The Battle Royale S2 [Round 4: Burnination Studios]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Sirius tore off the toga in disgust. Thankfully, this insane being hadn't replaced his armor with it.

He glared at the Eccentric.

"This is the stupidest..."

His angry retort was interrupted by a pie flying into his face from out of nowhere.

"...arrgh!" He took the pan off his face in disgust, and wiped the filling off with a scrap of the toga. "And here I thought I was already in the worst of all possible worlds. I suppose I underestimated the absurdity of the universe."

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

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EDIT: Disregard this post [img]images/smilies/facepalm.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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*Edit: DAMNIT

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

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SpoilerShow

You aren't allowed to create a chain of reserves, though...

The first thing a photographer did was to check the camera and the knife. Both assured him that they were fine and eventually, he stopped his stream of worried queries. The second thing he did was to check the last picture he took.

"It's alright, right? I hope it is...I..." But as he stared at the display, his whatever-organs-he-had sank into another-organ-he-had. The photo was focused well, but it was definitely blurry and had only caught part of the strange interdimentional arm. It was a very horrible picture. He, a 'professional' photographer, had taken an unusable picture.

"I'm useless oh dear Bossman will throw me out I'm not a good photographer..."

Shh, the camera replied soothingly. If anything, it was her fault. It was a good picture considering he was running backwards at the time.

"Don't say that, you're the best, any photographer would be lucky to have you, you're the most advanced--"

This time, the knife cut in, reminding Photographer that they had all been transported in order to fight several other beings and that he would do well to take this chance and get some information to stay up-to-date. It didn't seem this strange being was very accurate in its descriptions of their opponents. It didn't even mention the knife!

"Oh, uh, r-right." Photographer had no idea how he would be expected to fight anybody. He only took photos. How could a photographer fight? In any case, he quickly took pictures of everybody in sight. All of them turned out nicely too, which did make him feel a little better. Although now he had no idea what to do next.

The knife patiently suggested going up to the other contestants to observe them and/or engage them in possibly revealing conversation.

"But but but....clothes." He hissed back. He winced as the knife shouted back that it was necessary for their survival. The camera shushed it because there was no need to be strict and--

"No, no. The knife is right..." And with that, a photographer sighed deeply and, holding the camera for comfort, shuffled around awkwardly for a bit, trying to ignore the clamors for attention before finally sort of vaguely stopping nearby around one humanoid who was described by the strange possibly insane shouty guy as 'the one in the metal box/bed' which sort of confused him because it didn't really look like a box and he never really knew anybody to use metal as a bed. But he supposed that was exactly the reason why he was hanging around him.

"Uh, er, um," a photographer shuffled towards and away from Zephyr, as though he were participating in an introverted dance. "H-hi," he finished lamely.

SpoilerShow

I'm just stupid and I thought he was referring to his shoes and bleeeeeeeeeeh

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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Jeremy Brackett, self-styled "doormancer", is obviously going insane.

What other explanation is there? One minute, he's opening a door to have some fun with the lovely people on the ISS, the next, he's falling through a strobing tunnel of color and crazy. A giant, scary, multi-limbed, multi-eyed THING is YELLING at him, and he is dropped into a multi-colored disco platform. Or something.

Jeremy's knees collapse. This is it. His magical freaky door stuff has... something or whatever. He always knew his ability was special; in a world of science and technology, he was the only person who could do the impossible. And it really is impossible. He barely has the rules down himself; he just knows what's a "door" and whether it will work, and just feels where he wants to go, and the door opens there. He should have known it would attract the attention of some... universe... dimension... crazy... thing. This is it, he repeats to himself. I'm done. Dead. They've killed me. I'm dying. Too much door stuff... or... wait, Finnish?. The incongruity jars him out of his melancholic state. And... I have to kill people?

The thought jerks him upright. I can't kill people. Killing is messy and there's screaming and.... He stands. I'm getting out of here.

Jeremy whirls around, searching for something, anything that might constitute a door, trying to avoid looking at the screeching insanity, not real not real not happening running through his mind all the while. Door door door damnit why are there no DOORS?! The panicked litany tears through his mind as tears begin to stream down his face. He sinks back to he knees, muttering, "I just... just need a door... that's all..." His jaw clenches as he fights back a sob. "FUCK!" The word is punctuated by his fist hitting the schizoid ground, "... fuck.." he repeats, as he rests his head on the ground, gripped by silent crying.

SpoilerShow

So, uh, the original version of this post had Jeremy going up to Zephyr's box, but apparently there is no box, sooo yeah. No interaction at the moment.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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Geoff looked around, taking a few deep breaths. If this is a hallucination or dream, he reasoned, things like text will change when I look at them. He took a scrap of parchment out of his pocket. It was the location of the thieves' den he'd been in the middle of busting. 5th building east from Bradshaw's. He read it over several times, then looked around, giving it a chance to change.

He was standing on some sort of glowing, floating platform with eight other things. There were six similar, vaguely hattalloid beings. One of them wings, but they all had vaguely pinkish skin, small eyes, and some sort of dull claws. There were two other beings as well: the shadowy-looking one and the statue of living stone. He wasn't sure what he thought of them, really. He'd filed away the Eccentric's descriptions, but he didn't exactly have a lot of reason to trust the being that had brought them here.

He looked at the paper again. 5th building east from Bradshaw's.

Alright, he decided, it's real. Either that or a cleverly crafted hallucination, and there's really no way to tell in that case. So assuming this is real, it's probably best to do what this... thing says. Something interesting. And given what we've seen of it so far, that probably means absurd and random.

I can do that.

He reached into his quiver and pulled out two bolts. He quietly snapped them both in half, used the sharp end of one to blunt the snapped ends, then stuck the ends in his ears, giving himself the appearance of having been shot in the head. Then he collapsed to the ground, careful to not actually jam a crossbow bolt through his head, held one hand over each ear to conceal the lack of wounds and hold the bolts in place, and screamed in pain.

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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Beneath the hollow shell of the bed, forcibly wrenched from the floor of his room, Zephyr was cowering on the awful hallucination that constituted the ground in this pocket dimension. Every mad, Finnish word gibbering from the Eccentric had reverberated around Zephyr's suddenly clearly comprehending head, and everything about it made him feel thoroughly churned up inside. If Zephyr had any sense of pride, he would've found the notion of hiding under his bed from his new foes so stereotypically childish as to be ironic. As it was, the boy was groaning quietly in pain, having stood up too fast and discovering the metal-plated bed was far too heavy for Zephyr to lift just by standing.

Eyes tightly shut against the awful ringing that was a poor replacement for the fading echoes of the Eccentric's monologue, Zephyr was nonetheless aware of his lone barrier against the nightmares without vanishing about as logically as anything else that had occurred in the last however many minutes.

"Uh, er, um," Zephyr's eyes snapped open, even as he lay curled up in a small, pained ball, "H-hi."

The Esper scrabbled to a more upright position, one hand still clutching his throbbing head. Almost unconsciously (and with little change in his appearance bar an imperceptible shimmer across his clothes) Zephyr slipped in and out of intangibility. In a better mental state, Zephyr may have noticed the ground did not yield, but it failed to cross his currently overloaded mind. His hand lowered, though his pained expression didn't fade. He stared with a kind of horrified fascination up at the photographer, finally forcing out a, "h-hi."

"p-please don't kill me."

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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[img]images/smilies/apple.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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Someone is screaming bloody mary nearby. At first, Jeremy doesn't care. We're all dead anyway. They're dead, I'm dead, dead dead dead...

After a while, though, the noise begins to annoy him. He sits up on the heels of his feet, wipes the wetness from his face, and looks around.

A strange-looking grayish man-thing is squirming on the ground, with what appears to be an arrow or... something, stuck through its head. Through its head? How is it even- oh. Right. Aliens and stuff.

Jeremy stands, a little uncertainly, and begins to walk across the seizure-inducing ground towards the writhing humanoid. Upon reaching his destination, he hovers over the gray man not quite knowing what to do.

"Uhhhh... do you need... help? Or are you... you're probably good. I guess. You're still alive and all, I suppose..."

Jeremy stands there, a tad awkwardly, and looks around, wondering what to do.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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One of the almost-hatallans approached Geoff. He couldn't really tell them apart yet, but they were wearing different clothes, so that was a start. This one had a hooded shirt and a dark-brown hat. (Geoff idly wondered about the purpose of the hats. There had different colours and sizes- probably just a style thing, he guessed. Different cultures and everything.)

He stopped screaming and thanked Jeremy for his concern. "No, I'm fine, thanks. The thing that brought us here told us to be interesting, and it's probably best to do what it says. It seems a bit off the path, so I figure responding in kind's the way to go."

The small-eye just stared at him.

"No really, I'm fine. See?" He pulled the two ends out of his ears to demonstrate. "Not even real."

Jeremy just kept staring. Geoff wondered for a moment if he actually was staring, or if he was just misinterpreting his facial expressions.

Sighing, he stood up. "Look, kid, I'm not going bite." He didn't know why he decided he was a kid- it was probably a bunch of subtle cues he didn't even realize he could see.

He held out his hand, palm down. "Name's Geoff. Geoff Wilson."

SpoilerShow

Side fact: Compared to Earth, Hattal is unusually warm. Because of this, no species ever had a need for hair, and it was never evolved.

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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Jeremy is going into shock. Yeah, that's probably what this is. Shock. The grayish man before him is nothing so insane as the... don't think about it... but still... his hands. They have no fingernails. Just smooth fingers, all the way down, and eyes like those anime girls Jeremy used to... heh, probably not a good thing to associate him with. Still, Jeremy finds himself struggling for words, the full brunt of emotions running wild through his system having taken quite a toll on him. He continues gaping.

The gray man lowers his hand and sighs. "Well, if you're not going to tell me your name..."

"Jeremy! My name... my name's Jeremy." Gathering some momentum now, "Listen, I can get us out of here, I know I can, I just need to find a door. Please, I'll even take you with me. Just... help me find something I can open." Practically prostrating himself with the last words, Jeremy pleads to the gray man. Alien, he thinks, gotta be an alien. Though, "Geoff" isn't very alien sounding... maybe it's a good Finnish alien name?

Originally posted on MSPA by Nodge.

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Tim looked around, trying to think, trying to catch his breath. Mad God? Another one? He was frightened now, not that he'd admit it, but soon he'd be furious. He didn't like being caught, and following orders was even lower on his list of priorities. Quietly, he frowned and thought hard about escape, but could not think of anything encouraging. The Eccentric beast had dragged him to a place which most certainly not the welsh foothills, and he had no understanding of how to return. This was god stuff, the kind he'd been trying to avoid recently for the sake of a quiet head. Still, he knew he was out of his depth on this one which only left one option. He straightened up, touched his hand to the torc around his neck and whispered a short prayer to Lugus. Silence greeted him, which he responded to with curses and a slightly more complicated prayer to the God King Bodb Derg. This time, he got something of a response; a gentle pressure as the Red Crow impeded on his mind. Tim always found this unsettling and this unease was accentuated by Bodb Dergs' accompaniment; the sound of his sobbing children and the scent of burning feathers.
"Great King of Tuatha Dé Danann," started Swhales, playing up to Bodb Dergs' enjoyment of formality "I have been abducted by a thing that calls itself a God, an-"
The pain came hard and fast. Swhales sank to his knees, the ground around him cracking like cake frosting under pressure. His eyes squeezed shut, he saw imprinted on the lids the thousand faces of his adopted Gods. They receded to a corner of the blackness; depicted now was his own face underneath the cylindrical head of The Eccentric, a being immeasurably greater than he. A voice like sharpened wings roared straight to the centre of his mind.
HE IS A GOD. YOU ARE IN HIS LAND. DO NOT SHAME US WITH COWARDICE. OBEY.
The pain was gone as quickly as it had arrived and the pressure of the God left, leaving Tim curled in a shallow depression in the ground, surrounded by scattered fronds of still-smoking crow feather.
After a minute, he dragged himself to his feet, wiping at his eyes. The others were already clustering into groups; he saw the Door man standing over what looked to be the detective, who was clutching a broken bolt in one hand. He grinned. Someone taking potshots at the law man? Maybe someone was moving at his speed after all.
As he started walking shakily over to them, it occurred to him that the loot from the Gwyddic manor was still in the street outside the abattoir. Damn, that was supposed to buy him lunch.

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

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Steinwaffe looked around, clearly perplexed by the goings-on. He tentatively raised a clawed hand. "I am sorry, Herr... hrm. Anyway, may I inquire as to why we are here? I vas doing something important, you understond." He cleared his throat, turning to Sirius. "And we haff a real angel here? He doesn't seem very..." Steinwaffe made a vague gesture. "Holy, I suppose."

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Sirius wiped the last of the pie from his face and glared at the gargoyle.

"And just what do you mean by that remark?" he demanded.

Before Steinwaffe could respond, a chicken appeared seemingly from nowhere, and roosted on the angel's head.

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

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The gargoyle stared at him, doing his best to maintain a placid expression. It isn't proper to laugh at angels... he repeated to himself in his mind. Unfortunately, it was at precisely that moment that a balloon drifted over and exploded, spilling indigo slime over the two of them. He stared directly at the angel, who was frowning to the point of ridiculousness as ooze dripped down his leg. A smirk slowly grew on Steinwaffe's face, and although he quickly suppressed it, Sirius had quite clearly taken offense. The gargoyle attempted to rectify this situation.

"Well, Herr Sirius, you simply do not seem to understond that... I don't know, there's just something about you that locks a certain gravitas."

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

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Photographer stared, hunched over and fingering the camera's trigger nervously. "K-kill? I'm not-I can't..." And by now they were performing an introverted tango, shuffling and averting gazes and stuttering. "I, uh, take...photos. I'm a, uh, photographer. This is, um, the camera." Zephyr winced as this shadowy creature suddenly took his picture, as though he needed a demonstration. He was more interested, however, in the handle that seemed to be jutting out the photographer's side.

Photographer noticed where Zephyr's eyes travelled. "Oh! This, um, is t-the knife." Zephyr's eyes widened as the photographer took the knife out, backing away and even flickering between tangibility and intangibility several times in distress. The photographer in front of him backed away too, realizing that he had just committed a social faux pas, though he had no idea what. "Um," he said, hoping to still salvage this investigative conversation. "Th-they both say hi."

Zephyr was looking around for an escape route from this insane thing that talked to cameras and knives when it started to rain small, oiled pigs.

Originally posted on MSPA by Thurandul.

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Ward stared at the other beings, over a copy of "Curiously The door was Closed". It was a book. Not just any book though, a book about a closed door. How interesting. This interesting book was incredibly interesting. The person who wrote this book, 'Madame Blacuigo', must have been one of the most interesting persons in the entire universe. When she exited from the womb, the gods must have looked down upon her and said "oh Wow, that is quite interesting". In her mothers pregnancy she must have bathed in the pool of intriguing.

Ward was making up all these things in hopes that he, himself, no other being, could analyse these other beings without bringing unneeded attention to himself.

There was an gargoyle talking to an angel. This is stupid. Stupider then a stupid women who writes about doors that happen to be closed when she left them open. Maybe because the wind blew it shut, stupid. What kind of big ass wind would blow in this stupidity though. The gargoyle was interesting though. Moving stone is interesting. Is a gargoyle some sort of charmed golem, or some predator that has evolved to look like stone so it can hunt pigeons.
The angel though is just preposterous. Surely the wings would have to much bigger to lift him, but then again we have this other guy over here with the grey skin. Like a corpse, but hes living, nevermind, its curious but wait huh, the gargoyle has wings too, this is stupid!

Ward flops straight down like he would onto a chair, books fall perfectly out from under his coat from behind him and make a stack for him to land on. From a certain angle it would have probably looked like he just pooped out a stack of novels just like the authors had.
Ward continues arguing with himself in his head not realizing that hes still staring directly at the angel and gargoyle.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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"Kol save us," Geoff muttered. "Get up, kid, c'mon. You're making yourself look like a fool. That thing, whatever it is, said it was looking for a 'suitable multiverse location,' so we're not going to be stuck here for too long. Once he's got one, we'll be taken there, and you can open all the things you want."

The words just kept pouring out of the kid's mouth, babbling about doors and opening them and escaping and oh god why aren't there any doors.

Geoff sighed, squatting down next to him and putting his hand on the kid's shoulder. "Kol, pull yourself together. If there's one thing I know, it that you always need to keep your head, especially when some depraved lunatic is trying to get you killed."

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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Jeremy barks out a desperate laugh. "Hah! Keep my head? I'm good at that, so long as there's a place to run to. There's always a way out, always! But here..." Jeremy gestures to the flat ground of the insanity disc, "there's nothing! It just... it's the first time I haven't been able to run. I suppose it kind of... got to me, or something."

Jeremy straightens up, and Geoff stands as well. "Yeah, you know, you're right. I'll just... wait. Wait and hope shock doesn't set in. That happened once, when I opened a door to Iraq and oh man there was this guy..."

Jeremy continues to ramble, likely to keep himself calm, and Geoff sighs again, trying to find an excuse to get him to stop.

After a few minutes of what might have been, in any other situation, amusing stories, Geoff finally cuts in.

"Look kid, that thing," gesturing towards the Eccentric, "told us do something interesting. Remember? I explained a few minutes ago. It's probably best to comply."

"Oh! Right, yes, you did. Off its rocker and all that, might kill us on a whim and all that. Right, well, interesting... uh..." Jeremy fumbles around in his pockets and produces a condom, a power bar, and a fairly large coin from some country or another, and begins juggling them.

He turns towards the Eccentric, muttering, "creeeeeepy ass mofo," as he does so, and starts doing a slightly awkward jig in time with the elevator music as he juggles.

"Think this counts?" He calls over his shoulder at Geoff.

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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Reserved? Reserved.

Originally posted on MSPA by Nodge.

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Edit: Curses, foiled again. [img]images/smilies/whatpumpkin.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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Zephyr really wished the eye-imploding floor would yield to his flickering hands at least a little, simply so he could hide in it. Glancing up a final shimmer indicated this time he was intangible for the long haul. The boy stood shakily, the photographer somewhat discomfited by the sight of pigs falling right through Zephyr, as he flicked a couple of tears off his boots where they'd fallen through the rest of him. Raggedly panicked gasps finally restoring to normalcy as he stood, Zephyr took a look around.

What he saw wasn't all that comforting. Quite deliberately tearing his terrified gaze from a cheerfully waving Eccentric (at least, the way it was thrashing one of its appendages may have qualified as a wave), Zephyr's blue eyes affixed uncertainly on the shadow's blank white ovals. "I-... is that what brought us here?" The photographer nodded, clutching his camera as it soothingly assured him he was doing a good job; he felt a pang of pity for the wretched kid stooped in front of him. Zephyr didn't say anything for a while, simply lost in horrified contemplation while the photographer stopped and started in his feeble attempts to resuscitate the admittedly terminal conversation. This awkwardness was thankfully(?) interrupted as the Eccentric's burbling Finnish took a slightly more belligerent tone as a tendril lashed around Zephyr, paused to discover it was having little effect, before sweeping under his boots and knocking the Esper clean off his feet.
[background=black:3t2r6dgn]
"YOU'RE NOT PLAYING THE GAME RIGHT~♫"[/background:3t2r6dgn]

Zephyr was content to lie on the cruelly impassable floor and feel utterly miserable.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Sirius took the chicken off his head and tossed it aside, then wiped the ooze off his leg with the toga.

"How can anyone have any gravitas under these circumstances?" he grumbled. "Nothing here makes any sense!" He looked around. "And besides, at least I'm taking it better than most here. I mean, look at this."

He walked over towards the figure sitting on a stack of books.

"He's just sitting there, staring straight ahead. It's like he's in shock. He's probably only holding that book in a desperate attempt to comfort himself."

The angel ignored Ward's gaze as he walked away, over to the nervous Photographer and the trembling Zephyr.

"And these two! They're terrified of each other!" Both eyed Sirius nervously as he gave them a disapproving glare. "What, do you scare yourselves when you look in a mirror, too?"

"Oh, Mirror is a pretty good friend..." the Photographer began, but Sirius shot him a glance that made the nervous humanoid think that maybe this winged guy didn't know Mirror after all. Zephyr wished even harder that he could sink into the ground.

Sirius grumbled something under his breath, before leaving the two terrified strangers to their own devices. He turned his attention to Jeremy, who was desperately dancing a jig.

"And you. Not five minutes ago, you were on your hands and knees begging for help! And now you're dancing like a stupid monkey in a desperate attempt to please that... thing over there! Do you even have the slightest sense of shame?"

Originally posted on MSPA by Fakeimposter.

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The feeling of dying doesn't leave as fast as one would think. The thought that every cell in your body was dying in a slow, unstoppable way can leave a lasting impression on someone. So it was no surprise that Sereno felt so.... out of it from the moment he woke up. When Sereno saw that horrible, ungodly, insane thing talking down at him.... It is understandable that it was quite a jolt to poor Sereno. And being surrounded by all these other things that walked and talked and danced.... It was quite a lot of stress for Sereno to handle. So it was no surprise, really, that it was then that Sereno finally snapped. His mind began to crack. And all he could think at this moment was
Fuck

This. Rather then waiting for Umbra, his psychopathic little guardian, to come to kill all these utterly terrifying, confusing things, Sereno decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. No more running away. No more being pushed around. No more being afraid. Laughing in a slightly psychopathic manner, Sereno ran towards the Photographer. And punched him... she... it right between those Two White Oval Eyes that stared in such a pathetic way.
"FUCK YOU!" Sereno screamed in a shrill voice.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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Geoff dropped his half-bolts and grabbed for the short guy, trying to restrain him. He slipped away the first time, but his hand was still... in... that shadowy thing's face, making him twist around awkwardly and trip over himself. Geoff managed to get ahold of his arms, but he kept squirming around.

"Hold still, dammit," the Hattallan shouted. "Calm down!" He didn't, though, and a few moments later, he'd gotten away from him again. He moved over to stand by the edge of the platform, staring wildly around at the contestants, panting heavily.