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Post by Mizagium on May 23, 2013 0:42:36 GMT -5
Jeff gulped. He wasn’t sure how literal Perish’s threat was (although, from the looks of her now, he was sure she meant it). Trembling, he loaded on as many layers of barriers as he could summon. And then a few more for good measure.
“I’m only doing this because I want you to win,” he tried to reassure the terrifying necromancer, doing his damndest to avoid looking at the length of golden Fabio hair.
Taking a not from Zelmon and praying to several pantheons of gods he wasn’t sure of, he hugged Perish.
Jeffrey Valentine embraced death that day.
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Post by blazinvire on May 23, 2013 0:59:30 GMT -5
In vain, Perish sunk her extended canines in and only pierced a dozen layers of barriers until it slowed down too much to reach anything, pulling Jeff into a tight embrace to ensure all her blades and burning souls could reach him.
Granted, from the furiously hissing from the souls and inky smoke pouring off, with the splintering cracks and slices of the obsidian, she seemed to be slowly chipping through barriers but a prolonged hug to win through attrition would just be weird...
She parted from the embrace looking thoroughly unsatisfied.
"For the record, barriers suck," Perish said, look a little deflated as she plodded over to second victim, hoping he didn't have some annoying way to stop her embrace of death. On the upside, barriers meant there was a solid excuse for denying that she technically 'hugged' Jeff.
But without further ado, Perish stepped up to this Illusive Squid person and held out her flaming, blade-covered arms and advanced for a hug of doom.
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Post by Monika on May 23, 2013 1:09:30 GMT -5
"Well, what an amazing development!" Leon could barely contain his laughter as he recorded the moment on his video camera. This was waaay more amusing than I anticipated! he thought. "How beautiful," he teased. "Now, all Perish has to do is hug the Illusive Squid, and this match is as good as won!"
"Yea! Good hug, Jeffrey!" Sailor Eros cheered, either oblivious to or choosing to ignore the fact that the hug had been devoid of any emotion besides fear and anger. "Love...Capturing...Camera!" Sailor Eros pointed her staff toward the steel cage and a circular, magical seal appeared in front of her. After glowing for a brief moment, the seal faded and in its place was a large, pink heart...with an eyeball in its center. And the pupil of the eyeball was also a heart. It was pretty weird. Anyway, the heart's eye began to blink rapidly, creating a loud shutter sound each time its lid closed. For every brink, a fully developed photographed appeared in Sailor Eros' hands. "These will make beautiful postcards!"
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Post by Mizagium on May 23, 2013 1:14:52 GMT -5
Jeff practicality melted once he was released from Perish's embrace. "Hioma, he said, near tears, "Why you do this to me?"
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Post by Calefrun on May 23, 2013 1:17:07 GMT -5
"Well..." the Squid said matter-of-factly, "that looks... unpleasant. Not you, I mean. The... stuff." He pulled something out of his pocket and threw it in his mouth, then entered the embrace, wrapping his arms around the half-woman, half-horrible deathtrap that awaited him. As he did, however, his body began to shimmer. Any parts of him that would be burned or otherwise harmed by magic or any similar force would instantly dematerialize itself and re-form as whatever material could resist said force. Anytime he would be pierced by a blade, his body simply shaped itself around the the blade.
"I'm a shapeshifter," he mentioned, "if you didn't get that from my sudden appearance change earlier. My reaction time is pretty decent, too." As though he felt that he had just said something a little too... normal, he added, "I really love what you did with your hair, by the way."
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Post by blazinvire on May 23, 2013 1:31:52 GMT -5
Somehow, Perish was both not surprised and incredibly angry it didn't work, as everything seemed to slide out of the way or neatly evade getting soul-incinerated, her teeth couldn't even land. Was she ever going to get to kill someone? Something? It was suddenly a serious question, after all that had happened.
Perish's eye twitched as the rage built again, her careful skirting of these new ridiculous rules had been thwarted in a frustrating manner, and she'd yet to break the hug with Mr. Squid -probably a frozen with rage after the comment about the aggravating change to her hair.
Her aura lit back up and power started streaming into Perish from all over the place from the symbols, so much that the symbols themselves were starting to peel away and fly into Perish, like she was building critical mass -she sure seemed to be shaking as though having difficulty containing something, and the shuddering and growth of her aura spoke volumes.
There even appeared to be some screaming souls floating around in her aura now, to accompany the glamorous flames of shadow.
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Post by Calefrun on May 23, 2013 1:38:49 GMT -5
"You know," the Illusive Squid said, "not that I'm not enjoying this or anything, but I think you've probably won by now. I mean, you can keep going if you want, but that's up to you." Unable to resist, he lifted one of his beard-tentacles and proceeded to use it to deliver a swift poke to Perish's nose. "Boop," he said with a grin.
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Post by Monika on May 23, 2013 1:45:36 GMT -5
Leon, not worried in the slightest about the events taking place in the cage (he could teleport if things became too hectic, after all), called down to the 'combatants' from atop his lifeguard tower. "Well, since you expertly got around the new rule stipulations, Perish, I suppose you win the round!" Leon glared down at them for a brief moment and added "If you still care, that is. I'll formally announce your victory once this thing blows over. See ya!" A snap of his fingers and Leon disappeared.
Sailor Eros looked toward Jeff and replied in a very matter-of-fact tone. "The journey to love is fraught with much trial and error! I would have you and the Illusive Squid hug a million necromancers if it means finding your perfect match!" Looking at Perish, and then to the Illusive Squid (who seemed to be enjoying antagonizing the poor necromancer) and then back to Jeff, she added "Of course, if you're dead, you won't be able to find love then!" She then glanced at Fabio-Ridley, who was in the same condition he had been right before the wedding. "And that one still has a wedding to attend!"
Quickly transforming back into Hioma, she withdrew the Pen of Love! and the Notebook of Fate! and began to write. "Leon teleported back into the arena was overcome with the sudden urge to warp Jeff and Fabio-Ridley away to safety."
As expected, Leon warped back into the arena. "What kind of madness is...Oh, well, I suppose I can't really leave Jeff here in this cage to get caught in this explosion. He's in the next round, after all!" He looked at Fabio-Ridley and almost considered leaving him there. Almost. But his heart (or Hioma's Pen!) got the better of him. "And I suppose I owe Rachel a favor after what I did to her brother...Away you go, Jeff! You too, Fabio!" Leon snapped his fingers (can he cast spells any other way?) and a portal formed around Jeff and Fabio-Ridley, encompassing them both and taking them to Magnus' safe room.
"Now, I'd better get out of here, too," Hioma said to no one, transforming back into Sailor Eros and using the Love Destiny Cruiser! to fly out of the arena.
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Post by blazinvire on May 23, 2013 1:54:34 GMT -5
Every word out of the Squid's mouth just seemed to compound the rage burning in Perish, and the poke on the nose was the last straw.
All her violent trembling mysteriously stopped suddenly, and she instead started bleeding profusely from her eyes and mouth, cuts mysteriously opened up on her body here and there and let blood trickle down, and each drop that hit the ground made the remaining symbols explosively gain in strength, her aura growing well out of control and even the ground started violently shaking now.
A very low, demonic growl grew from Perish's throat as the blood flowed steadily, her hands balled so tightly into fists her nails bit in and drew blood, her eyes filmed over with blood as though to get the point across.
"Muuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrddeeeeeeeeeer," was hissed from between Perish's gritted teeth, carrying across the arena with a ghostly echo.
Her little stunt of burning spirits and obsidian blades to compose her death hug collapsed in upon themselves and was violently sucked into Perish's body to drain the magic out of them, as was the wildly flaring ritual circles remaining on the arena floor, building up so much necrotic energy her very form was starting to warp.
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Post by Calefrun on May 23, 2013 2:07:19 GMT -5
"What? No I'm not trying to murder you!" exclaimed the Illusive Squid, apparently hurt by what he perceived Perish to be suggesting. "Are you feeling alright? Because I haven't hugged many women- being so illusive does have its drawbacks after all, but usually this doesn't happen. You're also much warmer than most of them, which is kind of soothing. Anyway, do you need an ambulance or something? We're not so much hugging at this point as dancing. And trust me, dancing can be VERY dangerous. I knew a guy once." He paused to wait for a response, and simply relaxed as they warped their forms in their elongated embrace.
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Post by blazinvire on May 23, 2013 2:20:46 GMT -5
Oh the rage, it grew so surprisingly quickly for some strange reason...
Perish's sanity was about burning up in the fires of rage -or possibly from all the screaming souls flying about her head- and as the last of the blazingly overcharged symbols peeled from the floor and got sucked into Perish, everything she'd charged up seemed to suddenly draw within her and disappear for a moment.
Her form stabilized, her menacing aura disappeared, the bleeding stopped and the wounds closed.
And then everything exploded. Violently.
It was like an entire column of black energy of hate the size of the mountain, with bone shards, whole skeletons, foreign anatomy, enormous screaming souls, a dozen demonic corpses, thousands of lesser spirits shooting off in every direction. Ice and obsidian joined the mix, deathly cold air and shards grew everywhere and exploded not long after, adding to the chaos.
There was even a few giant shadowy serpents and humongous skeleton vaguely seen in the raging column of death and destruction.
When it all finally burned its course and left a pile of mess in the cage, Perish was strangely absent. She'd in fact disappeared somewhere in the duration of the explosion and ended up in the audience stands from one of the many effects randomly summoned.
The necromancer kind of looked like she'd been incinerated in a very peculiar way, as her eyes seemed to be missing -replaced with orbs of black, sizzling, crackling, smoking energy, and a lot of black smoke was trailing off her from most of her body. Quite a lot of her robe was damaged and didn't appear to be regenerating yet, as did several regions of her body that kind of looked like her eyes at this point, and her hair looked partially covered in charcoal -except for the infuriating sections of blond that returned to former brilliance.
But all in all, Perish finally looked relaxed, slumped quite casually in the remnants of the seat with a serene expression.
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Post by Calefrun on May 23, 2013 2:30:56 GMT -5
Just outside of where the column of hate had been, anyone with good enough eyes would have seen what appeared to be a small black sphere, around the size of a marble. It slowly melted away, and reveled another sphere, which actually appeared to be a marble. Suddenly it began to glow, and then is quickly stretched out to become the familiar and loveable "gunslinger form" of the Illusive Squid.
"So," he yelled into the stands, "can I assume that means that it was good for you too?"
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Post by Mizagium on May 23, 2013 11:08:24 GMT -5
Jeff was one of the first ones to trickle out of Magnus's bunker, followed by Xeltyr and Zelmon. He glanced around at the semi-damaged stadium, noting the scorch marks everywhere and Perish's satisfied expression. He made a point not to look at the Illusive Squid.
"Did...did we die?" he asked uncertainly. "Has Perish killed us all yet?"
"I don't think so," Xeltyr replied dubiously. "I don't remember being engulfed in the black flames of absolute hatred, but then I don't remember much. Incidently, Jeff, how long have you been a brunette?"
Zelmon looked around, confused. "Uh, Lady Hioma? Was that...successful?"
The Ridleys also filed out, looking terrified. "I think I lost, dear?" Fabio-Rdiley said to Rachel.
"That's ok, my love, I'd rather you lose and live than the alternative."
They sort of just stood there awkwardly, waiting for Leon to announce Perish the terrifying victor of this round.
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Post by Monika on May 23, 2013 12:11:16 GMT -5
Fortunately, Leon had possessed the good sense to teleport Xeltyr, Zelmon, the Ridley siblings and every other main character (as well as a sizable portion of the audience - no viewers meant no money) to Magnus' safe room, which was now filled to the brim with all sorts of humans/demons/dragons/pterodactyls/other creatures and liable to burst. Leon had also had the good sense to warp himself to his own safe room (which was actually more of a safe island) to distance himself from the chaos..
"Well, it looks like the situation has calmed down a bit," he observed, sipping Shadow Coconut Milk from a Shadow Coconut, and watching the entire scene from a massive plasma screen television suspended from a palm tree. "I suppose I'd better go back there to announce the winner..." he grumbled, none too keen on ending his brief vacation. One heavy sigh and one magical portal later, Leon appeared back inside the arena.
Except there was no arena.
"Oh, no!" Leon cried in faux anguish and shock, almost as if he were acting upset to appease some third party. "The arena has been destroyed!" Yes indeed, the arena (if it could sensibly be called that anymore) had been reduced to little more than a pile of dust, rubble and corpses (the bodies of those poor, unfortunate souls that hadn't been teleported to safety). "Ah, well. No use crying over destroyed arena. Time to announce the victor!" Leon delicately withdrew a single, golden envelope from his pocket, closing his eyes and drawing a deep breath. "The suspense is killing me!" he joked to the absent crowd. Unless, of course, you include a very serene looking Perish and the Illusive Squid...but that hardly constitutes an audience.
"This round's winner is..." Leon began. A drum roll sounded from the arena's speaker system, which had somehow survived the explosion. Casually ripping open the envelope, Leon removed a small slip of paper from it, opened his eyes and read. "Perish!" Confetti, ribbons and an assortment of colored balloons descended upon everyone's favorite necromancer as she was bathed in the radiance of an overhead spotlight.
"Congratulations, Perish!" Leon warped to Perish's side and snapped a picture of himself with the round's victor. "And, in honor of giving us the first real fight of the tournament, take this!" Leon summoned a solid gold, life-size sculpture of Perish and carefully (as carefully as he could, at least) set it in Perish's lap. Why did Leon have a golden statue of Perish? Where had he found the time to have it crafted? Those are questions for another story...
"Now, for more pressing matters. Ahem!" Leon conjured a preposterously large pair of glasses upon his face and an equally large roll of charred parchment in his hands. "Since this is hardly a suitable place for subsequent matches, we'll have to move somewhere else. Fortunately, I came prepared!" Leon unrolled the parchment, which easily covered the entire floor (or what was left of it). At the very top, the parchment read 'Secondary, Tertiary, Quaternary, Quinary...' all the way to '...Duodecenary Arenas To Be Used In The Event The Primary Arena Is Destroyed In A Horrible Explosion'. "Now, let's see here..." Leon scanned the page up and down from behind his spectacles, eventually shouting "Aha! This one will do just fine!"
Waving away the list and his glasses, Leon teleported himself, Perish (and her balloons/ribbons/confetti/statue), the Illusive Squid, and everyone in Magnus' bunker to the next locale.
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As a child, did you ever play that game where you would pretend the floor was made of lava? That was this new arena. Except it wasn't really an arena. And the floor was actually lava. Yes, the place for the next few matches was just one massive pool of glowing, molten rock, above which was suspended an enormous diamond prism. But don't worry! For all you spectators out there, there were still bleachers! They, too, were floating in midair, so there was no chance of burning your rear by sitting on them. Floating television screens littered the walls to complete the decor. But just how were all of these arena fixtures floating with nothing to keep them up?
"Arena Number Two!" Leon spoke, sitting on a rather comfortable-looking floating leather couch. "The Anti-Gravity Lava Chamber! 6 feet of lava coats the floor, but there's no risk of a fiery death because everyone can float! Pretty ingenious, if I do say so myself. But enough chit-chat!" Leon pulled the Combatants' List from his pocket and read. "The next match is between international super spy, Metal Gear Fish and the all-too ambivalent Jeffrey Valentine!" The diamond prism refracted the light of the lava toward Jeffrey, who was instantly dematerialized and rematerialized inside. "Now, if the combatants are ready...Wait!" Leon looked around, annoyed. "Where in the world is Metal Gear Fish?"
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Post by Sariel of Tevet on May 23, 2013 14:02:58 GMT -5
The Dayman, still reeling from Perishes blast, was pulling himself up onto the suspended bleachers. He had never made it to the safe room, his boombox armor was too rectangular and misshapen for him to walk well enough in it. The blast had toppled The Dayman, codpiece and all, end over end until the arena disappeared and he was mysteriously dangling from a set of bleachers over lava. He did, however, witness the dazzling display of true royal love administered by Perish and The Illusive Squid. Jeff had proven to be ill-equipped to hand such a display of true beauty, as the death hug was under the surface no doubt, and was unable to make a heart wrenching moment of it as The Illusive Squid was. This, of course being due to The Illusive Squid illusively being clad in a, no doubt, illusive codpiece. The only thing that was illusive was his apparent feels towards the now smoldering Perish. Who sat quietly on the bleachers near The Illusive Squid (we really never do know his exact location of course, he's so illusive, The Dayman finds it inspiring at times).
He finally pulled himself up onto the bleachers and sat down behind the...for lack of a better word...couple of audience members, and raised a glorious royal finger and bellowed in his royal manner, "Such a truly wonderful display of a death hug and true love! I am honored to have witnessed this Perish. I thank you as well The Illusive Squid (speaking to him directly of course, royalty to royalty), I hope you do not mind as I toast the previous event with another lovely 80's jam." He took his outstretched index finger and hit the play button on his boombox tape deck, which was located on his chest. He had no idea what it would play next, but he knew it was bound to be perfect. And it was!
Loverboy's "This Could Be the Night" filled the arena, directly into Perish's eardrum of course due to the close proximity, and no doubt inspired the rest of the crowd as much as it did The Dayman.
"Dont you all just adore true love? Such royalty!! Even without codpieces!" He began to sob silently and sing along with the music.
"Oh, whoa, this could be the night
The night to remember
We'll make it last forever
This could be the night
Oh, to end all nights."
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Post by blazinvire on May 23, 2013 14:31:03 GMT -5
Perish, like the smouldering corpse she was, was inanimate for a good while and almost making one wonder if she'd actually died somehow due to how still and seeming dead she was. But alas no decent necromancer was complete without some good old fashioned ill-gotten immortality.
She eventually opened the remnants of her mouth to say something in response to all the confetti, life-sized statue, even something for the Squid and maybe some choice, biting insults to throw at the Dayman.
Except the words that came out of her mouth were in some eldritch abomination's language, maybe mixed with a little demon-garble and hazed under a ghostly tone due to the magic origins of her voice.
The necromancer was likely saying something incredibly rude and sensible, and she even paused a moment to aim hand in a gun gesture at the Dayman and shot a very rough ball of inky spirits to splatter across the chest of the boombox and distort the music into something dreary and haunting.
Perish issued a few more words in her abyssal-alien-eldritch language and went silent again, her smouldering eye sockets staring at the spot in the floating cavern likely designated as the fighting area.
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Post by Mizagium on May 23, 2013 18:03:31 GMT -5
Jeff floated there for a moment before deciding he had had enough of it. While trying to turn towards Leon he accidentally flipped over, and over and over... Evidently, the anti-gravity arena also was devoid of friction. Putting his hands up, he conjured a sphere around him, which slowed his mad spinning enough that he was able to brace himself against it and stop. Without missing a beat, he threw up.
"Do we have to wait?" he complained, opening a small area of the sphere to drain the vomit into the lava floor. "I mean, I really don't even know who this guy is, and I really don't care. Can we just move this along so we can get the wedding rings?"
"Spoil-sport!" Xeltyr shouted from the stands.
"Hey, shut up!" He pointed at Xeltyr. "Can I fight him instead?"
"No way!" Xeltyr replied. "Then Mizagium would have to have two of his own characters fighting and that's just boring." He paused. "I mean...what?"
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Post by Damien on May 24, 2013 10:01:43 GMT -5
Trosdan sat on one of the seats in the arena, waiting for the next fight to start. When Xeltyr mentioned someone named "Mizagium" and something about "characters", Trosdan turned and asked, "Are you feeling alright? Who is this "Mizagium" you're talking about? What characters? This isn't a story, you know. This is real life." He then turned his attention back to the arena.
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Post by Razgat on May 24, 2013 15:23:32 GMT -5
High up in a box seat, a couple of D.W.A.R.F. "representatives" were watching the fight. One particular person was sitting with her face pressed up against the glass, her breath fogging up her view. "When's it my turn?"
One of the people behind her sighed, having heard this question many times already. "Soon. Just watch a little while longer, ok?"
"Oh, ok!" She sat back up, watching the people interact below her. "Who am I fighting, anyway, huh?"
One of the men shuffled through some papers he had 'received' earlier. "The Illusive Squid, I think."
"And when is it my turn?"
"Soon. Just sit tight."
"Oh, ok...I can't wait to see who I fight!"
"Dear Lord, please let her turn be soon."
The men sat towards the back of the room. They had grown tired of the endless repeat they had to put up with when dealing with this fighter, but she was one of the best, and she was a common favorite, so they had to put up with her no matter what. Most of them were used to how nonexistent her mind was, but it could often be difficult to deal with.
"Is it my turn yet?" The fighter turned around excitedly, hopping in her seat.
"NO!"
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Post by Monika on May 26, 2013 12:11:15 GMT -5
After what seemed like an eternity to both himself and the audience, Leon warped Jeffrey outside of the crystal prism and into mid-air. It would be quite a precarious position for him if it weren't for the, you know, lack of gravity. "It feels like it's been three days since I announced the combatants for this round," Leon grumbled, tapping his foot impatiently upon the floor of his lifeguard chair. "Since Metal Gear Fish insists on being so elusive - he probably makes a pretty good spy - and I do have to keep this tournament going, I'm just going to declare you winner in another thrilling technical victory." His voice was dripping with sarcasm; it was clear the excitement from Perish's and Fabio-Ridley's fight wouldn't be enough to sustain the excitement for much longer. "Any objections?" he politely asked, although Jeff wasn't really in a position to decline a free win, dangling over a pit of lava.
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