suruma didn't stay long within her web of spider web, deciding it would be a strong disadvantage to simply remain in one place when her opponent was like one pesistent fly crafty enough to avoid the web. Being the spider wasn't good enough now. It was time to take on something else, but what to catch that mosquito? Spitting out windy cutters just weren't working--the bloodsuckin insect was admirably too fast and far. He was truly an impressive dancer, following the paces and steps elegantly with the flow of a glacier stream. If she still had the now-pulverized puppet serving her, the puppet would have clapped its hands again.
It felt like one of those few dances where she actually couldn't keep up the pace. The feeling of the thousands eyes falling upon her for the mistimings were beyond words; she had felt like pluckering those critical eyes out and squash them under her round-toed ballet shoes. However from the way she saw it, there was only two course of actions: Die trying to catch up or change the music. She would have to take a quick step off the theatre stage to change the music, but it would be worth it.
As quicklyas she elongated the chains, she withdrew all the chains supporting her and kept the airy slashes flying and distracting the fly. Using several remaining chains attached to the buildings, she swung to unsunken pavement and landed on her feet softly, her wedding dress flowing as the cocoon unravelled. She kept good several dozens chains active and ready, with six of them acting as her supporting leg. In a blur of fluttering white she scuttled--in the lack of better word--after her opponent.
And all she still wanted was a light. Gentlemen are supposedly to help the ladies, but apparently the man did not even try to act like a gentleman. Show some respect for a fellow dancer, at least. If he wasn't willing to give her a light, she'd just have to fetch for it herself. She looked at a nearby building and shot several chains deep into them, quickl searching for the gas lines. Explosions indicated her discovery as it was finally light. The fire danced on some of the chains, then rapidly spread out to the others as she quickly added more chains to keep herself from being a human torch for the second time. Quickly she moved the fiery chains around her, forming a moving ring of fire that she added chains. She knew how low the melting point of her chains were, and it did not take much of her mental energy to reach the desirable temperature. The ring of chains fused as the metal melted away, the shape kept intact by constant adding of moving chains. It was like constantly feeding a fire with sawdust; you need a lot of it, and she did have more than enough.
She could control a molten part of her chain for only twenty seconds before it permanently leaves her control, so she acted quickly by raising the ring of fervently dancing fire and molten metal high over her head, still feeding it with chains and stirring it. The ring collapsed inward to form a perfect sphere of molten metal, held perilously over her head by a dozen chains. Her cloak did its job quickly and well as the bubbling sphere began to drip lightly, steams rising. She held it high over her head as the sphere absorbed more and more chains until it was at least a massive twenty metre across. It was indeed heavy, enough that she had another dozens of chains to support it while she scurried toward her opponent. A missile was fired into the air.
Pathetically. It went into the sphere of molten metal and disappeared without a resistance. With a final cry of mental anguish, Suruma sent the sphere rising high into the air with dozens chains stretching high above even the technologically powerful man. While the massive sphere rose high into air, Suruma pulled off a dozen smaller spheres of molten metal attached to ends of chains and had them punching toward the suited man from all direction. When the sphere finally reached a critical point of twenty metres in radius, it collapsed and poured upon the entire area in a massive shower of molten metal. She already had an umbrella of chains held over her head, her death grin mocking her opponent. If it goes well, she knew she would have a nice death mask on her fireplace mantra. She let loud a soundless chuckle, remembering her opponent's first words to her.
Now it was really raining fire.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 3/3/2005 4:38:05 PM
Amarouk wasn't one to merely let something like the creation of molten slag go unnoticed. He watched with a kind of fascination as the woman purposely melted her chains through his scanners, all the while jumping and dipping through the air while adding jukes and jinxing to the mix to make himself a very difficult target to hit. Part of Amarouk wished he had bothered to bring along more missiles--or rather to have loaded his suit up on them. He hadn't known he'd be needing them this much. Oh well, he'd have to improvise something; Amarouk was always good at improvising.
The woman resplendent in torn bridal gown then sent the sphere high into the air, at least double the height of the five story building complexes (although most were in shambles, all derelict looking slumped up on their frames and bending inward like a bruised and broken man, something Amarouk was not) where the sphere of molten slag was hastily ripped apart with thick globules of sleeted metal attached to each end and sent cascading through the convex in search of the ever persistent, and very much motivated to move, Amarouk.
Sound amplifiers picked up the rather husky note that might have been a chuckle, could have been a chortle, definitely wasn't titillation, and most likely not a snicker of laughter escaping from the woman. Amarouk wondered exactly what had turned her into the wretch she was not. A strange thought ran through his mind; we can rebuild her: stronger, better, faster...looking like death itself to scare young children and horny men alike. He didn't laugh, but kept moving.
Deciding now was the perfect time to actually try something a little more personal by means of attack, Amarouk searched the torn, very much deserted and destroyed streets, for any signs of a vehicle. A car, a truck, a baby stroller... And there like the prize on a game show, run down, beat up, missing a door and very much screaming with the sounds of its car alarm was a new, but ancient looking with all the dirt, grim and detritus, BMW i-series sedan.
Lending with his mental power to telekinesis, Amarouk gripped the nearly destroyed and very much battered vehicle and tore it from its resting place. With chains barreling in on him from multiple directions, he thought it time to have something else take the brunt of the attack. With car in mental grip, he swung, aiming it for each and every thickly drooping, globule of molten metal dripping idly from chains that would spell the imminent doom of a lesser creature, or even a dumber or far more ill-equipped one. He kept moving, spinning and rotating in the air, twisting in a strange dance, each rotating bring the wreck of a vehicle down upon the metal, and with each screeching crash of vehicle against chain a part of the car went missing, but it didn't matter. The molten slag flew and splattered and sprang through the air, some of it hitting Amarouk, or rather the shields that encompassed him, but he was on a mission with his plan set and wasn't about to deviate now.
Amarouk flew on, looking for all the world like a wannabe superhero, or planet with celestial car locked in a grand orbit around him. He saw the woman, dressed in torn bridal gown with her ever-present death-like grin transfixed upon her face. Add some cheeks and she might've been something to look at, but it wasn't a thought Amarouk held on to. As the car made another orbit around Amarouk as he flashed toward the woman, a still, almost silent "click" resonated from the grenade launcher. In fact, the nearly inaudible click repeated itself. The two grenades were set to go off from a proximity alarm, and during that orbit of wreck around the body that was Amarouk, Amarouk fixed the two mines to vehicle.
It would be his bomb, and it the chains stopped it or tore it apart, it would still send a good portion of wreckage down and about the woman. He neared, he let go as the car came down and in front of him from behind his legs before he broke off. The car didn't stay with him, but instead flew at the woman, the grenades waiting to do their deadly deed. Maybe when the tournament was done he might ask her out for a drink, have a laugh...Then again, few people ever wanted to do such after a battle and Amarouk had only ever met one who did. Everyone seemed to take the fact that you tried to kill them so seriously.
From: RAYClovis | Posted: 3/3/2005 5:12:05 PM
Ah, the beauty of childish innocence. The odd thought of the man running around in blue suit with his mommy's red thong on and a red cape ran through her mind, and she let out another chuckle at herself. That was how she imagined her child to be like. The man did a good job of reminding like a little kid swinging a toy car around, pretending it could fly like the one in Back to the Future series. Beside the laughable childish innocence, she smiled within her heart. Albeit his lack of manner, the man wasn't a bad dancer as she thought at first. Pity, if he takes it so seriously there might not be another dance with her. She would have to savour every minute of it, considering it might be a very long time before she could find another dancing partner who wouldn't drop dead at the first notes. Someone who wouldn't backstab her.
The rain indeed pounced hard, sending countless drops of molten metals splattering all over the place. The umbrella did its job well, as not a spark neared her preciously pure wedding gown. It was a spectacle, watching him dancing with the fire. It was so much like one dance she did a few years ago with her lover... Dancing with sparks showering from above as she rushed out to hold him tightly, not as a part of the dance but as a real show. Even if the person she loved was no longer within her heart, the fond memories were. She found herself looking up at the sky of red-hot rain, grinning in the memory. However she did not let the flying car go unnoticed, just without looking at it.
Though, she took note of her opponent's assumption that she would be naive enough to think that the wreckage wouldn't come with explosives. It must had been one of the oldest tricks in the books, considering the abilities he had shown so far. Out of all those weaponries he's demonstrated, he still expected her to not think that it wouldn't come without explosives? Okay, it may not come with those. Better safe than sorry.
As the car flew toward her, she suddenly turned to her chain-stilts again and rose rapidly into the sky, almost ejected, in fact. Holding her umbrella of barbaric chains, she looked down at the suited man with that grin of her. Maybe he wouldn't mind a real dance with her, only that she'd have to fetch herself another Ketten--the realistic-looking puppet--first. The car exploded, severing the chain stilts--exactly her ploy. As she began to fall, her cloak of chains quickly expanded into a wide disk living chains spanning over a wide area. It soon became a dome setting down upon the man, fully intended to trap him with her as her hideous grin remained motionless. Just one last trap. Her twenty seconds wasn't gone yet, shown by the gathering of molten metals on the ground underneath the man. A two-pronged attack, the molten metal suddenly formed a tall, pulsating column rising high into the air for the suited man while the dome of chains went down to crush him into the ground.
Finally, she spoke again with her abdomen. "...We need to dance again. Some other times."
She slammed the chains down and the column upward upon the man with enough force to crush a building into utter oblivion, faster than the destruction of her theatre.
From: Reaper77 | Posted: 3/3/2005 7:13:04 PM
All he could do at this point was swear, and he did, a vile curse that seemed the suit the crashing of molten metal below and chains above. Knowing quite well that he would have to take the brunt of the attack, he thrust himself down into the molten slag that jumped high, erupting like a geyser from the ground. It was a better fate than to be taken by the spikes, plus the added benefit that the liquid metal wouldn't kill him outright.
So he dove while rolling leftward. Then all he could see was nothingness. He could feel some warmth, but nothing compared to the heat produced by his body. Jackknifing, he dove down the column of sleeting metal, all the while watching his shield gag steadily drop. His sensors alerted him to ground fast approaching. He flipped so that he was feet first and hit the ground running, jumping out of the molten slag, although still covered in it. The thick globules ran off Amarouk in rivulets, spraying a thin cloud behind him as he dashed across the ground directly at the woman. It appeared for all intensive purposes like some sort of suicide attack.
To make it look even stranger, his suit began to disengage after the slag had finished running off the shields, leaving them nearly drained. The black liquid-like morphing metal that was his Echo armor retreated back into the band around his left arm and Amarouk ran dressed in the suit without jacket he'd been wearing all along, except that his shirt was soaked with perspiration. He began to flail his arms as he moved, seemingly erratic, yet his fingers were splayed and drawing images in the air the held in their runic look.
At the same time he began to speak, a harsh sounding language accompanied by his thick accent and sounding as though two people were speaking it at once (Vadasian have to sets of vocal cords to be able to make the sounds necessary for their language). His ice blue eyes, though, didn't hold the look of madness, and once leaping over a bit of tangled playground monkey-bars that had found their way into the fight, his body burst into flames as the raw chemicals in his sweat ignited to form the napalm-like substance that erupted with explosive effect.
He kept moved, spreading his fire with each dash toward her. He knew those chains would be closing in, and as his arms moved it looked otherworldly, strange and beautiful with the flickering flames; hypnotic in a sense and all at once a wonderful sight. And then the patterns that held in the air as he drew them flickered in and out of existence, they solidified as Amarouk plunged his right hand forward, still a distance away from the woman... And then he vanished.
Amarouk did not stand in the spot where he vanished, nor was he there. Thin wisps of flame licked upward where his sweat had touched ground, swaying and slowly dying as the fuel was consumed. Amarouk was still around, except now he was only five blocks south, standing atop a rooftop with the summer breeze at his back looking at a doom of metal. He felt exhausted, tired, both mentally and physically—as though someone had drained every ounce of energy from him; but at the same time he felt invigorated. Life was good, and a woman wanted to dance. In a sense he had teleported, but it wasn't something he readily did. It took a lot out of him, could make him go insane if he stayed in the swirling vortex of chaos that was the portal he created.
Reaching into his Jorgani stone with his mind, he searched for a bottle... Alcohol to sooth his raging thoughts, and finding a particularly good vintage Jakar Port from Krykor, brought it into essence before him before removing the cap and taking a long pull. She wanted to dance, she had said. Now all he needed was music...
Juryrigged > Works > RPGs > Tourney's > LIT Round 2: RAYClovis VS Reaper77