The Second Tournament of the Red Lions: Volume 1

[Scripture]

OoC: I just saw 300. And am listening to Tool. It doesn’t get much better. /OoC

Scrit concentrated, pulled his mind away from the pain in his gored side and the numbness in his lost arm – he moved his mind, the machine part that still frothed on its fringes, to his discarded sword-bludgeon, feeling it grip in his mind as if in his hand. He flexed that feeling, that feeling in his mind, flexed it until the systems within the sword booted up and went running.

Defying gravity, the sword rose, floating parallel above the ground.

Scrit thought at it, and it turned towards Thellis, a glow coming over it, slowly thrumming into existence like the slow starting of an engine – and then it burst into the brightest light Thellis had ever seen, for he now looked upon the floating object with dawning horror, widening eyes as he stared down the curiosity. Warriors in their waning were always a bit pessimistic.

Scrit thought, and it was so easy because he didn’t have to lift a finger, only breathe as the sword went from floating to erasing the distance between it and Thellis in the blink of an eye. It buried itself in his abdomen, impaling him on its length with that glow still thrumming about it, making smoldering sounds like meat tossed into a campfire as it burned in a plasmatic fury his intestines and muscles and the blood from severed arteries, evaporating it into pigmented clouds that rose upward, into the mists of this sad place.

There, impaled on the foreign technology of some warrior from far-and-away, who had come to the odd pillar looking as if he had been through war himself, there Thellis hung, and there he flopped about, seeing as the sword never stopped, just kept going into the great beyond with Thellis in tow.

[Repster]

There was a small crack beneath Fang's feet. It went unnoticed in the raining hell storm, until one thin sharp shaft of stone burst upwards and skewered the Dragon Manipulator as the final ball of "hail" struck stone. Up it went entering the tail bone, the bone of who's owner stood straight and rigid from the sudden shock of pain. Bad idea as the needle thin rod of stone kept going up. Threw the spine and out the skull. Then it was joined by more, these spiraling up around the first, around the spine itself, every bit as agonizingly painful. So there he forcibly stood, paralyzed, with stone threw his brain and out of his skull and still able to feel every bit of pain. Then Leona walked to him, and she still smiled that ever so sweet and innocent smile.

Bits and pieces of the stone below cracked, crumbled, flaked, turned to dust then swirled around her. Everywhere it settled her wounds healed before Fang's eyes. Even her hair, now free of the rich red streaks, slowly regrew to cascade down her back and between the regrowing tentacles. She could do nothing for her clothing, yet she was bothered little by it being more torn then not.

She lifted Fang's arm and the stone tore threw it straight out. Then she lifted the second, and the stone thickened at the bas of the small pillar and became quite like a basin. Fang's palm spike extend and went downward, allowing his slowing dripping blood to follow that course. Then came the same process from all around, as he was slowly lifted into the air, letting his blood drip and drain into the basin. His legs soon joined in the "tree" he was now a rather gruesome part of.

Leona, now fully restored, laughed softly and held up a softly glowing sphere of energy. It was a simple thing to represent a part of Fang's soul, the very essence of his life.
"The Succubus's kiss can drain a man soul. Not quite true unless it is a particularly weak man, and we aren't so picky as to only prey on males. Yet, I have found it is rather simple keeping someone alive when you hold a part of they're soul, even one as minute as I have taken from you. Now then, I do believe I have milked you enough. As I have said before. Good day, and may your soul burn in hell."
Her fist closed and she crushed the sphere, Fang felt life finally slipping away. Then the "tree" exploded. Tearing him into thousand upon thousands of skewered fleshy pieces of debris and spreading them across the spire top.

The demon kneeled next to the small basin of Fang blood, and proceeded to streak her hair once again, all the while happily humming to herself in the rain of gore then never touched her, or her hair dye.

[Acradius]

((OOC: I spent like all week trying to come up with a really badass fatality. Got one figured out too. But then I realized: An opponent that doesn't fight just deserves to be humiliated. And I'm feeling ornery.))

Jim Bob ran a pretty clean operation until things got off the ground. He was a pilot, like any other. Perhaps a bit larger from lack of an active lifestyle and a fondness of the rich things in life. Perhaps a bit older... well there was no perhaps about that. Perhaps a bit... crazier. You see, Jim Bob Thornton was the only pilot around for miles, on the only island around for miles with an airport. His little amphibious airplane and he made quite the killing by preying on the unsuspecting pocketbooks of people who want 'an authentic vacation', or 'seclusion', or 'time away from it all'. What all those boiled down to for him was people wanted to visit his tiny, boring, out-of-the way island in the Caribbean and not be disturbed.

But sometimes, like this one in particular, he got some real nut-cases. Like this group of scientists. Wanted him to fly them out to a couple of weird coordinates so they could drop 'beacons' off into the air and see if they disappeared. Living this close to the Bermuda Triangle did ensure that he got his share of interesting people, if nothing else. Jim Bob was halfway through his second beer when it happened.

There was no warning. No equipment going haywire, no excited shouting from the nerds in the back. Just a brief flash of bright white light. Where they were, nobody knew. It was gray. Just gray. Then, a splash of red!

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR CLANKTHUPTHUPSPURTSLSH BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Another brief flash of light, and they were back at Jim Bob's house, wondering what the hell just happened.

Meanwhile, one certain Time Warrior lowered the psionic shield he had used to protect his armored form from the debris of another human being getting chopped into gibblets by a small plane's propeller.

[Bomby]

[QUOTE=Wyborn]Yo Bomby, I know you're there.[/QUOTE]
What do you think, I spend all my time online?

[Erdawn Il Deus]

OoC: Will post fatality either tonight or tommorrow when I get some sit time. You can post the next matchups and stuff while you're at it.

[Bomby]

I posted the second topic. Feel free to continue posting fatalities, for those of you who haven't done so already.

[Galefore]

Acradius's fatality = more badass than he could have made it otherwise.

[Wyborn]

OoC: Bomby: Some proximity of it yes.

To opponent, mine: Good fight. Good night[. -OoC

Bone crunched and flesh parted and blood sprayed as the pick slammed into the woman's face over and over and over, the sword's length simply not enough to get her inside the range of the dwarf-man's weapon. Her head snapped back with each blow, but her body danced around everything as best it could, trying to avoid it all - to no avail.

The sword lashed out as the axe struck again, the blade slaming into the handle with its flat and then running down the length of wood. Alfred had no time to react as the blade of the sword passed through his fingers as if they were not there - and then they were flying through the air, severed at the first joint, which his pickaxe dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Somewhere ten feet off, four of his fingers hit the ground with sounds so low that it might not have been a sound at all, but his bellow of rage would have drowned them out if they had struck the ground with the sound of bombs going off.

His ruined right hand collided with her face in a backhand that should have broken her neck, but when she hit the ground she was up again almost immediately, sword flashing and biting and tearing. His left hand screamed forward and wrapped around his neck, his remaining fingers like the roots o trees as they bit into her flesh, cutting off her air and the blood to her brain.

"I WILL CRUSH THE LIFE FROM YOU!" he screamed, and he meant to. Her free hand wrapped around his wrist and the sword bit into his arm, piercing it and emerging from the opposite side over and over and over until his forearm was a red mess of ruined meat and raining blood, but it was as if his hand was now operating on its own. The blood stopped flowwing from her face - he liked to think she was turning black.

Then the sword sank into his stomach, the tip of it scraping against his spine. He grunted as he felt the slow burn of his own stomach acids poisoning his organs - but made no sound as the sword tore itself free sideways, sending a rain of gore and blood and flecks of his liver onto the last of the unbroken stone. His grip tightened.

The sword sank in again as if he were a sheathe of fflesh, and then it was withdrawn and sank in again. And again. And again. And again. Each stab was in a different spot, each bite into a new organ, and then they started coming with the rapidity of a machine gun, his stomach an unrecognizable mass of red flesh that bore a greater resemblance to beaten hamburger than it did to the abdomen of stone that he had brought into the fight. And yet his grip did not weaken.

The sword punched through the armor over his heart, and that muscle found itself invaded by a sranger that pierced its center and twisted and clove it in half. Alfred's blood exploded from his mouth in a torrent as the twist tore his left lung, and he felt his heart stop. His grip did not weaken, and now the woman's face was black. he wouldk ill her. He would kill her. He was coming to his own end, he knew, the darkness was creeping in all around him...

But dwarves were not afraid of the dark.

Alfred fell, and the woman fell with him, the sword still biting and slashing as the two of them landed in a pool of the man's blood redder than the face of Hell and deep enough to lose a finger in. There was the sound of a man dying, and a woman's choked attempts to breathe, and the constant rising and falling of a sword trying to hack its owner free.

Then, there was silence.

And then?

The gentle sound of a tongue rising and falling, as if lapping up milk.

OoC: *bows* -OoC

[deathscythe]

why bartman, that was a random quote of me.

[Asnabel]

The masked man lied on top of the pillar from which he had directed his attack. He was drenched in sweat, and mentally exhausted. His illusion had been broken. His drugs would not have time to take effect. He could only look out through the mist, and try to sense the coming of his opponent. Without warning, either physical or mental, the samurai stepped through the mist.

The samurai approached the masked man, the cold emptiness of mu yet unbroken. He bowed solemnly to the illusionist, and reached into the folds of his kimono. From within, he retrieved a tanto, a short dagger, and placed it calmly in front of the man. The man in his mask looked up to the samurai, not understanding his meaning. The samurai, speaking for the first time in the conflict, said “The battle is over. Your illusions are broken, and you are defeated. You fought brilliantly, but I can only offer you this.” The samurai indicated the knife between them. “I give you the chance to take your own life, and die with all possible honor.”

He bowed low again, then turned into the mist, and walked out of sight unhindered by his injuries. The masked man was left to contemplate the blade before him.

[t3hDarkness]

Ooc: So I am supposed to do this myself then?

The warlock's mind ran with possibilities, to take his own life, to run away, to stab that samurai in the back, to summon a beast to aid revenge....

He stood up knife in one hand kerchief in the other, sponged the sweat from his neck and announced to the retreating figure, "You are a true and honorable warrior. I feel no regret for this moment."

He contemplated the tanto, and spoke once more, "I never wanted to leave a pathetic corpse behind." With that said, he plunged the dagger into his chest and shattered into millions of shards and plummeted through his wire web.

[Erdawn Il Deus]

There sound of Haedriel slumping forward was not, by any means, a loud one - but it was enormous. He was a tragedy of the physical scultpure - formerly caste of an immaculateness beyond the human spectrum of things, beyond the mortal, now so tainted by the corrosion of his ennemy and so vitally wounded upon his corporeal form he was unrecogniseable as an angel of the Lord. His face was stripped to the bone of its sacred flesh, and burrowed into the sinewy, shredded, bleeding meat about his head and neck twitched the dying figures of the beetles Asp had employed against him. Ligaments and nerve endings still buzzed from their invaded wombs of flesh, flecking blood from open vein. He could neither see, nor hear, nor speak. Soundless, incommunicable darkness was his world now - he now saw the abyss for what it truly was, and to him it was madness - it was, essentially, the closest physical incarnation of Hell an angel could experience - the complete absence of the presence of God.

His limbs slid strenghtlessly across the mud, which was now drowned in the seraphim's haloed blood, splashing in a futile, impotent resistance to his own destruction. A sort of final defiance. Bolbdly, what was left of a chin was turned upwards towards Asp and the heavy silence that fell between them was a thing pregnant with much.

"Ah, but oblivion you shall never accept into your heart as you so feebly cling to the love and passion of your Father," Asp hissed in that eery, reassuringly soothing tone of voice (not that he could even be heard). "But it matters not. Faith... I do not understand this thing over the harshness of reality. Yours I shall destroy. Acceptance is your perogative, of course." He paused for a long moment in contemplation, casting his haunting, thieved eyes downwards towards his amputated arm, which bulged and rotted and swarmed with a locusts of life and death and fungi and rot at speeds unearthly to the mortal eye. "In death, all things are conncted."

The arm flexed suddenly, a dissembodied thing in the earth, and its fingers moved to seek out the terrain around them with a frighteningly purposed speed. Finding purchase in the damp soil, the limb pulled, and it was suddenly apparent that there was more to it than its surface fraction had revealed.

"Our Father, who art in heaven,"

The arm was connected to a shoulder, and pushing up from the labyrinthal darkness of the earth rose the human form of a corpse.

"Hallowed be thy name;"

The ground was torn upwards in wet clumps, overturned like topsoil before a plow, as larger, coinciding forms rose alongside the corpse's undead body.

"Thy kingdom come;
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Asp's tone took on a more sermonizing pitch, deeper, aggressive in its solemn, reasonable cadence.

In another thrusting of movement, the figure had completely emmerged, soaked and dripping with mud and tar and earth, coated with freshly rotten grass and weeds, its body noisome with the release of gases and the aroma of decomposition. Perhaps once it might have been beautiful a thing, of an immaculate mold - perhaps the same as Haedriel himself. It was a dead, and fallen angel, and the whites of its eyes were black as pitch and empty with a lifeless void of feeling and purpose that somehow resonnated like a thing alive.

"Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us!"

More figures emmerged from the swamp around them, majestic wings torn and tattered to feathered bulk, as the first moved slowly and inexorably towards the fallen archangel, who seemed alienly alert to the presence of something foul... and terrifying. Another, a second, was already moving to his flank.

"Lead us not into temptation...
but deliver us from evil."

They descended upon him, his sensory deprivation offering him no chance to resist, only the promise of unrelenting faith in his God and Almighty Father as the second abomination gripped him by the back of his mangled skull, the first moving low to retrieve the cherubim's misplaced weapon. There was a pitched hissing as it eroded the flesh of its hands from its unclean bones, but still the monstrosity held fast. It flared like a diode, its sacred fire washing out across the swamp.

'For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours..."

The swooped in on him from all sides, horrifying and blasphemous descerations to the holy image of the angelic, the ressurcted corpses of the seraphim, lifeless dolls of rotted, wounded flesh and immortal, undead life. The implication swept over Haedriel and malgres his loss of a tongue, he screamed. The hands tightened.

"Now and for ever."

Haedriel was still screaming as the point of his own sword entered through the ravaged socket of his left eye and thrust downwards through the bottom of his jaw and through to his throat. His voice drowned. The fire of his blood erupted everywhere and his body jerked with spasmodic, instinctive muscular response to the voiceless agony of the flesh. More hands fell upon him, countless, the seething, writhin mass of unclean angels an assault upon the rational eye and an offense to the sensibilities of the devoted. Where there eyes should have been there was only blackness and the sense that something of vital importance was missing. They pulled and torn and the sounds... no more the vocal anguish of the dying but the dumb, idiot sounds of brutalised meat. The blade was twisted. There was the repeated splinterings and cracklings of bone and a persistent, wet ripping, and oh there was blood, blood in enormous quantities.

And they, painted with the golden blood of their brother, the serpahic brethren of the archangel kneeled in rows set about the adversary in the pattern of a star, and bowed until their foreheads kissed the dank earth, and until the dug their own faces into the mud and their bodies thrashed and writhed and wriggled about like the undulations of earthworms.

Asp held up high the upper-portion of what must have been a skull, and a smile slipped upon his face with poisonous ease.

"Amen... to that."