The Second Tournament of the Red Lions: Volume 1

[Scripture]

It was impossible to tell accurately when he came to stand dead-center in the middle of his particular pillar. He was suddenly there, having slipped in between the cracks of reality to stand in a world that might have been expanding evermore at the same rate as the universe, matter upon matter piling outwards, forever outwards.

But he was grounded, shirtless, in jeans whitened by travel. His forearms ended in pale armor, jagged in its embossed whiteness and smooth in the ebony layer-skin below. This same patterning crept about on his chest, irregular, for there was scar tissue marking the places where it had been blasted off, or worse, torn off in the act of an opiate but conscious surgery. Even more remarkable than his armor, trailing about like continents on his upper-body, were his cobalt blue eyes. They looked like polished gems, completely emotionless, dotted with a black ink-blot to serve as a cornea. His face rose above the marred flesh of his chest and back, making it look almost disembodied, though entirely pale, obscured only by the untamed locks of black thread spilling from his head.

His hands flexed like a gunslinger’s around his waist, hovering by two looping belts on which hung all sorts of technologically barbaric weapons – a scabbard which seemed to carry a sword too thick to be anything more than a bludgeon, nuzzled up against vials and spheres jittering, and a certain assortment of knives, some of which seemed simple and old, and some of which seemed something else entirely.

His name was Scrit.

[KirbyBoy2000]

OOC: Letios

A grey claw appears at the edge of the pillar, pulling a creature in a black cloak out of the mist. It takes out a flask and quickly drinks it, tossing the bottle off of the pillar. Letios swipes the liquid off of his mouth and then walks toward the center of the pillar, a chain dragging behind his tail as he does.

The serpent looks outward, his yellow eyes barely able to pierce through the mist. He spots a figure out in the mist, though he is unable to tell who or what it is. He reaches into his cloak, pulling out two daggers into his claws.

[UltimateGamer178]

Suddenly, a dark shadow appeared in the battlefield. The figure wore an orange robe and had purple eyes and pearly-white hair. Everyone who saw him at once knew who this warrior was. It was the legendary swordsman Raji!


Raji saw his opponent, Letios. He had heard about the serpent in legends, but he never thought he actually existed. Nevertheless, Raji was always prepared for battle. But this was no exhibition battle. This was a battle in a tournament. The young warrior glared at his opponent, drawing his sword and preparing for battle.

[Repster]

Leona did not move a muscle per say, as her extra appendages shifted and bore her up again. The tips dug deep into the stone and she seemed to drop half a foot. She rose three feet into the air shortly there after, the appendages simply stretching to fit her needs. It would seem once again she was fighting a man with no manners, a pity.

A fist of stone smashed into Fang's spine and he bent backwards over it. He quickly moved aside, knowing better then to stay in one spot. Luckily for him he did as six particularly thin spikes of stone shot straight up just where he had been standing. Where he chose to go was no better as one of the woman's tentacles came form the stone and impaled him. With that in his gut, he had little ability to react as another the other six wrapped around him. One for each wrist, one of reach ankle, one for the sword, one for his neck. another came positioning itself to strike at the heart.

Leona continued as she had been from the start. Arms crossed, legs dangling. Eight tentacle now buried in the stone beneath her, the six wrapped around her still where the belonged. She yanked, and Fang fought for his life as he had seven powerful extensions of Leona dragging him down. The eighth struck. It pulled back covered in blood and went to strike again. Fang's frantic writhing not allowing it to get a clear shot to a vital organ.

[Acradius]

"Where am I?" The voice said. It came from directly behind the armored figure. Nautly whirled, slicing his massive blade through thin air. "Where indeed?" Above this time, though wise from the first time, his opponent looked before wasting a swing. Just as last time, nothing was there. "Hush little baby, don't say a word, and never mind that noise you heard. It's just the beast under your bed. In your closet. In your head." The rather familiar lyrics seemed to come from everywhere at once.

On the other side of the pillar, Acradius Journeyman stepped out of a flash of white light. With his typically overconfident smile, he decided not to mince any more words. Reality blurred around him as he charged his opponent, who barely had half a second to even realize what was going on. The Quantum slid quickly and cleanly out of its sheath, and bit into Nautly's flesh at the wrists. The Time Boost ended with the legendary, shining blade skewering both hands and pinning them together. The massive sword of the Time Warrior's victim fell onto the ground, his tendons unable to hold it with the Quantum interposed in between them, and the thick red liquid of life pouring out in droves. But he wasn't done yet. With an expert kick to the back of the seven-foot man's knee, he brought the larger body to the ground, and slammed his other booted foot into his temple so hard it would have brained a lesser man on the spot.

As blood leaked out the ears and wrists, Acradius tore The Quantum free of its lodgings, and flung his opponent's blood onto the ground in a clean line. He then stood behind it, smiling like the cat that caught the canary, using the blood as a line in the sand, daring Nautly to cross it.

[SuperLuigi64]

Well.

This was new.

He looked around. Well…he peered in multiple directions. It was hard to look at anything, per se, with all this damnable mist. It was almost unnaturally thick, rolling around him and above him, obscuring everything. He didn’t even know how he’d gotten here. Crouching down, he felt the ground beneath him. It felt like smooth stone. He didn’t like it, though—something this smooth didn’t tend to occur on its own. What if he was on a platform of some kind?

He slowly reached down to his belt. His left hand pulled out a small painter’s brush, while his right hand produced a small yellow can of paint. He dipped his brush into the paint, closed his eyes, and began to draw on his face. Symbols, around and over his eyelids, running back to his ears. The whole process didn’t take long—he’d been doing this a long time, he’d gotten good at it. He closed his paint can, pulled out a vial that smelled foul, and dipped his brush in. when he pulled it out, no trace of paint remained on the brush.

Now he whispered something, and the symbols he had drawn all around his eyes began to shimmer. The paint lifted off his body, shining in midair for a moment, strands of material issuing forth from nothing. When the last of the paint had gone, in its place lay a pair of yellow-tinted shooting glasses, which couldn’t remove the fog entirely, but really helped with it. Now he started to look around, walking, careful to test each step before he put his faith in it.

“Who’s there?”

He froze. He didn’t quite know what to make of that. Why would anyone else be here? But then, as though the answer had always been there, he realized it was an opponent. He backtracked his steps silently, pulling out some dark green paint as he did, and quickly drew a symbol on the palm of his right hand. After cleaning and replacing all his stuff again, he mouthed his incantation, silently this time so he wouldn’t be heard. He hid his hand behind his back to hide the momentary shimmer of energy, then revealed it once again—but where there had been paint, now he was holding a grenade. He pulled the pin, pulled back, and hurled it, taking his best guess as to the location of the voice he’d heard a moment ago.

[deathscythe]

Stunned, Iring turned around a moment later. He panicked, and jumped a foot in the air, and his feet hit the ground, making a clapping noise. Something was out there on the stone platform that appeared to be. Who was out there he had not known. A second later he heard a loud explosion, making him jump once again. His feet hit the ground again, giving off another sound. He pulled his sword to his side, and prepared for a fight. He was scared. He did not want to speak, nor would he.

Another ball like thing hit the ground in front of him, he had no idea what it was. Iring could tell that this device had made the explosion. He lunged away, almost dieing by falling off the side, but the explosion missed him. He knew now not to give off a sound. Iring sat for a moment, as he knew something had been stirring in the mist. The sword at his side started to grow colder than usual. He stood up, making no sound. And took one step forward making a sound. Another device went at his head, flying past him, bouncing off the side, and down the large fall, the boom echoed from there.

This time Iring could tell who was up ahead. He took a lunge forward this time, and for the first time saw his opponent. He could not make out anything about him, but the arm that his blade scratched. A few drops of blood hit the solid, flat, concrete ground, and the wound froze, leaving the arm blue. The arm disappeared fast as the other fighter had moved away, to escape the blade.

Taking a few steps forward, Iring worried about the things that would be thrown at him next, so he hesitated, and sure not to make a sound. Only a few feet from the drops of blood. He took another step, than yet another. There he saw a spot of blood, and a small device, like he had been encountering. He lunged back, and nearly fell to his death again.

Iring worried about making a sound, so he did not yell, or move. Just waited, some where in the mist was some one trying to kill him with things that Iring had never seen before. He waited for a whole minute, but than he suddenly saw something, a face. Out of the mist he could see it. none of the details could be made out, but he could see metal frames around his face, he had not seen these before.

"Where Am I?" Iring wondered.

He lunged forward again, He could see the blue on his arm, but he missed. And the fighter, disappeared again.

"who are you?" he asked quietly, knowing that who ever it was, could here.

He stared patiently into the mist. The mist stirred, around, around, he still could not see a thing. Iring hated it, as he started to feel a little sick. This would not be a place where he would usually venture, so why the hell was he here. This was not something that could be answered by the other person in which he was fighting, and Iring slowly creeped away from the spot in which he sat. Both the fighters did not know where each other were. And both feared for there very life, which in any moment could literally go toppling down for miles and miles on end.

The warriors face, Iring turned stern suddenly. "I asked a question, who on gods Earth, are you!?" He said in a stern voice.

He hoped for an answer to come.

[Lycrios]

It came without warning, sometimes the feeling of falling, sometimes the sensation of being tugged away. This time it was more like a push in the back and he felt reality shift around him as if staring through a misty reflection of the world he left. For some reason the mist didn't seem to disperse; it actually thickened and enveloped the lush green forest he had been walking through. He had become accustomed to the constant change of scenery, although some unpleasant experiences had been lived.

He shivered at the thought of the cold mountain peek, but then realized that his feet were no longer on solid ground. His heart leaped in his throat as all he saw around him was the mist. His loose fitting T-shirt clung with sudden dampness as he fell. In his moment of panic, he hardly saw the ground rush to him. After only a few feet of falling, he wasn't ready for the impact. He landed with a thud, his sword clanging loudly on the ground. He bit back a groan as his senses sharpened, the mist somehow losing it's density in his heightened sense of being. It always happened this way, when combat was imminent. His senses caught every little detail; he could almost feel every droplet of the moisture in the air, every strand in the fabric of his clothing, every hair on his head.

He then caught a glimpse of an indistinct figure. Not one to let an opportunity for surprise slip away, hand on his sword hilt, ready to unsheathe when sound was no longer of importance, Thellis sped towards the shape. With luck, the figure, whatever it was, would not have as keen a hearing. With luck, he would not see him charging. With luck, he would not be armed. With luck, this would work. Gambling had always been a problem, and never more so than in combat.

With the momentum, he instinctively leaped feet first aimed, aiming right for the knee of the humanoid shape. In this same fluid motion, he unsheathed his sword while quickly glancing at the figure, which seemed clad in a strange armor, and felt a wave of relief flow through him. The man, or whatever it was, had no visible weapons ready, although he noted the sword at his waist. All this in a mere instant, yet, this would set the mood for the fierce battle he knew awaited. His last card was being dealt. He hoped to hear the satisfying pop of the man's knee as his feet inched closer and closer to their target.

[michaelmacinnis]

It's El Pardack you mofros. Change back my damn name.

There, amidst the fog, the macabre figure was highlighted time again by the columns of light that strobed through the cloud cover. Porcelain white, the ecclesiastical being lowered his self unto the slate grey surface of stone. The slow casting arc of its wings forced the air gently into a gently breeze, stirring the fog around them and evoking a sense of… unquestioned authority. It lifted his stair to his opponent’s, splitting the wall of fog and making his presence clear. The white of his garment, of his skin, of his eyes, so opaque and unearthly gave off such sorrow that the skies began to weep. Its majestic presence so immaculate and its face without expression, its motives and purpose remained unanswered through assumption, but left an awe and majesty as they did when they once heralded the apocalypse.

In the rain, so pure, the water which cascaded down the being’s face feel to ground cleansed. The angel outstretched his arm and beckoned the naked man to him. His lips seemingly sealed, then peeled open, and there was no sound. His voice too pure, too high for this world’s ears could do nothing but evoke within those around his the emotions with which were intent by the words unheard. His presence alone belittled those great, man or beast, but those words unheard made one’s soul curl as though everything emotion at once was jerked and shot outwards through one’s skin. The tears of the heavens lightly rippled the fog and the archangel began to step towards his opponent, his feet light as though merely brushing the ground, and his demeanor cold. His sword dragged into cloud, splitting it aside, and his stone like presence ever more foreboding the emptiness that would soon follow this encounter.

[Erdawn Il Deus]

”There is a parable,” Asp spoke, his head cocked absently to one side, eyes glittering, the sinews of his neck punctuating themselves through pallid flesh. ”Of a man in worship of the earth and a man in worship of the sky. The first man boasts to the second man that his god, the earth, is more powerful than the latter’s – for the sky is a thing ephemeral, fleeting, insubstantial, while the earth is a thing solid, powerful, real. The second man responds – ‘then why is it that my god is ever above yours?’.” The druid played his tongue across his lips, a thin and uncoiling thing sensuous and deadly in its movements.

His gaze fell to his adversary, and the membranous lids to his eyes flashed into being against his brightness.

”O prince,” he hissed, and his words tittered against that hiss. ”I am going to teach you today the emptiness of those words.” His final statement was thickened and muffled in his throat, which suddenly swelled up against his spinal corde and pushed out from his skin like a fat, writhing worm. Asp’s torso bent over his waist in a perfect crescent, and when he parted his lips his mouth opened wide – wider – until it had to have unhinged the jaw from the skull to of managed it, and then widening, so that the upper and lowers rows of teeth were angled at 180 degrees and blood trickled from tears at the corners of his lecherous grin and his gums were laid prostrate and stretched like veinous pink roadmaps to reveal a pair of retractable incisors.

He gagged, and something pushed itself from his mouth, some living vomitus, slick with his juices and uncoiling with alarming, serpentine velocity. It spilled out against the stone platform and rushed towards the archangel like a sinuous cable of red and orange and where it touched the stone its solidity softened until it ran like warm clay.

The archangel was doubled over at the waist as this thing – an enormous, foreign asp, the flesh and scales of it so ridden with rot and pestilence that it practically sloughed off its cradle of skeleton – punched into the whiteness of his stomach, spreading blood like fiery, golden ichor and an unhealthy bruise that tinted the seraphim’s aureate tincture with a tumourous shadow. Venom practically hissed from where the viper had sank its fangs with lightning quickness, dribbling to and spattering against the ground beneath.

As the serpent thrashed and writhed against his enemy, Asp androgynously lifted a slender, muscular hand, and dragged the remainder of his familiar’s bulk from his throat, spitting saliva into the air and letting his pet continue its poisonous assault. He chuckled, and the ground continued to softened, until the stone beneath the archangel’s immaculate soles lost its solidity and became like the rain which so sorrowfully dashed itself against its corporeality.

OoC: Awesome ****ing post btw.

[Scripture]

Scrit had a bead on Thellis from the moment he clacked to the ground.

Thellis careened toward Scrit’s leg with all the vigor of a runner going for home in the bottom of the ninth, with his daddy apt to pulverize him in the stands if he failed to score, etc. Scrit, however, spun on his heel at the last moment, swinging into a kick that met Thellis’s heel with a metallic foot and turned it aside, sending the sliding warrior’s balance into a mess of gyrating limbs that skidded a few yards past its intended target.

“That was brave,” said Scrit, his voice an odd mix of a sarcastic, human timbre and something mechanic. He kicked off into a sprint, the sound of his metallic feet clink-clacking off the rock floor the only sound in Thellis’s ears besides the sound of his breathing. Then, there was Scrit launching himself into the air to deliver a heel to Thellis’s cheek, turning blood vessels into bruises and teeth and bone into powder. Scrit hit the ground and stopped in a heartbeat, digging two divots in the ground, and caught the other side of Thellis’s face with his armored hand as he fell, squeezing it like a rotten apple, digging his thumb into his eye socket and trying to tear his skull from his head as his other fist came up and pounded Thellis’s nose into the back of his skull with the force of a hydraulic meat-mallet.

Scrit didn’t give him time to breathe, just grinned as the human features of Thellis’s countenance began to wash away under every ensuing punch, giving him a broken nose that would last a lifetime, swollen eyes – and one eye that might’ve already popped, something dripping down Thellis’s left cheek – jutting cheekbones and the imprint of two knuckles in his forehead. Scrit kept punching even as Thellis retaliated, blood dripping down his pale face.

[michaelmacinnis]

pst numbah #2

The angel’s wings quivered and feathers fell tragically onto the cold stone. His face bore a macabre lack of expression, and his judgment would befall the familiar for betraying the heavens will. His skin became smooth, and like stone. He grasped the beast and held it to the sky. It writhed, and coiled around his arms, attempting to wring the life from them but without avail. With grace and timeless elegance, the angel chillingly let allowed the being to die in its hands. The rain of the heavens cleansing it of rot and pus, the beast shook and thrashed, as if the rain burned and seared its flesh, and within moments, softly it fell limply in the angel’s arms and was calmly dropped with a sickening thud.

Affixed, the cold stare made its way once again to meet Asp’s eyes. The holy figure outstretched its majestic wings, blotting out the luminescent columns that poked their way through the cloud. With an indistinguishable expression, the angel, seemingly carved of white marble, made his way towards the druid like a statue alive. The awesome fury of his gaze revealed the presence of greater beings, and the level on which he existed was now much clearer. From his back, reaching into his own flesh, the angel pulled out large sword. Arcane markings and etching into the steel were cast aflame. The rain sizzled and hissed as it drizzled the flaming blade. It was the very same sword with which the creator struck down the leviathan in the massive battle which shook the oceans. The angel stormed into the druid, flinging his body like a rag doll across the stone surface, marching forward unto him, imposing his presence. He cocked his sword arm back and cast an arc of unholy proportions. The blade spit fire and screamed descending with utmost destructive intent.

[t3hDarkness]

Visibility was already poor above the wide pillar and during the past four incredibly dull hours of silent waiting, the density of the fog had increased to nearly zero.

The warrior in heard something feint near the edge. Relying on sight was useless in this fog, he would have to trust his hearing. Holding his Naginata low, he inched closer to the edge, carefully placing one wooden sandal in front of the other. The sounds increased in frequency.

*fwip*

*fwip*

*fwip*

The sounds took on an almost insect nature, much like a dragonfly cutting through the humid air, and then abruptly stopped.

The silence was deafening, the feeling of impending doom lent itself to the already thick air. Another hour passed without a single sound breaking the heavy atmosphere. Another slight sound interrupted, the fighter whirled around to face his expected foe only to be greeted by more haze. "Maybe I am was just being paranoid." The warrior thought, if my opponent has been this late, perhaps they will not show at all. All the reasoning did was make his stomach feel uneasy.

In split second, the entire scene changed. Something bit through his sandal into the arch of his foot. If he tried to scream, the sound was swiftly smothered by the fog. A fraction of a second later another bite pierced the flesh of his calf followed by twenty more stings passing through his feet and ankles. He felt as if he would fall, but something strange about the pain also held him aloft

The fog abruptly split as if instructed by some oppressive will. Binding the samurai's legs to the pillar was a tangle of bloody golden wires. Hovering between this pillar and the next was a genderless figure wearing a Brass mask marked with a double cross. The figure moved its arm and more of the fog pulled away to reveal how inaccurate 'hovering' was. In truth, seven of the pillars had been linked together in a massive web of glittering wire and the indistinct figure was perched directly in the center.

The person knelt down and touched a brass gauntlet to the web and suddenly all the threads attached to the samurai's limbs split flesh from bone and retreated back into its sleeve.

[Mushi]

The first wave had caught Alfred off-guard, but to try again with same tactic? This would cost her dearly. He swung the axe, completely cancelling out the swift blow that came hurtling towards him. This knocked the woman off balance for only a second, but a second was enough.

*WHAM* Alfred's fist met with her terrible face, causing a flow of red from what resembled a nose. He then attempted a second blow, but was blocked by her free hand. She flew into another fury, this time Alfred ducked down, the sword swinging directly over his head. He swung his pick, and struck the woman in her lower-calf muscel of her right leg. With her leg now impaled on his pick, the woman went into a rage that could only be rivalved by... well... I don't really know actually.

"AAAAARRRGGGHHH!!" The woman punched Alfred several times in the back of the head, persuading him to pull his pick out of her leg, letting the river of red flow from the gaping wound. He stood up, the back of his head throbbing, swollen, and even bleeding.

"Bitch! You're gonna die this day!" And with that, the battle continued.

[Asnabel]

The samurai grimaced momentarily at the tatters of his leg, and looked then to his opponent. The mists hung thick around the area they inhabited, but the inside was clear. Despite the fact that his opponent hung suspended before him like a great threatening spider, the samurai closed his eyes. Eyes shut, he drew inward, away from pain, away from everything. He embraced the mu, the nothingness. He was no longer he – he was nothingness. In this state, he stepped forward onto his ruined leg. He stood upon it strongly even as the blood poured onto he surrounding ground.

The samurai reached out from the mu, feeling the killing intent of his opponent. He responded with nothing, and felt the masked man’s furious killing intent echo into oblivion. He opened his eyes, and the masked man reeled back, feeling the emptiness of mu the lack of sakki, the lack of murderous intent. With a single deft movement of his arm, the samurai launched his naginata far across the chasm between the two warriors.

A storm of razor sharp wires snapped up to block its way, but it passed through these as easily as it did the air itself. Those that it cleaved lashed backward with released tension, turning on their master himself. The wires not anchored to his hands furiously assaulted his legs, leaving them much the same as his opponent’s wounded leg. The masked man raised his arm in a futile attempt to stop the oncoming spear, but it passed through without trouble, taking blood vessels, nerves, and splinters of bone with it. It then sailed into the masked man’s chest. It severed ribs, and passed cleanly through to the other side before finally coming to a rest. He choked, overwhelmed by the feeling of drowning as his lung filled with blood around the naginata’s haft.

He fell writhing upon his own loose wires, growing tangled within them. He was able to look up from his confusion, catching a glimpse of the samurai. Through all of the attack, the warrior had never lost the nothing of mu. Before him stood a man who had emerged into mu from the meifumado, the path of demons; the demons danced in his shadow, in the nothingness. The samurai stepped towards him, and stood, his scabbard tilted forward in preparation for drawing his sword.

[Erdawn Il Deus]

The empyrean incandescence of the cherubim's onslaught fell into the droplets of pure rain, and fell into a thousand more and turned the air to gold. Asp's tattooed flesh went through a number of stages in something like a second as that holy light hit it - scalded, it reddened, and bubbled from the muscle like a thing alive before briefly catching fire and actually vaporising into wisps of red gas. The druid's sinuous speed bore him from the blade itself but it's power left charred scarrings of smouldering black from his face and throat down to his navel. A pitched noise squeezed itself from his lungs to sizzle agonied from his lips, and as he recoiled, he cast his arms towards his adversary's immaculate sculpture of a face.

There was an enormous shifting of flesh this time - so pronounced it no longer became the stuff of hallucinogen but instead the brick lay of nightmares. The tattoos all moved at once and sloughed off his body to escape his palms, finger-tips, and the webbing between, essentially transforming the empty space between both beings to a roiling mass of corpse-snakes that surged upon the angel's pure flesh and rent it apart beneath fangs and scales and venom. A kind of grossly oversized rattlesnake slithered itself in loops around the angel's waist to sink its venoms into his navel and thighs, while a menacing, hooded cobra bit him beneath the jawline and above the jugular vein, attacking with everything from mamba to coral snake until they shackled his winged body like hadean chains.

The archangel staggered backwards - from the teeming mass of serpents the smell of death and rot, oversweet and rancid with pustulence, noisomely escaped in a nauseating cloud. The weakness of poison set about his body until he fell to one knee, his expression still beautifully intact despite his arduous torture. The rains actually slowed to a drizzle. Wracked in sacharrin anguish, he hefted a single arm upwards to the sky in a solitary movement of weighed slowness.

There was the high-pressure whistle-hiss of superheated air and in an instant Asp's brood were reduced to parts-vapour and the rest rent apart in an exothermic release of aural power. Their debris smoked red and hot across the rainy slate, steaming white against the rain. The feathery bulk of his immense wings blossomed outwards, white roses against the mist, not marred with even a speck of gore, but in that second he realized that the very nature of their battle had taken on a wholly different image.

His sandaled soles were actually slowly sinking into a swampy quagmire of mulch and sludge overgrowing with carpets of lichen and moss like multiplying skin blemishes. The fog thickened with condensation and mist and an oppressive, tropical heat sweated from this new earth's pores and lathered the archangel's body with his own waters.

"The power of earth is immortality," Asp cooed, and in the split-second his silhouette held his enemy's gaze there was a scalding truth revealed about his countenance - the removal of all masks and skins. where the snake tattoos had decorated his body there was only rot - flesh pallid and bleached with decay drained of life and life's colour, stripped to the bone and hung in tatters so ravaged as to reveal the cage of his ribs and the bones of his forearms. Where his grin had been full-lipped, playing about his face like a sensuous rapier, it was now the macabre, idiot produce of a death's-head - gums and broken teeth revealed through shredded curtains of cheek and jaw-flesh, his nose a crater sunken to his skull and opened like a cavernous maw to dark orifices. But worst perhaps of all was the lifeless madness that gleamed from his colourless, dead eyes, which from deep in their pits flickered with a light emanated from deeper recesses than those limits of the human anatomy. "Immortality as well as death itself. What dies returns to the cradle of the earth and is reproduced. The cycle is unbreakable. We are only immortal because we are truly dead." His broken, hideous jig-saw grin widened with the exact sensual lack of speed which made it even more disturbing.

There was another shift and a darkness smouldered across Asp's cadavrous body like the massing of distant thunderheads, and in a flash - giving his preceding aappearance the quality of all bad dreams - he was whole again in his revoltingly thin, overathletic nakedness, tattooed across most every square inch of skin surface but this time with a new effigy - or rather, series of effygies - that of the scavenger. Therein displayed was the testament to the jackal, the hyena and the wolf, the omnivorous, the vulture, the carrion-eaters of the dead.

"True death is the only true life." His body lurched forward fast enough and with enough unorthodoxy to impress the idea of stop-motion photography, as his arms plunged to the elbows in the decaying ground beneath him. He worked at something and the archangel surged forward. There were no words - for no earthly ear could bear witness to the voice of his plane - but words were needless. There was only the imprint of a single emotion, like a bloody thumbprint of the canvas of human awareness, one of deep-seeded and instinctual revulsion, so that the rain became dark sleet and flickered with the static phantoms of lightning behind him.

"And we faithful dead shall prey upon thy impudent living as is our prerogative." He tittered, and the chuckle was not without the leftover impression of the serpent hiss. His arms pulled upwards from the quagmire, and as they sucked free from its rotted depths there exhaled free storms of buzzing swarm, the collective massing of gnat and fly and locust and verminous insect unleashed into the air like dark smoke. The flooded the air until almost every cubic centimere was drowned in the body of their presence and still more came, warped and mutant, as if Asp had willingly bled wounds into the artery of a plutonian underworld. They filled the archangel's vision, penetrating the wounds opened into his body and clawing their way through every open orifice - ear, nose, peeling back the lids of his eyes to tunnel into the elycium of his grey matter.

In madness, the angel thrashed, until even the blaze of his presence was blotted out like a candle-wick behind black silk. And the while Asp chuckled, a prince of the faustean demonic, his tattoos teeming with restless, animated life.

[Lycrios]

NOT THE FACE!

"You arrogant fool," he thought to himself as he spun. Apparently luck was not with him now, and he knew he'd need every ounce of it. That kick hurt more than it should have, almost like the man's foot was made of metal. Then he heard the voice. No, not man, something else. Something shaped like a man. "Good," he grinned. He never liked killing another man. Then, a flash, or what felt like it. Everything seemed to happen at once and he then found himself in the tight grip of the thing. He fought to stay conscious as the pain made his vision blur. Or was it the pain? His vision seemed to waver as he felt pressure on his face. Flash. Spots danced in his tear filled vision. He felt his nose being shattered, his teeth now making some sort of pasty liquid in his mouth, or was it blood? Another wave of pain shot through his skull, almost being forced into itself. Something wet trickled down the side of his face, the pressure ever constant. He felt disoriented, and realized he was desperately trying to hide his face with his free arm. A move of desperation. He mentally scolded himself for losing such focus. He wouldn't last much longer if he didn't do something.

He regained enough composure to realize his position. So it was Scrit's hand holding onto his face. The thing had quite the firm grip. Thellis feared that if he managed to push him back that a piece of his skull would be ripped away in Scrit's hand. There was an easier way. He braced himself after the next punch and as Scrit's fist moved back from his face he acted. He gripped the hilt of his sword and let the blade sing through the air. There was much more resistance than Thellis expected, but the blade went through, flashing before his face, cutting cleanly through his opponent's wrist. Thellis stepped out of the oncoming fist's way and returned a fist of his own, his intricately worked bracer shinning slightly. He didn't wait to see if the thing would scream in pain, he hoped it felt every jolt of pain, for he looked forward to inflict much pain. A few inches before his fist would even make contact with Scrit, the impact hit as if Thellis' fist had been the size of a wrecking ball. Scrit stumbled back a few steps, room enough for Thellis' heels to crash into Scrit's throat with such force to lift the man off his feet. Somehow in mid-backflip, Thellis pushed against the air and propelled himself right for Scrit. The hilt of his sword stretched considerably, the blade of the sword taking on a diamond shape until the sword was sword no more but a well made spear.

Thellis snarled as he trusted the spear into Scrit where ribs should be, forcing him back to the ground. He didn't know if Scrit felt the change, but even if he did, he wouldn't have time to react to it. Thellis pulled and twisted with every ounce of strength he could muster. What came out, or more precisely ripped out, was not the clean diamond shape of the spear head, but what looked more like a grappling hook head attached where the spearhead should be. The gaping wound he left would have ripped out ribs, but he didn't take a chance to glance. He jumped back, his wavering vision still dancing with spots and his head pounding ten times worse than on the morning after Bay festival. Bending, as he called it, was not an easy task when done on something that didn't belong to him, but still, the hand still clinging to his face morphed and shifted and fell to the ground in a simple cube. He spat out some more blood and shifted his weapon to something similar to a bladed staff, still trying to shake his head clear.

((I wasn't sure if your character had more bloody and gory bits than mechanical and electronic goodies. I left that for you to clarify.))

EDIT: Edited the name. Sorry about that.

[Scripture]

Lycrios, to clear something up, did you take off Scrit's other hand with this sentence: "Bending, as he called it, was not an easy task when done on something that didn't belong to him, but still, the hand still clinging to his face morphed and shifted and fell to the ground in a simple cube"?

[Lycrios]

[QUOTE=Scripture]Lycrios, to clear something up, did you take off Scrit's other hand with this sentence: "Bending, as he called it, was not an easy task when done on something that didn't belong to him, but still, the hand still clinging to his face morphed and shifted and fell to the ground in a simple cube"?[/QUOTE]
Sorry, no, that's the same hand. Since it was cut off, I wasn't sure if was mostly mechanic or not, and if it would have just stopped working and just frozen in place. It's the same hand, just....you know, not attached to your arm. Sorry for the confusion.

[Scripture]

And in cube form, on the ground. I had thought you managed to slice them both off, but thanks for clearing it up. Post pending, it is/has been a hectic week.