The $300,000 Fight-A-Thon! [Round Two: Toyetic!]

Originally posted on MSPA by Lord Paradise.

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SpoilerShow

Quick note:

When you reserve and then fill a reserve, it's best to make a new post and then go back and delete the reserve, rather than editing your post. That way everyone else can see that the thread has update.

Originally posted on MSPA by SeventeenthSquid.

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For a moment, Eriz completely lost her grip on reality. The fear, confusion and frustration had built up in her mind to the point where she knew nothing else. They manifested themselves in a shrieking bellow, amplified massively by her suit's speakers. Fears of giving away positions or drawing attention were totally forgotten, for the moment, as she lost herself in the sound.

She screamed until her lungs were empty. As her voice fell silent and she gasped for breath, another shout took the place of her own; the human in her arms was bellowing and flailing. She stared at him for a moment, totally confused by his spasming ululations. She realized, hazily, as if reminded by someone else, that she was crushing him again. With a sigh, she opened her arm and dropped him onto the floor.

“Are you trying to kill me?” he shouted, rising to his feet. He slammed a scrawny fist on her expansive chest plate, drawing it back a second later and shaking it in pain. “You stupid fucking tin can! You crush me, you scream in my ears with your stupid fucking speakers!”

Eriz was suddenly and unceremoniously pulled back to reality by his tirade. She took a step back from him as he trembled in rage or pain or frustration or Ship knows what. Eriz couldn't read the expressions that crossed his naked face. He took a step closer to her and grabbed onto her chest-piece in an expression that, when performed on another Kyelz, might have seemed somewhat intimidating. Eriz was simply confused as he tried to shake her with no success.

“You've probably drawn the entire fucking zoo of horrors down on us!” he screamed at her, his red and sweating face staring at her face-dome, his eyes unable to make contact with hers behind its mirrored surface. Eriz put one huge metal hand on his shoulder and gently pushed him back, breaking his grip. He smashed one hand into her arm and twisted out of her grip, uttering a continuous stream of cursing as he turned away and vaulted through the hole in the wall into the newly-revealed storage room. Eriz watched him jump over and vanish behind the lip of twisted metal and concrete before clearing it herself in a single jump, thumping heavily onto bare concrete flooring on the other side and nearly crushing the man underfoot, forcing him to throw himself onto the floor with a flourish of cursing.

He stood and dusted himself off, staring furiously at her face-dome. Eriz hesitated to meet his gaze, even knowing that she couldn't see his face. His eyes were alight with some kind of fervent anger and fear. He spat on the floor. “Clumsy idiot!” he growled.

Eriz uneasily turned away from him to survey the room they had just entered. In most ways, it was identical to the one they had just left; its vaulted metal ceiling arched far over their heads, halogen lights dangling from it on long black wires. Stacks of precariously balanced crates and rows of shelving blocked any line of sight into its interior. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, identical to the battleground they had fought to escape. The despair and frustration returned. She sank to her knees, dropped her hammer and fell back against the wall with a long, low groan that leaked through her speakers immensely amplified.

The man turned from surveying the room himself to look at her slumped against the wall. She met his gaze from behind her face-dome.

“Just giving up?” he said. He turned to walk away into the rows of crates. After a few meters, he turned back for a moment and looked at her. She felt suddenly pathetic and weak, crumpled as she was against the wall, unmoving. He grimaced, hesitating a moment.

“You shouldn't stay there. They'll be looking for what made all that noise.” With that, he turned an vanished into the maze of detritus.

Eriz watched him leave. She felt ashamed at her own weakness. How could she, a Sauthai, let a stupid weak Kyelz make such a mockery of her? She could almost hear the scathing hatred of her battle-master as she raised her cane for another strike. On your feet, she would scream at her as she lay bloody and bruised on the floor of the training ring. You will fight! You are Sauthai! You will forget your fear, your pain, your injuries! You will remember only one thing: a Sauthai fights.

With a growl, half of self-hatred and half of anger at her situation, she rose to her feet. Her Sauthorn clanked and whined as its hydraulics re-adjusted to standing balance. She lifted her hammer from the floor and held it across her shoulder as she followed the man into the maze of storage. Where had he gone? She wondered if she'd ever find him in this mess.

As she entered the narrow aisles between stacks of crates and dangerously overladen shelves, she sensed something... wrong. Something very amiss about the place. While the Coach's storage had given off an aura of stuffy forgetfulness and decades of aimless clutter, the stacks and piles here seemed... threatening. Vaguely malevolent. They loomed at least twice or three times her height, boxes formed from wood, metal or cardboard. Labeled and sealed in a language she had never seen. There was none of the loose garbage and detritus that had littered the floor of the Coach's warehouse. It was neater. Organized. Like something was making a conscious effort to keep the vast stacks and shelves carefully sealed, archived and secured.

Ahead, from around a bend obscured by a tall pillar of cylindrical metal drums, she heard a curse and the sound of something falling to the floor. It's him, she thought! She quickened her pace and rounded the corner.

The man stood in a clearing, its walls formed by piles and shelves. He was standing stock-still, his back to her and arms at his sides. He was staring at something in the center of the room. A metal crate lay at his feet, its hinges and latch crudely sliced through by the torch that lay, discarded, on the ground. Hearing her heavy footsteps, he spun around. His face was ashen, his eyes wide. He opened his mouth.

“We need to go back.”

Eriz took a step forward, craning her neck to look past his shoulder at the opened crate on the floor.

She nearly vomited into her helmet. Eriz had seen violence, yes. And blood, much of it her own. But she had been spared from the worse parts of war; the bodies, the organs bared to the air, the smoldering wrecks of vehicles filled with charred meat.

A twisted, flayed and shredded arm poked up from the crate, still glistening with fresh blood. It vanished into a morass of meat, tendons and bones that filled the rest of the crate. She raised her eyes from the horrid sight to see what the man had been staring at in the clearing.

A sculpture, she thought. At least four times her height, it towered over even the high walls of crates. It looked, she thought, vaguely like a tree. A tree, she realized with horror, built of intertwining limbs, rib cages, skulls. Loops of intestine and muscle hung from its leafless branches. Blood soaked the floor around its base, where huge, monstrous bones split out to form its roots. Twists of tendon and offal wrapped around its trunk. It was impossible, she thought. She couldn't really be seeing this. She stumbled back a few steps, and realized the man had already ran back towards the breach in the wall.

She followed as fast her hydraulic legs could carry her.

The Coach had been right. It's best not to poke around in other people's property. You never know what you might find.

Originally posted on MSPA by ~ATH.

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Ironjaw has interrupted my alliance. He is a killer. He is a threat to my careful planning. He must be detained. He must die.

The cold mechanical rage consumed him, and forced him to abandon his carefully set-up plan. His cogs clanked against each other, and started whirring in overdrive. As sparks emitted from his body, his mind also seemed to be descending into a mindless cycle of disconnected thoughts.

burn kill destroy die torture pain murder rage burn kill destroy die torture pain murder rage burn kill destroy die torture pain murder rage you must die

The chase continued for a while, but suddenly, Warden seemed to slow down a bit.

killer murderer blasphemer. Chase the blasphemer. Kill the killer. Murder the murderer.

...

Kill? Murder?

...

No!

His whole body clunked to a halt, and every single cog crashed to the ground with a clang.

No no no no no no. This can't be happening! I was about to ... kill.

At this point, his mechanical mind was completely abandoned, as was his body. Only his organic mind remained.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck shit cocksucker. Lucifer will kill me for sure! I was about to kill someone and disrupt the Afterlife System of Justice! Come on, body, move! Oh please don't let this be happening!

His face slowly rose up, and started ticking again. One by one, each cog moved to join the growing crowd of gears that was the Warden.

Okay, okay, I can do this. Just... let it come to me. Just gotta die one more time. Forget my name, forget everything, forget...

...

His body was now complete, and the ticking became smooth, rhythmatic.

The plan. The plan is to take in the greatest sinner. Engineers are needed to repair my body. Already, my arm has been damaged.

Indeed, one arm was already dragging itself, the cogs fused into each other and unable to move.

I need to meet up with Eriz Col-Myel and Franz von Schuster.

He turned to make his way back to the entrance, when an explosion shook the entire building. A paroxysm of irritation shook his system, as he knew explosions were far from an efficient way of dealing with things in general. Quickly, he made his way back, only to run into an army of cats, and a dragon covered in them. This thoroughly annoyed him, so he made to deal with the situation, by eliminating the swarm of common animals and detaining the ones who were responsible. Then, he saw the hole in the wall. The hole in space itself. Contestants were already running off, between alternate dimensions. This would not do. Having everybody in one place was a much more efficient way of dealing with the Coach. He simply floated over the catastrophe below, and into the next building. The layout was far more efficient than the last, to which he gave a mental nod of approval. Furthermore, there was a lovely tree made of corpses in the middle. He hoped they were dead to begin with, but the gruesomeness was lost on him. He focused his attention downwards, and right there were the two engineers he had tried to make an alliance with. They were attempting to run back into the warehouse he had just come from. He appreciated their desire to stay together, but this was a much neater place to discuss their plans, so he stopped them.

"Eriz Col-Myel. Franz von Schuster. I would like to hear your response to my alliance proposal."

The unfortunate Dr. von Schuster has had enough of this. Having a monstrous clock impede his path, and a gruesome statue of gore behind him, he simply skidded to a stop and stayed rooted in one spot. He continued to stare, his brain having a minor little breakdown at being unable to leave. That armor-covered woman, Eriz, just continued right past him, seeming to ignore everything around her. Like she had her eyes closed. A crash of metal echoed across the room as the two metallic entities collided. Warden was pushed back a little, and Eriz fell to the ground.

"Oh shit. Uh. I'm sorry, but could you let me leave this godforsaken hellhole?!"

Warden would probably be amused by irony in that statement, if it weren't for the fact that he had recently suffered an emotional crisis, and subsequentally lost most of his emotions. As it were, he simply moved aside and let Eriz pass. Franz, seeing the opportunity, and being surprised at how easy that was, ran back into the Coach's warehouse. Finally, as the two of them sat down, panting, attempting to recover from that horrific sight, Warden repeated his proposal.

"Eriz Col-Myel. Franz von Schuster. I would like to hear your response to my alliance proposal."

Franz, being conditioned to horrifying sights like that, was able to recover quicker than his gigantic-armor-covered accomplice. Thus, he responded first.

"Okay. Right. Your alliance proposal. We have considered offer, and would be delighted to help, for noble cause."

He, of course, did not really wish to ally himself with a demon, of all things, but he had to pacify this beast somehow. Eriz simply stared.

"Much appreciated, Franz von Schuster. Let us discuss our plans now. I have noticed that there is a mild extradimensional inconsistency between these two buildings, which leads me to believe that it might be possible to further disrupt the boundary between the extradimensional warehouses and break out of this storage complex."

"Uh. I am sorry?"

"Simply put, each warehouse can be thought of as an alternate universe entirely. The explosion earlier had disrupted these universes, and fused them together."

"Okay, so walls need to be destroyed? Easy."

"The ceiling would be a preferable target, as it is as of yet uncertain what lies above us."

"Okay. I think Eriz can destroy ceiling easily...."

"Wait. Do you not see the damage I have suffered?"

Warden had a cog float over to right in front of Franz. An arm was attached to it, dragging limply behind. The small gears it was made of seemed to be fused to each other, refusing to rotate. An ominous grinding emanated from the arm, almost too low to be heard.

"I need you two to fix this."

He simply stared at the arm. Now that he had had the opportunity to examine it closely, it was truly a marvel of engineering. The fluid layouts were almost ... inhuman. This could not have been made by a human engineer. It was gorgeously alien. It was truly a pity, then, that it should be marred so. Further up the arm, charred gears were melted and fused into each other, from intense heat.

"I can isolate and remove obstruction, but I am not sure whether I can make your arm work again."

Eriz, meanwhile, had been replaying that gruesome sight over and over in her head. She had wanted to force it out, but it lingered, getting stronger and stronger every time she thought about it. It was then that it truly hit her, she was very far from home indeed. She would probably die, in this terrible battle. She might never even get home. She started to cry. Right away, her suit was busy at work cleaning up her tears.

Telt felt a large spike in Eriz's adrenaline flow, and the tears just confirmed it. Eriz was having an emotional crisis.

"My lady, your adrenaline levels are abnormally high, and you appear to be crying. What is the matter?"

"I... I just don't know if I'm going to get through this alive. We're so far from home, Telt. Nothing here is familiar, nothing at all. Did you see that, ugh, that tree?! And now this demonic clock and by the Ship, I'm scared, Telt!"

"My lady, please do not be afraid. You have been trained from a young age for this kind of a situation. Survival is the priority here, and with my help, I'm sure you will be more than capable of surviving. For now, I would suggest reaching out and making an alliance with the Warden, and study him, if you need to fight him later."

"Thank you so much, Telt. I don't know how I'd live without you."

"It is my pleasure, my lady."

Eriz, now somewhat reassured, noted that Warden needed to be fixed right up. It may have been her kindhearted nature, or it may be her attempting to cling on the familiar feeling of engineering, but she resolved to try and fix Warden's arm. Hey, maybe Warden would feel indebted to her later on? She went closer and examinated the arm.

"Ah. This is truly a wonderful system, yes. But it is a bit fragile. No armor whatsoever. Made only of cogs, gears, and pulleys. Yes, I think I might be able to connect it once we have taken care of the melted gears. However, we might need more gears."

Dr. von Schuster's head turned, to glare at Eriz. It seemed to convey a tone of "Do not help demon, you dolt!", which Eriz was completely oblivious to.

"This is an immense storage complex, isn't it? Surely we should be able to find something in here..."

Dr. von Schuster slapped his forehead with a palm, and massaged the bridge of his nose.

"So, it is clear that our mission is to find mechanical supplies. Let us move on, and explore further."

They began walking or floating around, searching in boxes.

Originally posted on MSPA by eberron.

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Cancel the reserve. Drawing too much of a blank at the moment. Will try posting later when my heads abit clearer.

Originally posted on MSPA by eberron.

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[color=#P4914]"I swear if those other contestents don't kill me first then this place blowing up sure as hell will." Ironjaw grunted as he picked himself up off the floor. Looking around, he saw that both Warden and Thize had run off. "Heh, can't blame fish boy for running while I was down. Those puns were just so damn bad. He's worse then that cat. Hmm, wonder why that clock took off. He seemed dead set at making my life hell." As he glanced around, Ironjaw saw something on the ground not to far away from his feet. "Hm?" Walking closer, Ironjaw realized it was a gear. "Seems Warden didn't handle that plasma bolt as well as I thought. Nice to know." Picking the gear up he grew thoughtful. "Might be able to use this a leverage against him." Dropping the gear into a nearby backpack and slipping it over a shoulder, Ironjaw suddenly hear a voice behind him.[/color]

"Leaving so soon? I haven't even said hello or thank you for distracting that pun loving idiot."

[color=#P4914]Turning around, Ironjaw came face to face with a strange creature. It looked like a cross of a monkey and a lion. Where arms would normally be were instead long scythe-like growths. "Well now, seems like I get to finally meet the last sap in this whole so called game. Don't recall getting a name from your kid though. Not that I really care." Ironjaw shrugged and leaned against a crate.[/color]

"Axys. And just because you helped me doesn't mean I trust you." Axys muttered, his detestment of others clinging to every word. "This is a fight to the death after all. Can't leave myself indebted to someone who will ultimately just try and kill me." Axys stepped closer to Ironjaw, raising his arms into a fighting position as his tail hand curled into a fist.

[color=#P4914]"Heh, likewise." Ironjaw chuckled as he raised his fists up. "I've already ended up pretty much on four of the others shit lists, I had, as much as I don't like the idea any more then you no doubt will, hoped that maybe we could work together to atleast eliminate some of the other. Perhaps it would draw this Coach out of hiding so we can force him to send us back to where we're from." Seeing Axys wince at the idea, Ironjaw looked abit puzzled. "Here I thought working together would make you ill but it seems like you don't want to return."[/color]

Axys suddenly lunged at Ironjaw, scythe arms swinging right towards his neck. Ironjaw barely ducked out of the way. "You have no idea how much hell I suffered! All those people, poking, prodding, insulting and leaving me weak and beaten!" Axys sidestepped as Ironjaw swung his fist out, then followed with a punch of his own that struck the shark-man hard in the side. "You could never understand the hate I feel. I'm going..."

[color=#P4914]Axys was cut off as Ironjaw spun around fast, taking out Axys' legs with his tail. "How do you think I ended up like this? It wasn't my idea to be used as someones play toy! I never agreed to be a test subject, to have my DNA mutated just so the army could have special soldiers to fight their petty wars! They had it coming! I had to kill them, to punish them for what they did to me!" Ironjaw whipped around, drawing his rifle as he did. As he pressed the gun against his fallen foes head, he found himself with a set of crossed scythes against his neck, ready to quickly decapitate him. Ironjaw smirked. "Seems we're at an impasse. I think that we can still be a deadly team if we work together. As much as it pains me to say it, you and I, we're really not that different. So, shall we team up? Or.." Ironjaw tightened his finger against the trigger of the rifle. "Shall we see who's reflexes are quicker?"[/color]

Originally posted on MSPA by ThunderJolt.

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"...You really wanna try that?" Axys said flatly. Ironjaw had been slightly careless - he forgot that Axys could still move his tail. "You think you're faster than me?" he shouted as he knocked the plasma rifle out of Ironjaw's hand with the tail-hand, and then proceeded to grasp Ironjaw by his thick shark-skinned neck in an instant. "Me, team up with you?" he said, pulling up a struggling Ironjaw just inches away from his face. "Not a fucking chance."

He bashed Ironjaw across a set of boxes and into some shelves, but didn't ease up his grip. Then he held Ironjaw up for a moment. In that moment, Ironjaw could see that the look in his eyes had changed.

Axys was puzzled for a moment. Had he really just met someone who'd been through a similar ordeal? Someone who understood how he felt? Someone who... maybe... wait... no, what was he thinking? No one could understand... The only memories he had were memories of the time he had been locked up in the lab and all the experiments and scientists, and then memories of life after escaping the lab, which, arguably weren't much better. Everything before winding up in the lab was a complete blank to him. Ironjaw wouldn't know how that felt; he had all of the memories in his mind, both good and bad. Axys knew only the bad. And the attempts to remember, to bring forward the long lost memories while also attempting to forget the horrible experiences only served to perpetuate the anger he felt and...

That... that doesn't matter. Ironjaw will die, just like the rest of them.

And then Axys's eyes returned to normal.

[color=#P1914]"I think you're making quite a big mistake here, don't you understand how beneficial an alliance would be-"[/color]

"Shut UP!" Axys shouted, angling a blade along Ironjaw's neck.

[color=#P1914]"Hold on now, just wait a minute," Ironjaw said. He briefly considered how he was going to get himself out of this mess. He was a clever, sneaky guy, it shouldn't be hard to find a way out... "Listen, perhaps-" he cringed a little and coughed as Axys tightened his grip, "-perhaps you can... just team up temporarily with me... I've got a bit of a problem with a giant mass of gears who really wants me dead-"[/color]

Axys stopped for a second. That stupid mechanical demon that had come after him and tried to kill him - with candles, no less... He was still kind of afraid of that thing, but he didn't want Ironjaw to know that. He didn't let his expression falter. He kept wearing a smug 'I'm-better-than-you' look. "Oh? Why the hell should I care about that?"

[color=#P1914]"But that damn thing, it-"[/color]

"Don't care, there's still no way I'm teaming up with you. You're weak and careless, and really, I should just kill you now."

[color=#P1914]"Weak? Pfffhaha, would I be in a competition like this if I were weak? You're underestimatin' me," Ironjaw said. He realized he should have just thought of doing this sooner. He had a giant mouth full of perfectly sharp teeth, and it was time to put them to use. He considered biting the tail with the hand that was currently holding him up, but that would be difficult and rather awkward. So he took a riskier move, and suddenly chomped down on the death-blade that Axys had been holding to his neck. [/color]

"What the hell are you doing?!" Axys yelled, trying to pry his dagger of an arm from the beast's mouth. He lost his grip on Ironjaw and was forced to let go.

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw tossed him aside. He scrambled to grab his rifle, and dove to the ground to retrieve it. He quickly fired a few shots at Axys, who rolled out of the way. The blasts blew crates apart and Axys was showered with wooden splinters and other debris. Axys leaped onto the top shelf of a nearby set of storage racks. Ironjaw quickly aimed toward the shelf and took another shot at him and missed again. The shot sped off toward the ceiling. The ensuing blast from the impact with the surface, as impressive as it was, didn't completely vaporize the ceiling. It was left cracked and charred, interestingly. One might notice it appeared to be heavily reinforced, which might make one wonder exactly what was up there.

"Hey mate, you can't run forever."[/color]

Axys sprung up behind Ironjaw. He barely had time to move out of the way as Ironjaw whirled around and fired again. He was so close that he could feel the heat from the weapon firing. But just as quickly, Axys managed to grab hold of Ironjaw again, and sent him flying into even more crates. He landed between a few sets of shelves. Axys was approaching. This was it. Ironjaw was defenseless. It was time for the finishing move. He stood towering over Ironjaw, blades raised. This was it, Ironjaw thought, it would all be over here. Ironjaw would die, wouldn't he?

...wouldn't he?

What was going on... Axys found himself... hesitating? But... why? This had never happened before. He just... couldn't bring himself to do it. He took a step back.

[color=#P1914]"What are you waitin' for mate?" Ironjaw said.[/color]

Axys growled in frustration. Why couldn't he do this? Instead, he cleanly slashed the shelves out of anger, and retreated. The shelves were left to come crashing down on Ironjaw, who wasn't really pleased to find out that a bunch of boxes from the shelves had spilled those little rubber balls on him.

--

Eriz and the others continued their search for fresh mechanical parts to replace the Warden's damaged sections. They thought it would be easy enough to find parts as simple as gears and whatnot in a place like this, but it turned out that it wasn't. Everything was useless junk - some boxes of rubber bands, chipped glass mugs, children's board games, rusted gardening tools, and lots of socks, Eriz noted. Or perhaps it was just because Schuster wasn't particularly interested in repairing a demon, and lied about the contents of certain boxes to avoid actually finding usable parts.

As they neared one of the walls, another hole began to open up, which lead to yet another storage room. This one felt different from the last.

Schuster seemed interested in taking a look, despite what he had stumbled upon in the other room. When Schuster inquired as to whether or not Eriz would like to accompany him again, Eriz stomped her foot down and shook her head, "No no no nonono." She preferred not to come across any more dead bodies, or parts thereof, thank you very much.

"Suit yourself then," Schuster called back as he headed off into the room.

Not only did it feel different in this room, but it clearly looked different. It was a little more organized than the other rooms he had seen so far. And the color - a glassy blue tint covered the walls, ceiling and floor. And most noticeable of all, the room was full of instruments.

SpoilerShow

I feel like the first bit of this post turned out a little messier than what I had intended. Oh well [img]images/smilies/icon_sad.gif[/img]

Oh, and yes, that room mentioned at the end there does in fact belong to the Composer!

Originally posted on MSPA by eberron.

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SpoilerShow

Jolt, that fight between Ironjaw and Axys was awesome. And nice use of karma with the bouncey balls too.

Originally posted on MSPA by Flummox.

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“Shall we begin!”

Felus floated above a stack of crates. He wasn’t sure what exactly they were about to begin, but without anything to do, his followers would dissemble and he’d lose their attention.

There was some shouting from the crowd. Felus couldn’t pick out what they were really saying, but it was close enough to a yes.

His eye began to itch. He rubbed it with the back of his paw and tried to ignore it.

“So you say that this, this Cultivator, stores cats in military-grade weaponry!” Felus almost smiled. He knew just the person.

“I know what we will do next! We will begin our quest to destroy all of the weapons in this warehouse, freeing the cats within! And I know where we will start!”

Felus launched his paw out sideways and turned to find it pointing at Axys.

“You!” shouted Felus, voice booming across the warehouse. “Have you seen a certain shark-faced fellow around?”

The gaggle of cats was undoubtedly confused. No matter, he would soon reveal a great surprise to them!

<font color="#336600">“So what if I have?” Felus could barely hear Axys from across the warehouse.

“He is refusing to surrender information!” Felus rubbed both eyes with his paws. They were really beginning to annoy him. “Arrest him!”

The crowd cheered and a ragtag swarm of cats leapt on Axys, who batted them away effortlessly.

“Yes!” said Felus. “Attack!” His face was a picture of mad delight. He rubbed his eyes vigorously.

Cats of all sizes piled upon Axys, who threw them off with his tail hand and not quite successfully tried to stab them with his arms. Felus’s vision was blurry and he began to see red. He tried to keep his vision on Axys, but his eyes began to slide and he was dizzy. Then his entire vision went pure red and he felt sure that his eyes were on fire. He screamed and put his paws over his eyes, then quickly withdrew them because of the heat.

Quickly, it was over and Felus’s vision was back to normal. But the scene in front of him was completely different. A smoking hole in the floor gaped in the center of his vision and Axys was dancing on top of a flaming pyramid of crates, every passage out blocked by masses of cats.

“Alright!” Axys was saying. He was pointing somewhere. “He’s under that pile of balls!”

Suddenly Felus burst out laughing. He stopped levitating and rolled on the floor laughing. Because it was heat vision! He’d forgotten he was superman! He never thought a human animated television show could carry so much power. Ahaha! He’d have to get that under control.

“Very well!” said Felus, leaping tall stacks of boxes in single bounds. The crowd cheered and pulled Guillemet along, though to be sure they had no idea what they were following him to. Axys would be able to get off the box without the cats there and Felus hoped his show of power would be enough to deter him from pursuit. They soon located the mountain of rubber balls. Felus swept some rubber balls off of Ironjaw’s face and began to talk to him with a ridiculously smug look on his face.

“Remember me?” he said.

Ironjaw growled and snapped at Felus’s paw. Felus only narrowly avoided him.

“Anyway I’m here to tell you that you must surrender your weapon.”

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw grinned, a rather unpleasant sight. “Which one?”[/color]

“Your gun, if you will.”

[color=#P1914]“I’m not going to give you the gun just so you can kill me with it and laugh at my idiocy.”[/color]

Felus tapped Ironjaw’s forehead with one claw. “Listen up,” he said. “I could kill you right now, one slash across the throat. Why would I want your weapon just to kill you with it?”

[color=#P1914]“Then why not just kill me and take it?”[/color]

Felus knew that Ironjaw was probably lying on top of the gun and he was probably very heavy. He’d need some way to coax him into giving it up. This served a dual purpose, in fact, not only to start off the quest and build morale, but to render Ironjaw less dangerous. Clever, Felus, very clever.

A kitten crawled forward slowly. Felus recognized it as the one from the original liberation. “Sire,” he said. “Heroes save. They do not kill.”

“YOU DARE –!”

The kitten cringed and fell back into the mass.

“No, no, you’re right. Come back here.” The kitten came back. “What’s your name, little one?”

“I don’t have one. None of us do.”

“Hmph. Then you will need a name. A proper warrior’s name. You are now… Slicestripe!”

The kitten smiled and Felus smiled back, but inside he was feeling woe. So! He couldn’t kill anyone. A geas of sorts, held together by the power of his followers’ belief. He knew all about those, he was a god after all. What good were powers if you couldn’t kill anyone on fear of losing them?

He looked back at Ironjaw, who was smiling.

[color=#P1914]“So you can’t kill anyone, can you.”[/color]

Felus was distressed but he decided to make the best of the situation. “That also means I won’t kill you if you surrender your weapon.”

[color=#P1914]“It also means you won’t kill me if I decide to get up and walk out of here.”[/color]

Felus smirked, looking at the mountain of rubber balls. “Good luck with that.”

Guillemet was screaming something but her voice was muffled by the wall of fur.

“I help you get up and you give me your weapon and leave without further incident. What do you say?”
</font>

Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.

---

I'll think of something

Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.

---

Felus and Ironjaw stared into each other eyes in the way that was more intense than romantic. It would be a better Mexican standoff if the opponents were somebody other than a noodle-cat and an anthropomorphic shark buried under a pile of bouncy balls. It was a weird situation but they stared hard. It was admirable.

[color=#P1914]“Well yes,” Ironjaw immediately replied, much to the hidden surprise of the former Cat-God (God-Cat). The abyss of the sharkman’s mouth curled to a smile filled with many crooked teeth. It was like looking at a horrible knife-shop. A horrible-smelling knife shop.[/color]

“Yes, you say,” the Überkatze echoed back incredulously. If he had actual lips, he would kept his upper one stiff.

There was a period of silence, a silence soon snuffed out by a strange noise. It sounded like a dragon spitting out a cat. More exactly, three cats. It was more scientific that way.
[color=#P1914]
“Of coouuurse, mate,” Ironjaw rumbled in a way that was supposed to imply chuckling (it was hard to tell since sharks do not usually make noises – humorous or otherwise). It was a not very trustworthy noise. “How could I say no to a little fella like you?”[/color]

“Well considering I could shoot lasers from my eyes -- ”

“LASERS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY,” a nasally fur-congested voice interrupted.

“-and could float for an indefinite amount of time.”

“HOW DO YOU FLOAT. ALSO HOW AM I STILL MYSTIFIED BY A FLOATING CAT.”

“Would you shut up,” Felus had enough. “Seriously.”

“WHILE YOU TWO HAVE THE GLORY OF SPEECH, I MYSELF HAD SUFFERED FOR MANY EONS UNDER THE OPPRESSION OF SILENCE.”

“You only been under ‘oppression’ for five minutes,” Felus sighed.

“FIVE MINUTES. FIVE CENTURIES. SAME THING. THE POINT IS I THINK IT IS PROPER EQUIETTE IF I COULD CONTRIBUTE TO THIS CONVERSATION THAT YOU TWO SELFISHLY HOARD TO YOURSELVES.”

“That’s because we were having a proper discussion,” Felus floated rather menacingly to Guillemet’s cat-free face. Well, as menacingly as oddly-proportioned cat could possibly be. “Plus, what do you have to contribute?”

“EXPERIMENT. SUCCESS.”

Felus yelped in surprise as two hands firmly grasped onto each of the former God-Cat’s (Cat-God’s) sides. He would had been only mildly disgusted but Guillemet’s hands were disgustingly human. They even felt disgustingly human – it was on the rank between “falling-into-a-septic-tank” disgusting and “stepping-into-dog-shit-barefooted” disgusting. So, pretty disgusting.

“Let me go!” Felus blurred into a flurry of limbs and claws.

“MY TASK IS COMPLETE,” the tone was smug and self-congratulatory, “I HAVE CLEARLY PROVED THE SUPERIORITY OF DIGITS OVER YOU.”

“Are you trying to extend this into some sort of running cosmic joke,” Felus hissed under his breath. “What are you trying to prove.”

“I DON’T KNOW BUT IT’S KIND OF FUN? IN FACT, I KIND OF FIND YOU RATHER INTERESTING. YOU ARE A RATHER ATYPICAL SPECIES OF THE FELIDAE FAMILY. TELL ME HOW YOU DO ALL THESE THINGS. I MUST KNOW ALL YOUR SECRETS. BECAUSE REASONS.”

“Okay fine, fine,” Felus grumbled. “I’m a god and all my powers come from belief, happy?”

Guillemet’s face lightened as though she heard something humorous. It would be more pleasing if it were on a face of a milquetoast human being rather than on a face of a dragon. “BELIEF. REALLY.”

“Yes, really,” the cat managed to cross his paws in annoyance. It was possible because his legs were ridiculously long. “ Does it really need an explanation.”

“OF COURSE EVERYTHING NEEDS AN EXPLANATION,” the dragon bellowed. “EVERYTHING NEEDS AN EXPLANATION. I EXPLAIN THINGS FOR THE SAKE OF EXPLAINING. WHY YOU’D THINK I ACT THIS WAY?”

“Well-"

[color=#P1914]“Ladies.”

The two turned around. Unsurprisingly, Ironjaw was the originator of the voice – only he was not under the karma-ic mass of rubber balls that seem to plague this portion of the warehouse. There were still a lot of cats around him, but most were too scared to move. After all, he had a rifle at his shoulder and a smile on his lips (do sharks even have lips). Also, he was looking a bit smug around the gills. [/color]

“How you managed to get out,” Felus put it as tersely as he could.

[color=#P1914]“I am part-man, part-shark and can crush heads between my teeth as well as between my thighs,” Ironjaw shrugged as he raised his futuristic rifle up to Felus and Guillemet. It was unclear who exactly he was pointing to. “You think rubber balls and fluffy cats are enough to stop me?”[/color]

“No,” Felus said, but to be fair, his plan kind of hinged on that. “Not really.”

[color=#P1914]“Now, you’re acting smarter. That's good.” Ironjaw made that weird-rumbly-shark chuckle again. “Unfortunately, the tables have turned.”[/color]

Felus growled.

[color=#P1914]“Of course, you could say I have the upper hand,” the rifle started to hum. “I’ll tell you what. Comply with my demands and maybe I’ll be easy on you. Disagree with me, well. That’s good and all but…”

Ironjaw pointed his rifle at a kitten. The kitten was none other than Slicestripe.

“It ain’t gonna be pretty,” Ironjaw sneered.[/color]

Felus swallowed hard. It was one thing to point the gun at him, but he was pointing a gun at an innocent. A kitten no less. In addition of being the most heinous crime to happen in this place (shoving cats into military weapons was pretty terrible but how could you point a gun at a kitty), it was placing the former Cat-God (God-Cat) into a bit of an inescapable situation. If the kitten dies, all the cats would lose faith in him and Felus would essentially be rendered powerless. If Felus complied to Ironjaw’s demands, the cats would see him as weak and Felus would essentially also be rendered powerless. It was a Catch-22 Situation, and he had honestly no idea what to do.

[color=#P1914]“Better make a snap decision, mate” Ironjaw smiled as the hammer of the rifle clicked into place. “My trigger finger’s getting a bit itchy.”[/color]

“N-“ Felus was about to shout but then he was interrupted by a particular dragon.

“QUERY,” Guillemet raised one cat-free arm up.
[color=#P1914]
“Oh, it’s Little-Miss-Shot-In-The-Ass,” Ironjaw was a bit annoyed. “I’m surprised you have the gall to interrupt our little tik-talk.”[/color]

“QUERY,” Guillemet continued as though she did not bother to listen. “I WOULD LIKE TO REFUTE YOUR CLAIM THAT CATS COULD NOT STOP YOU.”

[color=#P1914]“And so?” Ironjaw growled as though Guillemet was wasting his time.[/color]

The dragon sneered. It was a pretty ugly sneer, which was further enhanced by how uncanny Guillemet looked in general. Ironjaw would not call exactly disarming (because he has the most disarming smile – what with the expansive of his mouth filled with horror-teeth). However, he had to agree, Guillemet’s smile was pretty unpleasant. It was like she was on to something.

“CATCH.”

[color=#P1914]Once again, Ironjaw caught a very angry Felus in his face. Not exactly appreciating the claws on his face, the Hominid-derived Selachimorpha screamed and let out an arc of white-hot bullets as he tried to get the cat out of his face. The hot plasma impacted with the ceiling, simultaneously superheating and cooling the metal surface with a large bang. The cat churned into a screaming chaos of fur and confusion. All of them.[/color]

Including the ones on Guillemet.

“HAHA SUCKERS. ALL OF YOU,” the dragon cackled as she took off to the air. It was especially easy since the load on her back had been considerably lightened. “YOU GUYS ARE FUN BUT I HAVE A LOT MORE INTERESTING PEOPLE TO MEET. ALSO HEY FISHY.”

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw was not listening. Probably because there was a cat trying to shred his nose.[/color]

“YOUR FACE LOOKS LIKE A BUTT. A BUTT-SHAPED LIKE A SHARK. IT’S A VERY ACCURATE DESCRIPTION, TRUST ME.”

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw did not respond at all. Also he was starting to hate cats, juuust a little.[/color]

“ANYWAY, YIPPEE-KAI-YAY MOTHERFUCKERS. HOPE YOU ENJOY THE REST OF THE SHOW.” Guillemet laughed as she took off over the shelves. Her derisive shrieks still ever present in the damned warehouse.

Originally posted on MSPA by eberron.

---

Reserving.

Originally posted on MSPA by eberron.

---

SpoilerShow

Sorry if this post seems weak. Lot of real life issues came up.

CATCH!

[color=#P4914]Ironjaw had not expected Guillemet to throw Felus at him. Nor had he expected Felus to cling to his face. "GOD DAMN IT GET OFF OF MY FACE YOU FLEA RIDDLED LITTLE SHIT!" Ironjaw yelled out in pain as he tried to shake Felus off. He could just make out Guillemet taunting him as she flew off but that was nothing compared to having a face full of cat.[/color]

"SHE TOUCHED ME WITH THOSE FLITHY HUMAN HANDS!! MY FUR! TAINTED BY HER HUMAN STINK!" Felus either didn't realize or didn't care that he was clinging to Ironjaw's face. "I'M GOING TO MAKE HER REGRET EVER LAYING A FINGER ON ME!" SUddenly, Felus felt a hand on the scruff of his neck and a sharp tug as he came eye to eye with a very angry shark.

[color=#P4914]"I should just bite off your head right here and now. You have been nothing but a pain in my fin since this whole god damn.... game started." Ironjaw gave a snort like huff as he dropped Felus to the ground. "Your lucky that dragon has pissed me off worse right now. Next time I see her I'll make sure the next plasma shot hits her somewhere other then her ass." Ironjaw turned and started to walk away when he felt a paw on his tail.[/color]

"Wait. Maybe we can..." Felus was suddenly cut off by a loud bang. Looking back, the two could see one of the taller shelves stands starting to tip. Felus looked closer and saw that the legs had been badly damaged by some of the plasma shots Ironjaw fired during their scuffle. "Oh crap." Felus muttered as the shelf gave way, crashing into more shelves and starting a domino chain reaction. The other cats quickly took off running, Felus right behind them. "Wait," he thought to himself as he skidded to a halt. "If I run, the others might think I abandoned the shark. I'm still suppost to save people, even after he threatened one of them. I can't risk losing my powers with the other contestants somewhere nearby. Damn it." Felus groaned to himself as he turned and motioned Ironjaw to follow. "THIS WAY! I know a way out."

[color=#P4914]"You better or your lunch!" Ironjaw yelled out as he ran after Felus. Looking ahead he could see a growing white light that the small army of cats were running to at top speed. "This had better not lead us into more hell cat!" he yelled as a crate narrowly missed his tail. By now Ironjaw could see that the light was indeed coming from another building. Taking a deep breath, Ironjaw hurled himself through the hole just as the selves collapsed around the breach in the wall. "That was way too close for...." Ironjaws thought was cut off as he ran headlong into Felus, causing them both to crash to the floor in a heap. "Why the hell did you stop?" Ironjaw growled. Felus moaned and pointed over to a small stack of crates. Ironjaw glanced up at the top of the pile. "Well, didn't think I'd see you anytime soon."[/color]

Axys smirked at the tangle of shark and cat below him.

Originally posted on MSPA by SeventeenthSquid.

---

Watching Schuster climb through the gap and into the warehouse, Eriz considered, for a very brief moment, following him. It was a very, very brief moment. She immediately decided that that would be an exceedingly bad idea, and watched the green back of his jacket vanish over the lip of shattered wall. Suddenly she remembered something.

"Franz!" she shouted, her amplified voice easily reaching his ears.

"What!" came his reply, already a little faded. Eriz cocked back an aux-arm and tossed his worn firearm through the gap, towards the sound of his voice. "You might need this!" She heard footsteps coming back towards her, the quick clatter of the weapon being scooped off the concrete floor. Then receding footsteps. She waited a moment for him to say something, to thank her, maybe to climb back over the wall having changed his mind about this exceedingly foolish venture. He did not.

Eriz sighed and returned to her task. She wasn't really sure if they'd ever find the proper materials to repair... whatever that thing was. Warden, it called itself. Of the Sixth Ring. Wherever that is. She sifted through shelves, lifted a moldering cardboard box to her face-dome. It was full of weights and elastic bands. She released it in frustration. Its several-dozen kilogram weight smashed into her foot. She did not notice. Her aux-arms milled through the piles of old clothes, stacks of magazines, books, lamps, the detritus of a life she could barely even begin to understand. While she mindlessly sorted through the stacks, her mind began to wander. She thought of her home, briefly, before remembering she would probably never see it again. This quickly put a stop to such frivolous thoughts.

"Eriz," came an ominous and booming voice from behind her. She spun immediately on her heel, grabbing her hammer where it lay against the shelf she had been searching. It was, of course, Warden. She immediately felt very foolish, and allowed the hammer to drop back onto the floor. Warden, at least, seemed not to notice her embarrassment as he continued on in his horrible, grating voice.

"We must find the necessary parts to repair me. I must be operating at full capacity if we are to successfully apprehend the arch-sinner." This made very little sense to Eriz, and only succeeded in irritating her. She was looking, by the Ship! She didn't need some overblown infernal CLOCK of all things telling her how to do her job.

"I'm looking, Warden. But this horrible place is just full of... socks and magazines. Old worthless Kyelz exercise equipment. Broken televisions. What you need is... maybe a gearbox. From a vehicle. I don't know." She sighed again, and looked up at the Warden. Its stupid grinning skull-face slowly revolved, its long metallic limbs picking at the ground with a strange idle curiosity, save one that hung crippled and broken. "I don't think the Coach owns what we need. Or maybe he moved everything we could really use out of here. I don't know," she repeated. She kicked aimlessly at the box she had dropped, ripping it apart and spraying five and ten kilogram weights across the floor. A band of elastic caught around her leg, wiggling back and forth between her shin and toes. She frowned under her face-dome and hit at it with her hand. It was just out of reach. She bent down, grabbed it, pulled, yanked herself off balance and fell flat on her back.

"Eriz." Warden again. She lay on the floor. "Eriz, you've stopped looking." Eriz groaned, her voice emerging harshly static, the Sauthai sign of frustration and annoyance.

"I know that," she replied.

"Get up, Eriz. We must stop the arch-sinner." Eriz didn't want to get up. She heard, faintly, as if from another world, harsh shouting and yowling, something that sounded like a discharging energy weapon. She should be up on her feet, she realized. This was a warzone. She was a Sauthai. She should be ready to fight. She continued to lay on the floor, listening to the distant sounds of fighting, crashing shelves, screeching cats. A horribly almost-human laugh, that seemed to be getting closer...

A shadow passed over her face as she stared up at the ceiling. Silhouetted against the harsh warehouse lights, a winged shadow passed right over her, shrieking and wailing and... laughing? in a voice that was very nearly human but most certainly not human. She sat up, pushing her heavy torso up with her arms. Warden was gone, she realized, floating off somewhere. Probably looking through more stacks for the gears he needed. She slowly stood and reached down for her hammer.

"HEY," the creature shouted. To her? She spun around, the lethargy that had filled her moments ago evaporating in an instant. "HEY, YOU. YOU. HEY. HEY." Where was it coming from? She quickly rotated on her heels, looking in every direction. "GOD DAMN IT. I'M UP HERE. GOD, YOU'RE THICK." Eriz looked up. Almost directly above her, perched precariously on the shelf she had been inspecting a minute before, was a horrible ghoulish mixture of human and something she couldn't even begin to identify. It smirked at her, eyes bright in the warehouse lights.

"TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH, GIRL. ERIZ, RIGHT?" Eriz didn't really know what to say, so she said nothing. She lowered her hammer slightly, but still held it ready if the thing decided to pounce. It leaned its long neck down from its perch, inspecting Eriz closer. The shelf swayed dangerously under its bulk.

"ARE YOU DEAF? I ASKED YOU A QUESTION. IT WASN'T RHETORICAL."

Eriz still didn't really know what to say, and was stunned by the sheer hideousness of the thing before her. It's pale, bare human face, repulsive enough on a human body, leered from a long serpentine neck. Wide, fleshy wings stretched from its shoulders, ending in wriggling pink human hands. She took a step back from the shelf. The creature leaned further out, trying to keep its face as close to her face-dome as it could. Maybe to intimidate her. Maybe just to get a closer look at her. Its eerily human eyes inspected the length of her body, and she felt horribly uncomfortable.

"NICE GEAR," it said. "HIGH TECH. VERY CLASSY." Was it mocking her? She still couldn't even tell. She took another step back. It leaned further forward. The shelf wobbled, and Eriz realized a moment too late what was about to happen. The huge creature realized a few seconds later as the shelf gave way with a thunderous crash, and Eriz vanished under a drift of socks, plates, cardboard and a few hundred kilos of scaly meat.

"GOD DAMN IT!"

SpoilerShow

A picture of Eriz that I drew!

Originally posted on MSPA by Flummox.

---

“Well, well, well.”

Axys descended from his crate tower, slowly and step by step, posture infused with swagger. Felus hissed and coiled, ready to pounce. He knew that he could not abandon this conflict and leave Ironjaw or Axys to either of their deaths without breaking the geas and losing his powers. Yet he could hear mountains of crates toppling behind him, crashing into the floor and spreading mayhem, chain reactions somehow spreading from one warehouse to another. Surely Axys could hear it, surely he could see it from his high ground on his tower. What the hell was he thinking?

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw stood up and Axys jumped the distance of the last few crates.[/color]

“Where do you think you’re going?” said Axys.

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw was holding the plasma rifle at his shoulder. “Don’t move any closer.”[/color]

“I don’t have to,” said Axys.

“You’re crazy,” said Felus, looking over his shoulder. He couldn’t see any destruction, but he could hear it. “You’ll die too.”

[color=#P1914]“I could just kill you and walk on by,” said Ironjaw.[/color]

“Don’t!” said Felus, knowing the consequences if he stood by and watched a death.

[color=#P1914]“I could!”[/color]

“But you won’t,” said Axys, taking a step closer. “You won’t destroy the only person who’s experienced the same things you have, who feels the way you do. You’re lonely,” Axys’s face was directly in front of Ironjaw’s, “and you don’t have the guts.”

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw’s eye twitched. He snarled and long teeth snapped inches from Axys’s face, plucking a few whiskers. Axys flinched but stood firm. Ironjaw was shaking visibly and he tried to push Axys away, but it was a weak push and Axys just grinned.[/color]

“Do you,” Axys said as his tail hand crept up and positioned itself over Ironjaw’s heart, “do you remember the scientists? Do you remember the experiments? Bright lights, the smell of antiseptic?”

The tail hand began to beat in time with Ironjaw’s heart, extracting his emotions. Ironjaw shivered and stared blankly past Axys’s face.
“Do you remember watching your fellow inmates die? Do you remember wondering every day if you would come back tomorrow? Do you remember not caring if you didn’t? At least it would be over. The torment would be over, right?”

[color=#P1914]“I…” he whispered, “I remember.”[/color]

Axys grinned wider. This brought back unpleasant memories for him too, but hell, he was hungry. And it was worth it, to see Ironjaw like this, to know he’d probably cracked the hardest eggshell in this goddamn game.

“Do you remember the cold touch of chilled antiseptic? The sting of a syringe? Oh, but that wasn’t the bad part of an injection. Wasn’t that the good part?”

[color=#P1914]A tear slid down Ironjaw’s face. But Ironjaw never cried. Were sharks even capable of crying?[/color]

“Do you remember the cell? Was it damp and dark? Oh, but you’re a shark. You can see in the dark. Doesn’t everyone look so afraid when they can’t see?”

“Stop it!” Felus pounced, hitting Axys in the side of the head. Axys shouted and tried unsuccessfully to stab Felus with his arms. His tail whipped around his body, leaving Ironjaw to crumple to his knees. Felus felt a hand close around him, was lifted up, and found himself staring into Axys’s eyes.

<font color="#336600">“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” One sword arm rose to skewer Felus when a nearby crate slammed into the ground, sending a sheet of paper clips skidding over the floor. Axys dropped Felus and began to run, leaping onto stacks of crates even as they began to lean and fall. Felus spun around, looking for Ironjaw, and found him in the shadow of a dangerously leaning stack of crates.

He sighed. Heroes save, they do not kill. He was superman, he had super strength. He placed his front paws on Ironjaw’s side and heaved. Nothing happened.

The first crate fell and Felus had time to think, a small group of believers makes for a tenuous faith. </font>

Originally posted on MSPA by Hobbesy.

---

Resssserveeeee.

Edit: Nevermind, post below.

Originally posted on MSPA by Hobbesy.

---

Actually, if you have a post you may as well go before me. I've been locked down all week by speech and programming.

Originally posted on MSPA by ~ATH.

---

Warden's mind never idled while they searched through boxes, not even once. He was constantly analyzing and rechecking the other contestants. Ironjaw and Axys had to be stopped, as they would just get in the way. His primary target was the Arch-Sinner himself, but he also needed to make sure they were taken care of. Meanwhile, his attention shifted to two other contestants he had not seen before. The grotesque serpentine thing, named Guillemet, was definitely a sinner, as she has held a callous lack of respect for living things in her experiments, as well as looting and razing villages. She definitely had to be taken in as well. The cat, on the other hand, was different. His line was by far the longest and brightest out of all of them. Warden had mistakenly assumed that he was just an ordinary cat in the introductions. That mistake will not be again, he assured himself.

He rifled through boxes and boxes, caring very little about whatever was inside, except to make sure that it was thrown where he already searched. His mind held no concept of boredom, so he worked meticulously.

---

[color=#P1914]Ironjaw growled. It was a fierce, ragged growl, befitting of a monster like him. He turned tail and ran away. He never cried. Sharks do not cry. He slowed down to a walk, remembering his past. It came forth, no matter how much he tried to repress it. He wiped a tear away, pretending it didn't exist.

Then, he nearly ran into Warden. He backed out and huddled in a corner. Hm, he would very much prefer that demon to be on his side, but how to persuade him? Hmm. He repressed his memories, and took action. He peered around the corner. Warden seemed to be looking for something. How odd. He took note of his injured arm. Then, he remembered. Back then, he had knocked over a box containing gears. Maybe that's what he needed? He went back to get it, and approached Warden, as diplomatically as possible.

"Hey, clockhead. Looking for something?"

Okay, so he wasn't much of a diplomat.[/color]

Warden turned around at the sound of Ironjaw's voice, and it was indeed Ironjaw. Excellent. He would detain this sinner right away.... Then he saw what Ironjaw was holding. A box of gears. Exactly what he needed. Held by a sinner.

[color=#P1914]"Heheheh, if you want this box, you'll have to tell me how you plan on taking the Coach down. I want that bastard dead as much as you."[/color]

Warden weighed his options. And immediately came to a conclusion.

"Very well. I shall tell you. The walls between each storage are actually walls between dimensions. We have decided to blast down these walls and break out of this world."

[color=#P1914]"That's all? Haha, I can do that easy."[/color]

"Start with the ceilings."

[color=#P1914]"Gotcha. This could be fun..."[/color]

There was really no other way. This way, he'd kill two birds with one stone, and his body would be repaired. He made his way back to the engineers.

Ironjaw started blasting away at the ceiling's fragile windows. Multiversal glass rained down on the arena, tearing the boxes apart and prompting those inside the Coach's warehouse to relocate to the nearest warehouse, post haste. Some went to the Composer's, and some went to the mysterious gorey warehouse.

---

Elsewhere, Thize opened a door. He was promptly flabbergasted by what lay behind. A swimming pool. A swimming pool! He whooped gleefully and jumped in the pool, finally in his native element. He closed his eyes blissfully, failing to notice the ominous shadow rising up behind him.

---

Warden evacuated the Coach's warehouse, boxes still in tow. He had ended up in a most unusual arrangement of musical instruments. Hm. He wandered around for a bit, taking in the delightful music coming from the ethereal instruments, all somehow playing on their own. His ticking became rhythmatic, flowing. Tick, tickticktock, tick, ticktick- CRASH. Suddenly, one of his fists flew into a harpsichord. The music stopped. His ticking resumed normal second-by-second procedure. That was close. He'd nearly lost his place in the flow of time.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.

---

Eriz had considered the possibility that everything was just one fume-influenced trip of blurry-events ending with a shadow of a shelf-plus-dragon falling on her and the moment she woke up, she was back at her planet, back to her living quarters, back to normality. Doing normal Sauthai things like fretting over armor maintenance or holing up in the workshop. Or jogging even. Activities free of distractions such as warehouses, fleshy-faced children, and giant floating demonic clocks. However, the screwdriver in her visor was simply too distracting to pass off as just her imagination.

"My lady," Telt spoke. His tone was flat and free of emotion given his job but somehow in this situation, it made him sound halfway between resigned and incredibly annoyed. "There appears to be a creature attempting altercations on the Sauthorn."

Of course, Eriz already knew that. How could she ignore the fact that there was a murderously large what-the-shit-is-that looming over her, poking around in the most uncomfortable places possible. Granted, she wanted to leave but she was kind of in an inescapable situation. It was a situation akin to a large predatory animal like a shark or a bear sniffing at your face. You want to leave but the possibility to be finely shredded into meaty (and metal-y) bits was all too close.

"OH," spoke the face beaten with the wrong side of the ugly stick. The face was also wearing goggles for some reason. "I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD."

Guillemet was not a master of subtlety. She tried but it was kind of obvious she more meant <font color="#02ffff">"oh it's a shame you are still alive. That is pretty cool and all but not as cool as being dead because your armor is really class and I would love to get my hands on it. Wink. Wink. Hint. Nudge." Needless to say, it only served to dock a few more trustworthy points off of Guillemet in the eyes of the armorer-apparent - especially since the scaly murderbeast had a hankering for her magnus opus.</font>

"I MEAN IT WOULD BE A SHAME IF YOU DIED." Guillemet wagged the screwdriver around like a bored intern in some research facility. "I WOULD HAVE GO THROUGH THE ANNOYING PROCEDURE OF DOING AUTOPSY AND MAYBE PLASTINATION ON YOU."

Eriz had never heard of the word "plastination" and would rather not figure out what it meant.

"AND THEN DONATE YOUR BODY TO A MUSEUM."

Eriz said nothing. Telt would have asked if there was something wrong but his gut-algorithm told him otherwise.

"YOU KNOW, FOR SCIENCE! IN SPEAKING OF WHICH, SCIENCE IS PRETTY AWESOME DON'T YOU AGREE. I CAN TALK ALL DAY ABOUT IT..."

And so, Guillemet did. She began to ramble about statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, other sorts of mechanics and esoteric scientific principles that would be too verbose and scintillating for Col-Myel to care about if it were not for the fact that most of these topics specifically used her Sauthorn as an example and the creature was still, you know, on her. Apparently, the she-beast above really liked the sound of her own voice because she would Never. Stop. Talking. Ever.

But of course, this was a perfect opportunity for her grand escape.

"Telt," Eriz whispered urgently.

"Yes, my lady?" Her armor hummed to life behind the words of the artificial intelligence.

"Set to auxiliary."

Eriz shifted her position as a small laser was set on one of her spidery arms on her back. An ambient drone of wires and electronic melodies sang louder and louder charging electron to their excited states; finally erupting with a fzst and a yelp in conjunction. As Col-Myel excepted, it was soon followed by copious amounts of profuse swearing and exaggerated screaming.

"OH MY GOD, YOU DUMB BITCH." Guillemet screamed, punctuating each word with a noise that sounded something like an ornery cat in a blender. "HOW COULD YOU."

Being a Sauthai, Eriz was pretty knowledgeable in the arts of war and the execution of these said strategies. She had a good education after all. In this case, the armor-lady was pretty sure staying with this horrible creature beast was suicidal and she should make a tactical retreat. So with a kick of her limbs, she did.

Meanwhile, Guillemet realized that swearing and screaming over small problems did not endear her to strangers. It was such a small point of laser! She should not had made a big deal over that!

"WAIT." Guillemet went into air with the majesty of a plane-tank if the driver was incredibly inebriated. "WAIT UP."

---

Man. Being a fish mutant was great.

And Thize had to agree with himself. He's got the fins, the good looks, the awesome bubble powers (never ever ever forget the bubbles). Life was great. Being a fish mutant was great. He turned that mantra over and over in his mind with the predilection of a very smug dolphin and yes, dolphins can be smug. Of course, there was always a couple of these people who make fun of his condition but it was nothing that the friendly guys and gals (and of course, the sizable population of those camping outside the gender binary spectrum) could not fix over in his fan blog (semi-narcissistically started by yours truly).

"Man, being a fish mutant is great." Thize thought loudly to himself. By thought loudly, he meant he spoke loudly.

Thize paddled languidly in the pool regaling in how awesome life and his handsomeness was. The water felt so gooood rushing aganist the webbing between his periwinkle toes. So gooood. Gooooooood. Goooooooooooooooood. It was good enough to warrant a couple of aquatic gymnastics was vaguely reminiscent of the Woman Olympics Synchronized Swimming. Or again, dolphin comparisons - if the dolphin was on crack, of course.

"Oh man. Why is swimming so great," Thize declared to no one in particular. Probably because there was no one down here at all.

Just a giant dinosaur maquette casting an ominous shadow onto the pool.

"Oh man. I love dinosaurs!" Thize laughed as he backstroked a circle. "Hey man, I love you."

Being made of paper-mache and paint in addition of being completely non-sentient, the dinosaur did not spoke at all.

"I love you too," Thize smiled and decided to hug the dinosaur figure. Again, dolphin comparisons.

Of course, the dinosaur figure cracked. It was inevitable since the dinosaur was made of you know. Paper, glue, and possibly lead-based paint judging from the saturated colors. Thize was a bit of an aquatic health nut and believed in the concept of staying away from carcinogens as much as possible (you can find that in his blog). However, there was a problem larger than getting cancer from shitty sculptures.

"Oh. Huh."

Thize was not exactly the brightest bulb in the box - especially considering that his fish-mutant-schtick had the caveat of setting his intelligence to the average mental capacity of the ocean. Sure, the ocean had a lot of bright young minds, especially in the Cetacean department, but it was not exactly correlating to human-level intelligence. Again, dolphin comparisons.

However, he was bright enough to realized there was something inside the broken neck of this statue. It had runes, words, and other weird glowy occult crap that escaped Thize's mind. It was magical shit. The most magical shit. And the magical shit had said "SUMMON LEVEL 10: LAND SHARK MISSILE."

The faint sound of gnashing teeth and propulsion in the distance told Thize this was not a good idea at all.

---

Meanwhile, the lady-smith Eriz Col-Myel was passing along the jungle of shelves and various sorts of knick-knacks that seemed to plague the Storage Park. She was glad to have a bit of personal space to herself - a haven of quiet from the psychotic lunacy of things. Things like stupid amounts of cats, bloody-horrifying (and horrifyingly-bloody) rooms, and of course, other people.

"HEY."

Well, she would had been glad if someone learned to let go.

"HEY YOU."

Someone being the freaky monster-woman-whatever behind her.

"CHRIST, LADY. ARE YOU GOING DEAF OR JUST DUMB ON ME."

"What you want?" Col-Myel yelled. The stalking was making her a smidge paranoid maybe but incredibly annoyed.

The creature settled down on a shelf and swiftly folded her leathery wings in a strange triangular formation. She gripped firmly at the top, the slight crunching only further reminded Eriz of how potentially dangerous the thing-on-the-top was. Guillemet shifted and bowed her head down.

"WHAT YOU WANT?" The grotesque face on the cock of the neck seemed to parrot back.

"I want you to leave me alone for a time," Eriz snapped. "For a while. Maybe forever."

"OH COME ON WHERE IS THE FUN IN THAT?" Guillemet frowned, giving her forehead a scary amount of wrinkles.

"There is no fun," And then Eriz marched on. To be fair, she was not having a lot of that in this place.

"HOW ABOUT YOU AND I BECOME FRIENDS." The voice called from above.

Eriz froze in her tracks as if she heard a terrible truth or just a really bad joke. The feeling was unexplainable and indescribable because the last thing she wanted to hear was an alliance proposal from the creature that maybe-probably-definitely attempted to hork away her precious armor components. The creature was also the last thing she wanted to become allies with. She had standards to hold up to.

"ALLIES. COMPATRIOTS. HOMBRES. AMIGOS (WELL TECHNICALLY AMIGAS)." Guillemet stretched the entirely of her wingspan and brought them back to her sides again. "YOU KNOW, FRIENDS."

Eriz's answer was precisely how she felt. "No."

"WAIT. WAIT. WAIT." Guillemet replied in obvious disapproval. "WHY."

"First of all, you are not trustworthy plus you are a freakishly large predator. Second of all, you obviously want my armor, not my trust. Third of all, this is a battlefield. We are fighting for ourselves, not for each other. You and I are enemies. We cannot be allies." Eriz paused a bit to catch her breath. "At all."

Guillemet reacted as if Eriz had been speaking from the planet of Jupiter, not in a Storage Park like now.

"You got this. ALRIGHT?" Eriz screamed. "DID THAT GOT THROUGH YOUR HEAD OR WHAT."

"Hi, guys."

Both Eriz and Guillemet snapped back and saw to their surprise, a horned and finny fellow - Thize as we knew him by. He was dripping wet which made his clothes stick to his skin all so handsomely - if the viewers were hormonal teenager girls. However, Eriz was a armorer-smith with a strong war cultural background and Guillemet was, well, a scientist dragon. So they were merely repulsed by his appearance.

"WOAH, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU." Guillemet spoke as she thought.

Thize began to go on a rambling spree that rivalled Guillemet's post-graduate speech on Eriz's armor. Unlike Guillemet's speech, it was more nonsensical than abrasively encyclopedic - which was aggravated by the young man's short of breath. It was almost if he was running from something. From what the two could make out of it, it had the words, "black magic," "automated weaponery" and "goddamn sharks."

"What? Sharks?" Eriz could not compute Thize's speech. "I --"

There was this noise droning louder and louder. It sounded almost dangerous and strange. And oh my god sharks with rockets inhumanely attached to them sharks with their beady eyes and snapping jaws this is ridiculously dumb and stupid and oh so frightening oh why would some complete moron wanted to create such an unnatural abuse of nature on such a dear existence oh god whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

"WHAT THE BLOODY FUCKING FUCK. WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK," Guillemet screeched at an unnatural falsetto - which reached its breaking point as the rocket-propelled sharks broke the shelf, the walls behind the shelves, the shelves behind the walls behind the shelves, and you get the point. The point was the shark missiles destroyed an ungodly amount of things and it travelled far. It travelled pretty dang far.

Because what was left behind, was just the short walk to the Parking Lot.


---

"Bloody cosmic existentialist despair," a being grumbled in the parking lot. "Bloody stuff clogging up my cosmic existentialist despair."

The headless man in the suit grumbled as he got out of his VAN (Vehicle of Abyssal Nihilism), which oddly turned out to look pretty dang close to a conventional Prius. The man made more gurgling noises of discontent as he unloaded the storage in the back. Things. So many things. It was such an awesome idea back then, but it resulted in so many things. He knew he should had not done that. It resulted in a thousands of corpses. Space-filling, indisposable corpses.

The man only knew how high the rates of the Storage Park were.

Prices were not the only problem as he realized the Storage Park was partially collapsed and there is smoke everywhere, entropy billowing out and probably polluting nearby universes. And there were sharks on the ground, flopping uselessly as the rockets sputtered to nothing and their gills collapsed from the lack of water. Yeah, it was a mess. A mess that could only elicit one reaction.

"SWEET SPECTATOR TITTIES." The man attempted to grab and pull at his hair until he realized he did not had a hair on his head. Or a head at all.

Originally posted on MSPA by eberron.

---

[color=#P4914]BLAM

"How dare him?!?"

BLAM

"How DARE him?!?" Ironjaw shouted as he fired plasma blast after plasma blast. "AXYS, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU FOR THIS!" Ironjaw's mind raced as he countinued to blast apart the storage unit. "He has no idea what I went through in that lab. Watching people I cared for die, change, become.... become...." His thought trailed off as he stared at his hands and arms. There was hardly anything there that still looked human. Looking up, Ironjaw found himself in the middle of a snowstorm of dust, plaster, burning woodchips and broken junk from the various crates he destoryed in his rage. He shivered, losing himself to his thoughts again. "I'm not weak. I'll win this fight, I'll show them. I'll...." Leaving his musings and looking around again, Ironjaw sighed. "Shouldn't be standing for too much longer. Better go find Warden... not that I think he trusts me still." Hoisting his rifle, taking note that it had gone into cooling mode, he headed towards the breach between units. A sudden scream caught Ironjaw off guard. "What the?"[/color]

"heeeeelllLLLLPPPPP!" Franz suddenly came sprinting around a stack of crates and crashed into Ironjaw. "Ow ow ow. Whoever you are, I'm sorry for that but you better start running. Theres a swarm of sharks with rockets following..." Franz felt his words get caught in his throat as he glanced up and came face to face with a slightly confused and slightly more angry shark man. "GAAAH! Just what I need! More sharks!" Franz started to run when he felt a hand grab his arm.

[color=#P4914]Even though he was still angry, Ironjaw also felt confused at Franz's comment about rocket sharks and slight hope that maybe help Franz would gain him an ally for the time being. "This way! We need to get out of this building!" Turning and pulling Franz behind him, Ironjaw started running for the breach. Looking behind Franz quickly, he saw what had the human in a panic. Ten sharks, indeed with rockets on their backs, were closing in on them, fast. "You have to be FUCKING KIDDING ME!"[/color]

"I TOLD YOU!"

[color=#P4914]"HANG ON!" Slinging Franz over his shoulder, Ironjaw launched himself through the hole in the wall, realizing too late that he was barely going to make it. Barely landing on the edge, Ironjaw pivoted on his heels, heaved Franz off his back into the room and grabbed his rifle. "Only going to get one shot." Struggling to keep his balance, he could see the sharks flying towards him. "One... shot!"

BLAM

Ironjaw watched as the blast struck the lead shark's rocket. "Shit!" was all he could mutter as the rocket exploded, destroying the other sharks with resulting explosions. The sudden force of the blast caused Ironjaw's balance to give. "CRAP!" Pitching the rifle to the floor, Ironjaw could only yell as he fell towards the void between units. Grasping the air, he managed to cling to the edge of the hole. His relief was short lived as he felt his grip slowly start to give.[/color]

Originally posted on MSPA by Flummox.

---

Felus spit feathers out of his mouth and kicked the ruined, empty husk of a pillow out of his way. Stroke of pure luck. Goddamn useless powers. He pulled splinters out of his paws with his teeth. Where was that shark-faced bastard? Saved his pitiful life and he left him to die, left him to suffocate under a mountain of feathers. Yeah, and that ridiculous lion-maned sucker, what a sorry excuse for a homicidal maniac. Felus would find them and then he would have his little revenge. Let him break the geas, lose his powers! They were no good, so unreliable. He spat out wood. Bastard.

A dying shark flopped on the ground next to Felus, a missile strapped to its back. He laughed. Oh, the depravity of humanity knew no bounds. He sat down next to it and began to eat. Not as good as tuna, but fish was fish. Whether it was desecrated by the foul touch of science or not. Science! Humans think they are better than everything else. They think they can take things from where they belong and put them elsewhere. They think they understand how nature works. Felus felt his anger rising, rising to a peak. Images of Ironjaw flashed in his mind and he saw him in a new light, as a symbol of human defiance of the gods. A symbol of all that he is fighting against, all that is evil, he must be destroyed. Felus spit out shark-meat, no longer hungry.

He kicked the shark. The missile on its back detonated, sending chunks of meat and blood splattering into Felus’s fur. He grinned, imagined himself the very picture of a bloodstained destroyer on a quest of vengeance. This wasn’t about him anymore, it was more than that. It was about revenge on human atrocity.

It was time to begin the hunt. He tried to leap gloriously over the top of the box pyramid but slipped on a puddle of blood and fell on his face. Disgrace! He would have to do this cautiously, then, stalking his prey slowly. No, better, he would befriend the prey, wait for a moment of unsuspicion, when its back is turned, then he would stab it in the back. And in Ironjaw’s dying moments he would look into Felus’s eyes and see the hate that had been boiling for eons and then he would feel what it’s like to be betrayed. Emotional defeat, physical death. Felus threw his head back and laughed, surprisingly humanly.

He gracefully trotted around the pyramid of boxes, head held high, nose pointing to the ceiling as his divine heritage had required, ignoring that his dainty image might have been offset by the blood matting his fur and the piece of entrail dangling between his eyes.

A terrific banging sound echoed through the warehouse. The music stopped and Felus realized that there had been music playing. Such an out-of-tune cacophony would surely damage his ears. It had certainly interrupted his flow of thought and this would not do, not at all. He would find the perpetrator. Perhaps they could lead him to Ironjaw. The sound seemed to have come from a hole in the wall. Felus peered inside to find a room that seemed as though it sported organized rows of musical instruments. The floor was steeped like an orchestra pit and painted a shade of blue that he liked to think was rather close to his fur color. The room was dark, the house lights were off. Felus’s pupils widened into full circles and he peered around for a perpetrator.

Climbing onto a French horn, he spotted motion a few rows over and leapt onto a drumset. A massive collection of churning gears spun slowly below him. This must be the being responsible.

“Listen, jerkface,” he said. “I liked the music.” Maybe not the best opening line.

<font color="#100020">“It is frivolous,” said Warden. “Hedonist pleasures detract from piety.”

“Yeeah, is that the way it is? Who are you anyway, I’m not in a good mood.”

“I am the Warden of the Sixth Ring of Inferno.”

“Ha!” Felus put a paw over his mouth to stifle laughter. “Hell? Christian Hell? That’s ridiculous. Even Hominus acknowledges its nonexistence.”

“I have no quarrel with you, pure one.”

“Pure one! This is too rich!” He leapt onto Warden’s head, gleefully walking against the spinning so that he remained on top, tail pointing at the ceiling. “Listen, numbskull,” there was a soft click as Felus’s claws unsheathed and connected with Warden’s solid metal body, “you had better tell me who you really are, because I don’t really feel like fooling around.”

“Enough!” Warden tore Felus off his head and hurled him against a tuba. “You will not deny the truth! Sinner.” The row of tubas began to tip.

Felus scrabbled to his feet. “I’m not a sinner you hardhead! I am a god.”

“You shall see the truth soon enough.” Warden drew back a fist to crush Felus. “We will meet in Hell, once I have regained my rightful position.”

The row of tubas fell and the room was consumed by the sound of clanging metal. Felus bolted in the chaos, barely fitting in the gap between Warden’s bottom gear and the floor. Warden spun –

“You’ll not escape!”

– fist slamming into the ground, throwing sparks into the darkness and leaving a long furrow. Instruments clattered and a resonant clamor of notes rang through the room. He raised another hand but paused.

“Your entry in the catalogue!” he said. “Still white! Unblemished!”

“You’d better start making some sense, cause I’m about done with your bullshit.”

“Impossible. Who has pardoned you?” Did Warden’s face stop spinning for an instant?

“Alright. I’m done.” Felus walked back over to the hole. “Thanks for wasting my time.”

“Stop!” Warden shoved himself between the hole and Felus. “You’ll not go anywhere until I’ve found what to do with you.”

Felus sighed. “We’ll be here forever.”
</font>

Originally posted on MSPA by SeventeenthSquid.

---

“Oh no. Oh nooooo. Oh no oh no ohnononononononononoNONONONONONONONO!”

A spurt of blood shot up from the headless man's severed neck. It was an annoying, but unavoidable side effect of his curious condition that always showed up when he was stressed. He was very stressed right now. More than he had been in a very, very long time.

Overcoming his initial shock, he began to rush across the mess of multiversal trash and effluent energy, vaulting over flopping sharks and shards of concrete in a blind rush towards the ruins. Blind being the operative word, as he had no eyes. Not that that stopped him from picking his way over all the shit in his way. The Artiste wouldn't have left him with such a major handicap. Well, actually it probably would if he wasn't so useful to it. Of course, it didn't really matter if things were as bad as they looked; it would be coming for a lot more than just his head.

As he ran into the bulk of the storage park and towards his employer's storage unit, he noticed something very strange. Through the massive rents in the walls between units he could barely make out something red moving very rapidly up and down. Well, he didn't really know if it was red. Everything he saw was red. But whatever it was, it seemed pretty agitated about something. At least it didn't look like it was in the Artiste's unit. Thank MetaGod for small mercies. In fact, he couldn't see any rents in the walls looking through into the corpse-filled unit. It looked like it had been outside the path of the shark missiles, whatever the fuck those were.

He stopped his mad dash and plopped down onto a block of shattered concrete, sighing with intense relief and gushing a wave of blood down the front of his suit.

Damn it, he thought. Gonna have to get this dry-cleaned yet again. The shit I put up with in the service of art.

A dreadful sound slowly faded into the air. Its sound could most closely be compared to that of a hatchet hitting a ribcage over and over again, becoming louder with each repetition. A meaty, thunking noise with overtones of cracking and maybe a bit of sloshing here and there. It was a sound he had heard far too many times in his unfortunate life.

“What's so damn funny?” he said, seemingly to thin air.

The voice that responded was not even remotely human. It sounded like an assortment of meat and bone being shredded in a blender and pushed through a grinder in front of a crappy microphone and then remixed by a slightly tone-deaf disk jockey into something approximating Meta Standard English-Derived Pattern XVII Phonetic Language. The words oozed like coagulating blood from somewhere between the red-tinted world the headless man saw and somewhere else. It said only two words.

YOUR FEAR

The headless man just sighed again and cursed as blood flowed down his front. There was no further reply from the voice.

---

Eriz stood totally dumbfounded. She was so dumbfounded, in fact, that for a moment she forgot to be scared. When her brain did eventually overcome its confusion at the absolute absurdity of what had just happened, it was already over. An eerie silence hung over the wake of destruction left by the passage of the fish-missiles. The winged thing and the fish-man seemed just as stunned and silent as she was. The first to speak was, in fact, not a person at all.

It sounded to Eriz like someone being murdered with a blade. Not that she had ever actually heard what that sounded like, but she could make a pretty good guess. It seemed to come from nowhere, barely audible at first but growing louder with every second. She suddenly flew into motion, spinning on her heel to survey her surroundings. Nothing but shattered shelves, broken crates, chunks of building materials and two confused beings eying her with curiosity . Nothing else appeared on her motion sensors.

The noise kept getting louder. It seemed, she thought, that it must be building to some kind of crescendo. As it got louder and louder it seemed like any repetition must be the last, that surely this was the loudest it would get.

It was not.

It was so loud now that she could hear nothing else. The big blue thing lowered its head towards her face and mouthed something to her. She could not hear a word she said and, lacking any experience in lip reading, couldn't decipher her face either.

The sound kept building, so loud now that it hurt. She staggered a step backwards, still clinging to her hammer with both hands. It grew louder. She dropped the hammer and slammed both hands into her face-dome, trying to drown out the sound. She heard nothing. It grew louder.

She fell to her knees. Tears streamed down her face. If it gets any louder, she thought with increasing panic, I'll die. I can't take this.

It grew louder. Louder than her thoughts. She collapsed face-first on the ground.

Crimson fluid ran from the top of her face-dome. It pooled at the bottom of her helmet. There was nothing she could do to stop it, even if she was capable of trying. She could do nothing but hear. As the liquid level rose, she found first her nose, then her mouth submerged. She could not breath. She did not even feel the panic of drowning. She could only feel the sound.

It grew louder.

She quickly drowned in the pool of fluid.

---

Death, Eriz thought, was even worse than anything could have prepared her for. The Sauthai promised no afterlife, no great “Hefen” like the ancient myths from Old Earth spoke of. They were an atheistic lot, practical to a fault. To a Sauthai, death was merely the end of all things.

Things were most certainly not at an end.

She floated naked in a vast void, dimly lit by a blood-red glow that seemed to originate from the air itself. She felt more vulnerable than she thought she ever could. She tried to move her arms from her sides, maybe to retrieve some pathetic, meaningless scrap of modesty and cover her face, but they did not respond to her. She could not even move her eyes. She could not even blink. She could not breath, nor did she feel any need to.

I guess you can only suffocate once, she thought. At least the noise was gone. It was perfectly silent.

A voice split the silence with the neatness of a butcher's cleaver. It was a voice like knives, perfectly enunciated, totally barren of anything resembling human emotion. So flat that she felt it could cut right through her.

metal girl i have been watching you with the greatest interest

There was a noise like a whetstone being drawn across a huge blade, a mechanical snickering.

you saw my piece yes my newest piece it was to show how to put this meant to show a sort of life from death not so simple but close enough for your mind

The noise again. An image of the flesh-tree filled her mind, unbidden.

it was a truly flawed creation and i was to consign it to the grinder

In every pause in its strange flowing words, the sound rang out again, like the drawing of some kind of insane, impossible breath.

until you saw it

Eriz had no idea where the voice was coming from, but once the image of the tree forced itself into her mind she knew exactly who she was talking to. The thing with the warehouse of bodies. With a tree made of dead things.

yes on its own the piece was of little value a sad and misguided attempt to capture a fleeting thought

schiiing

but then you saw it metal girl and now it has so much new meaning and i will not consign it to the grinder oh no for i am excited like i have not been in so very long

schiiing

the thrill of creation is back in my being and i will begin a new piece

schiiing

metal girl you were born under a killer sun

schiiing

you hid from your sun for so long but

schiing

metal girl you have seen the sun

---

Eriz gasped and spluttered. Crimson fluid spattered on the inside of her face-dome. Immediately, tiny limbs folded out and wiped it clean. As it was cleared, she saw the blue thing's face looming in front of hers. She was laying on her back, facing the ceiling. Eriz was very bad at reading expressions but she could nonetheless identify a very startling emotion on her face: concern.

“DAMN IT, WAKE UP. WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FIGHTING TO THE DEATH, NOT JUST... DYING TO THE DEATH. DAMN IT. THAT SOUNDED BETTER IN MY HEAD.”

Eriz jolted to the side, registering a sharp impact just below the ribs on her left side. She groaned loudly and lifted her right arm to her face-dome, shooing off the winged thing's leering face.

“OH GOOD! I WAS PRETTY SURE YOU WERE DEAD. YOU JUST SORTA FELL OVER! HEART ATTACK MAYBE! OR A STROKE. HUMAN MEDICAL SCIENCE ISN'T REALLY MY SPECIALITY BUT IT IS OH SO VERY INTERESTING! I'VE GOT A GREAT BOOK ON IT RIGHT HERE!”

She sat back from Eriz's prone form and began to root through one of the many bags attached to her body. Eriz propped herself up into a sitting position, both gauntleted hands on the floor. She tried to talk but found her throat gummy and unresponsive, producing only a strangled croak. She coughed up a copious lungful of crimson muck and tried again as the little arms busied themselves cleaning up after her.

“I don't think that's necessary. I'm fine now,” she said with little sincerity. Her voice wavered uncontrollably, much to her shame. The creature turned its attention back to her, stopping its mad search through its bag.

“OH. WELL. YOU HUMANS SURE ARE WEIRD. IF I PASSED OUT AND NOBODY COULD WAKE ME FOR FIVE MINUTES I'D BE PRETTY CONCERNED!”

“Five minutes?” she replied, climbing to her feet. She was pretty surprised the thing hadn't tried to pry open her armor. A quickly whispered query to Telt confirmed that she had, in fact, tried and failed. She sighed again.

“Look...” she stopped, remembering she didn't know the thing's name. Eriz stopped for a moment, hoping that she would pick up on the cue and tell Eriz her name. She just cocked her head to one side and waited for Eriz to continue.

“By the Ship, you're frustrating.” She glanced around, noticing for the first time that the person they had run across was gone. “What happened to the other person who was here? And I meant to ask you for your name. I never caught it in all the confusion,” she said, indicating the ruinous state of the warehouse.

“OH, HIM. HE RAN OFF RIGHT AFTER YOU PASSED OUT. I THINK HE'S HEADING FOR THE PARKING LOT.” She paused and raised an eyebrow in query. “DON'T YOU ALREADY KNOW MY NAME? THEY TOLD US ALL EACH OTHER'S NAMES IN THE INTRODUCTIONS.”

“I don't really remember those. I think I was in shock.”

“AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE, A SOLDIER OR SOMETHING? DO YOU ALWAYS PASS OUT LIKE THIS?”

“Just tell me your fucking name!” Eriz shouted, suddenly losing her temper.

“IT'S GUILLEMET. JESUS CHRIST. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SO RUDE.”

“It's a fucking fight to the death,” Eriz replied caustically. “I can be as rude as I want. We're just going to have to kill each other anyways.”

Guillemet recoiled from her with a grimace before replying. “THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO BE SO RUDE.”She turned away from Eriz and harrumphed.“BESIDES,” she said, turning back to face Eriz,“I'M IN JUST AS MUCH SHIT AS YOU ARE AND YOU DON'T SEE ME BEING SO BELLICOSE.”

“You tried to take my armor. Twice.”

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! LOOK, I'LL APOLOGIZE. I'M SORRY. THERE. I APOLOGIZED. LET'S BE FRIENDS NOW!”

Eriz felt like she was running in circles. Or beating her head against a wall, sans helmet.

“Alright, fine. Let's be friends. By that I mean, I'll try to avoid killing you for now. I expect the same from you.”

She knew this was probably a terrible idea in the long run but getting Guillemet on her side was probably better than having to fight her. Maybe. She hoped.

A big toothy smile spread across Guillemet's disgustingly fleshy face.

“OH BOY! I KNEW YOU'D COME AROUND EVENTUALLY!” she said before proceeding to jump up and down in excitement, causing Eriz to immediately take a few steps back.

“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT DEATHTRAPS? I BET WE COULD RIG UP SOME REALLY GOOD ONES FOR THAT SHARK GUY. HE'S AN ASSHOLE, HE SHOT ME RIGHT IN THE BUTT! OOH, I'VE EVEN GOT SOME GOOD PLANS FOR A FEW ON ME!”

She began to dig through her pouches again while still jumping up and down, resulting in papers, boxes and devices of unknown purpose spilling all over the floor to a chorus of rapid curses. She immediately stopped jumping and started to shove everything back into her bags, swearing fluidly the entire time.

“SO WHAT WAS THAT WHOLE PASSING OUT THING ABOUT? I KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT HUMANS TO KNOW THEY DON'T JUST PASS OUT FOR NO REASON!”

Eriz still had no idea what the meaning of the thing's message had been, but she knew that whatever it was, it was watching her. Whether that was a good thing, she had no idea. If it could fill a warehouse with corpses, she reasoned, it might be a good thing to have on your side in a fight to the death.

That is, unless it had decided that she had the perfect skull for the top of its tree. In that case, well... in that case she would probably just die horribly. It had already shown her that it had no trouble at all with that part.

Though, she felt strangely alive for someone who had just died. Maybe it hadn't really happened at all? There was no trace of the crimson fluid in her helmet, just the small amount she had coughed up. But then where had that come from? Plus, if she had died, wouldn't that have been the end of the first round of the Coach's game?

“I said, it was nothing. I'm fine now,” she finally replied. Guillemet eyed her with obvious disbelief.

“IF YOU DON'T WANT TO TELL ME YOU DON'T REALLY HAVE TO. I GUESS. FOR NOW.”

Guillemet turned away from her and surveyed the wreckage. In the distance she could barely make out forms flitting between the ruined shelves and collapsed walls. The rest of the contestant were out there, she knew.

“WELL, ENOUGH LOLLYGAGGING. WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE FIGHTING TO DEATH, AREN'T WE? I BET WE COULD SCIENCE UP A FEW GOOD DEATHTRAPS. FOR THE DEATH PART, YOU KNOW.”

She began to dig through the morass of smashed boxes and crates that surrounded them, tossing aside countless shattered remnants of various objects in her search for something sufficiently deathly for her traps.

Eriz watched her with curious detachment for a moment. For the first time she really appreciated the movement of the muscles under Guillemet's blue scales. So strong, she thought. So lithe. So... beautiful.

If only I could see them without all that damn skin in the way.

With a start, she realized that she had attached a power-cutter to one of her aux limbs and had taken a step towards Guillemet, who was busy with her search and had not even bothered to look behind her. She quickly stowed the blade and joined Guillemet in her search, trying to un-think the thoughts she had been thinking moments earlier.

The blade-chopping-meat sound faded in from silence and back again, barely registering to her ears.

She realized with a start what it was.

It was something that had no idea how to laugh trying its hardest to laugh.

SpoilerShow

Sorry about how long this ended up, I started writing and couldn't stop!

Originally posted on MSPA by ~ATH.

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fine i guess ill reserve

Originally posted on MSPA by ~ATH.

---

(reserve is void)

Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.

---

Tick.

The noise was harsh - the type of melody to drive a lesser man insane, but Warden was used to it. It was an adjustment that he could to get used to when his superior brought the Industrial Revolution to Old Gehenna. Plus, Warden liked it. It helped him concentrate. It appealed to his sensibilities and better enough, it appealed to Lucifer's sensibilities. For the Warden of the 6th Ring, anything that pleased his master was sure to please him.

Tock.

Despite all the perks of being a quid pro quo transcendent (the Prince of Darkness was fond of finding synonyms to these clockwork afflictions), Warden could not find any information on the cat. A cat, for Lucifer's sake. Warden would had blamed this unfounded blip of a mistake on his arm, horribly fused and flopping like some piggish sinner in the 2nd Ring. But he had no reason to blame on his arm. He was not organic. He was perfect. Everything must follow logic but even logic cannot tell him what Felus was. He had only one word to say.

"Impossible."

"Hey, are you going to say something to me," the former Cat-God (God-Cat) started to lick his pawpads in a manner that would remind someone of a impatient businessman waiting for his coffee. Felus was obviously not pleased at the fact that his time was held up by someone, even if that someone turned out to be an unholy flurry of gears and clock parts. "I have a mass to attend to, you know."

"YOU'RE CLEAN!" Warden bellowed incredulously. It was like he honestly wanted to crucify Felus on a hunch he had absolute faith in, but could not because the God-Cat (Cat-God) had a slate cleaner than the favorite of Jacob. It was such a tantalizing decision, but he could not. So all he could do is point and scream accusingly. Like some antiquated organic. "YOU'RE CLEAN!"

"Physically? Oh no," Felus deftly jumped on a perfectly horizontal gear, perfectly ninety degrees to the dingy storehouse floor which seemed to be plagued with dust and long-gone rounds. "I was manhandled. By a dragon." Felus made a mock-sad look at the warden's skull. The skull was polished to ruthless perfection but Felus did not acknowledge that. "She had human hands. Those disgusting things."

"CLEAN." Warden was trying his best to prevent his remaining three good arms from going into a gesticulating tango. Unfortunately for the objects on the nearby shelves, he was fighting a losing battle. "This is preposterous. Illogical."

"You like logic?" Felus cocked his head. "I'll give you logic."

The God-Cat (Cat-God) crouched, then made a mighty leap, expertly wedging his paws between the teeth of a churning gear. He made quick work of those interlocking discs, dodging the crushing force with his delicate toes, and eventually comfortably settled on the slight precipice that was the dome of the Warden's skull. He lazily reached an elongated paw and playfully batted at cheekbone.

"Like I say, I'm god." Felus purred. "I get to be whatever I want."

"God..." Being the cosmic perpetual machine he was, Warden never truly stopped, perfectly suited for what Lucifer intended for the modernized period. His gears never stopped turning. His pneumatics never stopped pumping. He never stopped - stopping would only waste time, and time was what Warden needed. What Lucifer needed. As far as Warden remembered (well, as far as the timelines he lorded over can let him), Lucifer was always right and never wrong. But yet...

..there was something about God. Yahweh. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Of course, being a demon (or a clockwork-equivalent of a demon but let's not get too pedantic, shall we ), he did everything in his existence to pervert everything the Lord and Creator had ever bestowed upon the existence of the universe in which he originated from. But yet. Yet. There was something about God. It was hard to explain but, he's just his presence impossible. His power incomprehensible. His deeds indiscernible. He's...he's...

...yeah, there was something about the person who essentially tossed your boss down to the bowels of Earth.

"If you are going to gawk right there and not talk," Felus sniffed. "I'm going to leave."

Felus leapt off the skull-gear, contorting his impossibly long body in different directions until he touched the ground with ballerina-like grace. Like all cats, he looked back and gave a miao. It was a small meow but it made up with the amount of condescending in its tone.

"Adios." Felus did not look back as he started his way across the space between shelves.

"WAIT."

Felus looked back with a bored expression. His eyes piercing the gears that clanged like church bells, the cogs that sang like friars in cloister. It was a beautiful noise. It was a horrible noise, but Felus could not give two shits about it. "What is it you want."

"I need..." The teeth clicked, clicked, clicked in consistent time intervals. "...to know more about you."

Felus's moony eyes widened in surprise. "Really?"

The conglomerate of rotating gears and cogs did not reply. Only the hiss and spit of machinery could be heard, echoing between the remainder of shelves that stubbornly stood in the bowels of the Storage Park. It was an unsettling sort of quiet, if it could be called a sort of quiet.

"Well then," Felus arched an eyebrow. "I suppose you could follow me. You see, you and I could be a good team, considering we probably have the same goals, but of course, there is some people we need to meet beforehand..."

---

[color=#P4914]Ironjaw was honestly not quite sure what just happened.

For starters, he was completely naked. Shoe-less, clothing-less, equipment-less. Naked. As much as Ironjaw was proud of his unnatural physique, he was not the type of man (man-shark, shark-man, whatever) who wanted to go nude on the spot for various reasons. One was when you were a hybrid of what is essentially two genotypically different families on the Tree of Life, your gentalia tends to look pretty repulsive even in your eyes. Two, there was some emotion correlated with being au naturale. It took him a while, but he got it. He felt vulnerable.

So vulnerable.

It was a feeling he could not get used to. It reminded him of the time where he was just a lowly slave. Pathetic Homo sapiens slave, whimpering pleads and tears as he fruitlessly struggled on the surgery table that had seen better times. No, he remembered crying to the too-bright lights. Those surgery lights that reflected on the filthy walls, on the emotionless vials, on the insides of his many brethren.

He couldn't move then, like he couldn't move now.

Yes, the word those merciless scientist-surgeons said to themselves. Their visages were obscured by their masks, animalistic sadism as they forced cocktails upon cocktails upon cocktails of vile serum to the unlucky men, women, and the occasional child. Ironjaw remembered how their faces contorted into screams as they twisted into elephants, tigers, sharks, oh their fauna. How they chose their fauna.

He despised that feeling.[/color]

child

[color=#P4914]Ironjaw started to wonder what kind of blind idiot would call him a child considering he was not only a shark but also a grown man. He soon realized the voice was not referring to him but rather someone else nearby.[/color]

child you are ugly

Ironjaw looked to his left and saw a naked body of a boy barely a man. His figure was svelte to the point of androgynous beauty. His pale skin was flushed with the perfect shade of pink. He would be considered extremely attractive if it were not for the fact a good majority of insides are on the outside. The man-shark hybrid would had mistaken him for a complete stranger but he did recognize his horns.

child you are ugly and your fate is ugly

[color=#P4914]The surroundings started to...pulse for a lack of a better word, glowing a hideous red with each thump. Ironjaw could barely make out organs, veins, vitals, meat. Meat. Meat. Horrible meat. So much meat. A sea of meat and it was absolutely disgusting.[/color]

but i can make you beautiful

Thize gasped in fear. It was the type of fear that encouraged that vacant stare beyond the horizon. It was the type of fear that came with the realization that your fate is doomed. It was the most unpleasant type of fear and Thize realized that. And he can do nothing about that.

i am the Artiste

[color=#P4914]Inflections were common in the the realm of linguistics but not many can cause that unpleasant tinge of fear like the one in Artiste. The emphasis on that word was so significant that to appropriately symbolize it on paper, it had to italicized. Ironjaw did not know how he got that fact but he knew. He knew that fact was incredibly important.[/color]

i will make you beautiful

The Artiste reached an unseen hand and picked up a string of entrails, much to the agony of Thize. A couple of...eyes, for a lack of a better word, blinked into existence to examine the vitals dripping through its fingers. It seemed to be judging Thize like an artist does its paints. Or an scientist does its test subject.

Or a butcher does its cattle.

beautiful like a metal girl under a killer sun

And so, the Artiste kept up to its promise. It pulled apart his flesh only to rend them together. It shattered his bones only to form them into more novel shapes. The Artiste destroyed him as it created - each painful reincarnation changing the screaming Thize into something more. Something beautiful. It was so beautiful, it was absolutely repulsive.

so beautiful

[color=#P4914]Ironjaw had never seen a more atrocious act of artistic violence ever and to be honest, he never wanted to begin with. He was praying deeply to never see what the end result for the unfortunate man was and soon his pleads were answered with a merciful release back to mindless unconsciousness.[/color]

---

As Thize's girlish screams reverberated in the chambers of the Artiste and down the pseudo-notochord of Ironjaw's spine, much less violent things were happening in the more pleasant corners of the Storage Park, namely the start of a beautiful friendship, no wait - "friendship" (you see, the quotation marks are very, very important in the context) between a girl and a dragon a foot taller than her equipment. As they were both girls, they knew how to strengthen these fair bonds, how to enhance this camaraderie, how to bolster this wonderful "friendship"...

...with traps. Lots and lots of traps. Not just traps. Deathtraps. Because nothing says more about friendship ("friendship") than violent shenanigans and futuristic military-grade equipment. There were many traps. Bear traps, mine traps, traps are super-omnious and went beepbeepbeep when you went too close, a diverse rainforest of traps all hastily slapped on the floor, the shelves, the ceiling (can never be too careful) and lighting up this portion of the Storage Park like some sort of sadistic Christmas Tree of Messy and Painful Death.

Eriz Col-Myel was pretty sure she made like, a billion of those things. A jillion maybe. She lost count after Number Fifty. While she was not too fond of unnecessary violence, she was somewhat surprised at her productivity (especially considering explosions are not her forte) and as a result, felt slightly an odd sense of pride at this ridiculous achievement.

"My Lady," Telt's voice flickered within earshot. "There is too many explosives in this room."

"There is too many explosives in this room," Eriz simply said.

"I KNOW. ISN'T THAT AMAZING?"

Eriz had weighed the pros and cons of having a giant science dragon as an ally. After all, knowing your friend ("friend," remember the quotations) was just as important as knowing the enemy. On one hand, Guillemet was certainly handy with her hands. Though not to par with Eriz's tried-and-true Sauthorn (nothing could beat a Sauthorn, nothing), it was slightly disconcerting to see someone make an high-impact explosive from a cold pack, a handful of salt, and a bag of pulverized Jolly Ranchers while screaming <font color="#02ffff">"POTASSIUM NITRATE BIIIIIIIITCHES" to no one in particular. And she was fairly amicable - for a dragon, at least. On the other hand, Eriz did not quite trust Guillemet's...friendliness. </font>

"WE HAD MADE SO MANY BABIES, OUR BABIES!" Guillemet cackled maniacally as she went into what Eriz could constrain as a standing seizure. "YOUR BABIES. MINE BABIES" She laughed so hard at this joke that her compatriot wondered if she was choking to death. "ALL OF THEM."

See.

"I KNEW THEY WERE PERFECT THE MOMENT THEY WERE BORN. BUT ALAS, OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS AND OFFSPRING OUTSIDE THE CONVENTIONAL GENDER BINARY WOULD BE SENT OFF TO DIE BEHIND ENEMY'S LINES. ISN'T IT TRAGIC THAT THEY WILL GO THROUGH SUCH SHORT LIVES? TO BE SENT OFF TO THEIR MORTAL DEATHS? IT'S SO...IT'S JUST...I CAN'T." Guillemet held a hand to her forehead -a feat considering how ridiculously long her neck was. "HOLD ME. HOLD ME LIKE A LOVER."

So then, Guillemet attempted an unnecessarily dramatic swoon into Eriz' arms. Since Eriz would rather not be squashed by a giant pseudoreptilian beast (again) that probably weighed more than ten obese Iceworlders, the armorsmith surreptitiously took a step to the right and watched the massive beast stumble like an idiot after her legs realized there was no one to receive her like a Latino Lover.

"Guillemet."

"THESE...THESE ARE SOME OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DEATHTRAPS I EVER CREATED AND I HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE FACT THAT I MAY NEVER REPLICATE SUCH A MIRACULOUS SCIENTIFIC PROCEDURE IN MY LIFE." Guillemet's face scrunched up like a sponge of sadness - or a towel of sorrow. "WHAT TOOK ME YEARS IN THE PAST NOW JUST TAKES ME A FEW MINUTES IN THE PRESENT. IT JUST FELL TOGETHER. IT'S MAGNIFICENT. IT'S BEAUTIFUL...I...I THINK I AM GOING TO CRY."

And so she did. Guillemet buried her head into Eriz and started to bawl, rubbing snot and spittle all over her father's many, many achievements. The tears were genuine as they were embarrassing. You see, it was very, very, awkward.

"Can you let me go."

"I'M BUSY BEING SAD RIGHT NOW." And Guillemet continued her maudlin display of gross joy.

"Yeah, but you can be busy being sad somewhere else." And Eriz shoved an auxiliary arm into Guillemet's face.

"NUUUUUUUUUUH."

---

Approximately ten feet away from Guillemet and Eriz, the headless man was trying not to make himself obvious.

But for Yves Tanguy (his boss was fond of giving pretentiously meaningful titles for his underlings), it was so difficult. I mean, he has no head (since when is the last time you saw a fella without head). And he was shooting blood everywhere. Tanguy (the italics are very important, you see) was not a very strong man. He was weak in physique but even weaker in the head.

He was the type of person who loses his bowels over a deadline. He was the type of person who would wet his pants the minute he saw a person slightly taller than him. He was a frail fellow. A nervous fellow. The man without the head was nervous fellow even before he met the Artiste one fateful day on the street, but he is even more so now.

To be fair, his initiation into the Artiste's Community was not really in his own free will.

Tanguy never asked for that. He jealously clinged to that belief. He was just a desperate fellow on the streets until one day, some otherworldly semi-omnipotent force decided it needed an extra man...and the next thing he knew, his head was gone, his mind messily wiped, and now look at him, stuck with a stupid name and an even stupider job of lugging corpses to and forth.

He supposed he asked for it but sometimes life does not treat you right.

But right now, life was asking waaaaay much from him because he had a billion questions swimming in his long-gone head. What was that man in armor. What was that freakishly large monster. Who were these people. Were there more of them. Did they broke into his employer's storage unit. What kind of nutjob would break into his employer's storage unit. Why are there fucking bombs everywhere. Were they terrorists. Do Grandmasters even have terrorists.

He needed to let someone know. Tanguy grumbled a bit despite the clear lack of thorax as he took out his phone. It was a typical-looking smartphone, sleek and full of applications, some conventional, some a bit more exotic. What made the phone stood out from its peers was the fact its battery was perpetual running with some weird metaphysical energy - Tanguy could describe it as hellish. The Artiste had made it a practice to give employees who were more well-behaved and loyal a reward, but unfortunately, it usually came from a dead person.

The phone in his hands was no different. In fact, the Artiste was generous enough to give him a small history. It came from some lowly demon from the 2nd Circle of Hell. The Artiste also gave him the name of the previous owner, but Tanguy could honestly not remember it now. Not that he cared...

He shrugged and started to dial.

Originally posted on MSPA by SeventeenthSquid.

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SpoilerShow

Hello fellow 300KFATers! And also anyone else who reads this.

I figured you guys might want some facts about the Artiste because it is pretty strange and enigmatic and if you want to write about it you might want a bit of an outline on what the fuck is up with it. So here are some brief points that Pharmacy and I have hashed out on its eldritch and horrible nature!
-It is a semi-omnipotent otherworldly being that is very much not a person. It likes to kill people in various ways that it considers to be the highest form of performance art and then store their bodies for use in more pieces of art, like the big meat tree.
-Once the Artiste kills something, its body will never decay. The Artiste needs a place in space to store the bodies (the storage park) and someone to make runs to and from the unit for it (Yves). Yves can easily talk to humans/humanoids and act as a go-between for the Artiste, which rarely deals with people directly. So he does things like make payments on the storage facility and drop off and sort new bodies.
-The Artiste rarely says more than a few words to people because it exists in another "dimension" (plane, world, whatever) and has difficulty sending messages across, so its voice sounds extremely garbled and horrifying. This is signified by when its voice is in all caps. However, it can talk to dead people much more efficiently and so if it wants to have a long conversation it will kill you in some horrifically entertaining (to it) way and then tell you what it wants to tell you before reviving you.
-The Artiste has other minions besides Yves, pretty much a small cult-like following of people who serve as its agents in our world. Some were volunteers, especially those in the higher ranks, while others were shanghaied into its service. All have had pieces of their bodies removed as collateral on their pact with the Artiste.
-It is not really interested in playing a direct role in the battle. It mostly just finds the whole thing extremely entertaining and wants to gain an understanding of the psyche/background of each of the combatants to further appreciate the Coach's art, even if the Coach had never intended the battle to be art in the first place.

Hopefully this will help you out with your writing! Of course feel free to PM me with questions/comments/whatever your heart desires.