Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 4: Deathball Championship)
08-09-2012, 10:40 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.
Somewhere in the deep recess of her mind, Karen finally managed one cognitive thought, a realization so powerful that it tore past every magical induced limiter on her mind yet somehow keeping her primal survival urges in check.
Reudic
When the plant menaces voice thundered through the loudspeakers Karen's body froze. Memories of anguish, frailty and mind shattering pain resurfaced into her psyche. Her grip on her sword tightened so hard that she threatened to cut her palms open with her nail while her jaw clenched and gritted enough to chew through iron. She could imagine it floating above a control panel, one thorny vine suspending a microphone in front of whatever vile mess served for its mouth.
Just the mental image was enough for her breath to catch in her chest. She tried to release some of the pent up rage but there just seemed to be no end to it. Every pore on her body seemed to be ready to burst in anger. Many players had also frozen to the spot, staring up at the red wall that entrapped them inside the stadium. Freedom had never meant much to some, however, and murder was just another day to them. At least five people were cut or shot down in the brief lull after Reudic went quiet. When one struck a blow towards Karen's face, she drew her blade and cut through his weapon and arm. She did so without hesitation; this was no longer a waiting game. Reudic was inside the arena, overlooking her. Though she could not pinpoint its exact location, she was not going to get revenge fighting it out underneath the cage of burning light that contained her. She dashed past the wounded fighter, combing her swords together to form her monster slayer and using the thick blade to deflect a barrage of bullets while she quickly moved from cover to cover.
It seemed so long ago that she would have tried to team up with Marcus. She knew he was around, and while they were both competent enough to survive alone she knew that she would have felt safer having just one person watching her back, there to pick her up should she fall. But now she had only one intent and until Reudic had perished she would not waver. She just had to find a way through a deadly wall of lasers.
She vaguely recalled why she absolutely hated futuristic technology and sci-fi.
-
Deep within the bowls of the stadiums industrial underbelly (or so the nefarious agent would refer to it) prowled a man on a mission. While waiting for any kind of signal and unusual turn of events managed to push him further ahead in his plans. Reudic wasn't the only one unhappy with the way this game was running, but containing the contestants was an obvious ploy for a Darwinian cause. Which is why this particular agent was finding at this particular moment that they were feeling particularly forgetful, but after coming all this way with a package so potentially crisis inducing they were feeling rather parched, and left the miscellaneous machine and engines behind as they decided that, yes, it was worth the walk to go to that lovely little café that would normally be beyond walking distance, but they could use the exercise and the weather was rather radiant.
Oh and the fact he'd just planted an explosive device that would cause untold havoc and potential death should he loiter around the close vicinity.
-
Karen drove her sword through the ground, testing out her options of escape. The blade easily tore through the fake grass and dirt layer, however a far tougher material was underneath. The dirt was probably an easily replaced stadium ground, while underneath was some kind of plate. It meant she was unable to dig her way out and decreased her number of ideas. The lasers weren't something she was likely to test out, if her magic couldn't stop them then the attempt would be fatal. She peered over the hastily formed stone wall she had constructed from a subclass of her base witch class. The veterans were easy to spot. With the rules being abandoned they had quickly destroyed the opposition. The volunteer players were the most violent, yet they had the worst lot of all. They were individuals against not only the teams but each other. Karen wasn't surprised to see that some teams had managed to band together, but one had already succumb to paranoia and at least three members had killed each other.
The young gamer felt the explosion before she heard it. With her experience with exploding spacestations and crashing dimension travelling trains she had learned to be wary of any sign that the ground beneath her was about to explode, spin upside down or vanish completely. She quickly used her magic to rise several sections of earth into a haphazardly rough series of columns that she ascended with a quick flurry of leaps. When the vibrations escalated into what felt like a full earthquake and the resounding boom threatened to shatter the protective glass around the stadium Karen was already high enough to avoid any underground eruptions of flames or shrapnel. But the arena did not explode as she had expected, but while the security and management of the Deathball tourney had already been in disarray they seemed even more flustered. Soon after the lasers containing them inside the field gave up and died. With the red wall of beams gone Karen could once again see Reudic's lair, and the floating tangle of vines that had thought itself safe in the skybox. Her right leg began to twitch uncontrollably. She had to kill him, and overkill was looking like a likely style to use. She knelt, feeling the muscles in her legs tense over and over again, giving her the sensation that she was a spring coiled and ready to let loose. With that image in her mind the magic took over and she vaulted high into sky through the open roof of the stadium.
She spread her arms out, forcing the magic through her open palms and condensing the mixtures of spells into a dark mess. She didn't care if her limitless style of magic was unstable, without a base game or set of rules to follow her magic was only limited by her strength of will. She meant to perform the cliché, one rage induced blast that would reduce Reudic and the room it inhabited to ashes, if even those remained. Her mind raced as she urged the magic to collect faster, faster, faster.
The necessity to kill, no, destroy Reudic filled every possible thought she had. She didn't even realise that there was something else in her mind, something dark and alien, until it was far too late to stop it.
-
Finding a new host had been easier than the cloud could have ever anticipated.
The problem was timing. The mind was weakened, a self inflicted ailment meant to empower her body. The cloud recognised the body, it's almost inhumanly powerful muscles, the mind that could overwrite the laws of reality of both this world and the clouds own. The dark could feel her intention; her strive to kill it's last host. She was pained, when the young girl had perished this sword user had anguished and been broken. The dark would fix all this.
When the red wall vanished, and the girl leapt into the air the dark could barely count its own blessings. She was in reach. She was fragile.
She was almost willing to gain the power it promised without even recalling what it had previously caused. It promised strength, power, dominance. She wanted all of this. And it would give it to her.
And it would use them all to destroy the interlopers, to avenge its kin, and to return to its world.
-
You must destroy it, but you must let it know defeat.
Kill the followers. You know who they are. They are all that would look at you with fear.
For the innocent do not fear the hero.
The hero destroys the evil.
They are all evil.
They will die.
Karen did not question the truth in her mind. Reudic was a creature of manipulation, nothing was too underhanded or cruel for it to avoid. She tried to think of how she knew that it had managed to indoctrinate and enslave the populace but her train of thought just seemed to lead elsewhere. But she had to kill Reudic, that was all that was driving her anymore. Its followers were first. While her body slowly floated back down to the stadium grounds she felt the magic flowing even better than she had known possible. She was empowered, so much so that she felt that even The Monitor would fall before her when she challenged it. Karen could feel the stares people gave her, not able to pin the paranoia down she could only believe that there were monstrous elements in these seemingly innocent gazes.
The dark skinned giant that had held her interest once before was the first to approach her. His gaze was wavering whenever he tried to look in her eyes. Karen hesitated, a brief lull in her hatred as she tried to remember just what had intrigued her about this evil creature before, but it quickly passed. She raised one hand, overflowing with whatever dark magic she had felt necessary to destroy her foes, and just let the pent up energy go. It felt very satisfying to her, like a great weight had been lifted from her mind, and she quickly turned her head from the carnage her powers had caused. She was a hero, it was all for her cause. Maybe she'd even gain another level up from this. Yeah, kill the followers, then move on to the boss. It made complete sense. It was what she did countless times before.
-
Marcus's blood ran cold when the giant's headless corpse flopped to the ground. It wasn't just the guy's head that Karen had obliterated, a small crowd had gathered around the reigning favourite and half of them had just been mutilated in the blast. It was like something out of a sick comic, too much gore and magic and monsters and yet it was right in front of him. The blast had passed through six well armoured men before it hit the field boundaries, yet it had passed through that like his gun would have shot through paper. A large portion of the audience stands was no completely missing, a large hole showing the outside city minus chunks of office buildings showed through the dripping maw that Karen's magic had left.
She wasn't right. Karen had never been especially imposing before, stalwart had been the best she could ever pull off with her antisocial approach. But know just being near her brought a chill to his bones. Whatever had made Karen turn into a murderer, when the whole game Karen had taken a non-lethal approach to defeating her foes while Marcus gunned down any threat had also changed the girl into something inhuman. Her once red eyes seemed almost evil now, an insane grin was also plastered onto her face. Marcus didn't know what unsettled him more; the fact that Karen was now able to kill anyone or anything that stood in her way, or that he she looked like she had just enjoyed butchering a crowd of civilians. His grip on Retribution tightened as he side skirted to gain some distance between himself and the girl. He'd seen her magic before, giant fire monsters, some fireballs and the ability to heal her wounds had been an interesting repertoire at one time. But he had no intention of getting caught in front of her again if just raising her hand was enough to take out a tank. He had no great urge to kill Karen, she seemed just as poor a soul as Sarika at time. But he had come too far to die like an ant, and Karen had her limits. He just hoped that was still true, anyway.
Somewhere in the deep recess of her mind, Karen finally managed one cognitive thought, a realization so powerful that it tore past every magical induced limiter on her mind yet somehow keeping her primal survival urges in check.
Reudic
When the plant menaces voice thundered through the loudspeakers Karen's body froze. Memories of anguish, frailty and mind shattering pain resurfaced into her psyche. Her grip on her sword tightened so hard that she threatened to cut her palms open with her nail while her jaw clenched and gritted enough to chew through iron. She could imagine it floating above a control panel, one thorny vine suspending a microphone in front of whatever vile mess served for its mouth.
Just the mental image was enough for her breath to catch in her chest. She tried to release some of the pent up rage but there just seemed to be no end to it. Every pore on her body seemed to be ready to burst in anger. Many players had also frozen to the spot, staring up at the red wall that entrapped them inside the stadium. Freedom had never meant much to some, however, and murder was just another day to them. At least five people were cut or shot down in the brief lull after Reudic went quiet. When one struck a blow towards Karen's face, she drew her blade and cut through his weapon and arm. She did so without hesitation; this was no longer a waiting game. Reudic was inside the arena, overlooking her. Though she could not pinpoint its exact location, she was not going to get revenge fighting it out underneath the cage of burning light that contained her. She dashed past the wounded fighter, combing her swords together to form her monster slayer and using the thick blade to deflect a barrage of bullets while she quickly moved from cover to cover.
It seemed so long ago that she would have tried to team up with Marcus. She knew he was around, and while they were both competent enough to survive alone she knew that she would have felt safer having just one person watching her back, there to pick her up should she fall. But now she had only one intent and until Reudic had perished she would not waver. She just had to find a way through a deadly wall of lasers.
She vaguely recalled why she absolutely hated futuristic technology and sci-fi.
-
Deep within the bowls of the stadiums industrial underbelly (or so the nefarious agent would refer to it) prowled a man on a mission. While waiting for any kind of signal and unusual turn of events managed to push him further ahead in his plans. Reudic wasn't the only one unhappy with the way this game was running, but containing the contestants was an obvious ploy for a Darwinian cause. Which is why this particular agent was finding at this particular moment that they were feeling particularly forgetful, but after coming all this way with a package so potentially crisis inducing they were feeling rather parched, and left the miscellaneous machine and engines behind as they decided that, yes, it was worth the walk to go to that lovely little café that would normally be beyond walking distance, but they could use the exercise and the weather was rather radiant.
Oh and the fact he'd just planted an explosive device that would cause untold havoc and potential death should he loiter around the close vicinity.
-
Karen drove her sword through the ground, testing out her options of escape. The blade easily tore through the fake grass and dirt layer, however a far tougher material was underneath. The dirt was probably an easily replaced stadium ground, while underneath was some kind of plate. It meant she was unable to dig her way out and decreased her number of ideas. The lasers weren't something she was likely to test out, if her magic couldn't stop them then the attempt would be fatal. She peered over the hastily formed stone wall she had constructed from a subclass of her base witch class. The veterans were easy to spot. With the rules being abandoned they had quickly destroyed the opposition. The volunteer players were the most violent, yet they had the worst lot of all. They were individuals against not only the teams but each other. Karen wasn't surprised to see that some teams had managed to band together, but one had already succumb to paranoia and at least three members had killed each other.
The young gamer felt the explosion before she heard it. With her experience with exploding spacestations and crashing dimension travelling trains she had learned to be wary of any sign that the ground beneath her was about to explode, spin upside down or vanish completely. She quickly used her magic to rise several sections of earth into a haphazardly rough series of columns that she ascended with a quick flurry of leaps. When the vibrations escalated into what felt like a full earthquake and the resounding boom threatened to shatter the protective glass around the stadium Karen was already high enough to avoid any underground eruptions of flames or shrapnel. But the arena did not explode as she had expected, but while the security and management of the Deathball tourney had already been in disarray they seemed even more flustered. Soon after the lasers containing them inside the field gave up and died. With the red wall of beams gone Karen could once again see Reudic's lair, and the floating tangle of vines that had thought itself safe in the skybox. Her right leg began to twitch uncontrollably. She had to kill him, and overkill was looking like a likely style to use. She knelt, feeling the muscles in her legs tense over and over again, giving her the sensation that she was a spring coiled and ready to let loose. With that image in her mind the magic took over and she vaulted high into sky through the open roof of the stadium.
She spread her arms out, forcing the magic through her open palms and condensing the mixtures of spells into a dark mess. She didn't care if her limitless style of magic was unstable, without a base game or set of rules to follow her magic was only limited by her strength of will. She meant to perform the cliché, one rage induced blast that would reduce Reudic and the room it inhabited to ashes, if even those remained. Her mind raced as she urged the magic to collect faster, faster, faster.
The necessity to kill, no, destroy Reudic filled every possible thought she had. She didn't even realise that there was something else in her mind, something dark and alien, until it was far too late to stop it.
-
Finding a new host had been easier than the cloud could have ever anticipated.
The problem was timing. The mind was weakened, a self inflicted ailment meant to empower her body. The cloud recognised the body, it's almost inhumanly powerful muscles, the mind that could overwrite the laws of reality of both this world and the clouds own. The dark could feel her intention; her strive to kill it's last host. She was pained, when the young girl had perished this sword user had anguished and been broken. The dark would fix all this.
When the red wall vanished, and the girl leapt into the air the dark could barely count its own blessings. She was in reach. She was fragile.
She was almost willing to gain the power it promised without even recalling what it had previously caused. It promised strength, power, dominance. She wanted all of this. And it would give it to her.
And it would use them all to destroy the interlopers, to avenge its kin, and to return to its world.
-
You must destroy it, but you must let it know defeat.
Kill the followers. You know who they are. They are all that would look at you with fear.
For the innocent do not fear the hero.
The hero destroys the evil.
They are all evil.
They will die.
Karen did not question the truth in her mind. Reudic was a creature of manipulation, nothing was too underhanded or cruel for it to avoid. She tried to think of how she knew that it had managed to indoctrinate and enslave the populace but her train of thought just seemed to lead elsewhere. But she had to kill Reudic, that was all that was driving her anymore. Its followers were first. While her body slowly floated back down to the stadium grounds she felt the magic flowing even better than she had known possible. She was empowered, so much so that she felt that even The Monitor would fall before her when she challenged it. Karen could feel the stares people gave her, not able to pin the paranoia down she could only believe that there were monstrous elements in these seemingly innocent gazes.
The dark skinned giant that had held her interest once before was the first to approach her. His gaze was wavering whenever he tried to look in her eyes. Karen hesitated, a brief lull in her hatred as she tried to remember just what had intrigued her about this evil creature before, but it quickly passed. She raised one hand, overflowing with whatever dark magic she had felt necessary to destroy her foes, and just let the pent up energy go. It felt very satisfying to her, like a great weight had been lifted from her mind, and she quickly turned her head from the carnage her powers had caused. She was a hero, it was all for her cause. Maybe she'd even gain another level up from this. Yeah, kill the followers, then move on to the boss. It made complete sense. It was what she did countless times before.
-
Marcus's blood ran cold when the giant's headless corpse flopped to the ground. It wasn't just the guy's head that Karen had obliterated, a small crowd had gathered around the reigning favourite and half of them had just been mutilated in the blast. It was like something out of a sick comic, too much gore and magic and monsters and yet it was right in front of him. The blast had passed through six well armoured men before it hit the field boundaries, yet it had passed through that like his gun would have shot through paper. A large portion of the audience stands was no completely missing, a large hole showing the outside city minus chunks of office buildings showed through the dripping maw that Karen's magic had left.
She wasn't right. Karen had never been especially imposing before, stalwart had been the best she could ever pull off with her antisocial approach. But know just being near her brought a chill to his bones. Whatever had made Karen turn into a murderer, when the whole game Karen had taken a non-lethal approach to defeating her foes while Marcus gunned down any threat had also changed the girl into something inhuman. Her once red eyes seemed almost evil now, an insane grin was also plastered onto her face. Marcus didn't know what unsettled him more; the fact that Karen was now able to kill anyone or anything that stood in her way, or that he she looked like she had just enjoyed butchering a crowd of civilians. His grip on Retribution tightened as he side skirted to gain some distance between himself and the girl. He'd seen her magic before, giant fire monsters, some fireballs and the ability to heal her wounds had been an interesting repertoire at one time. But he had no intention of getting caught in front of her again if just raising her hand was enough to take out a tank. He had no great urge to kill Karen, she seemed just as poor a soul as Sarika at time. But he had come too far to die like an ant, and Karen had her limits. He just hoped that was still true, anyway.