The end.
Rules:
1. This will be judged by three people and have sixteen combatants. All round battles are in ONE TOPIC, such as “First Round” will be for the first set, and “Second Round” for the second, etc. This matches the most recent and also the most classic form for the NLBFT, as it was the first form used and also the most recent, as reinstated by SML.
2. This is for serious battlers only. I won’t restrict who joins and who doesn’t, but if you cannot write, do not join this very important event, for either judge or battler. By saying “Cannot Type”, I mean no spaces, punctuation, capitalization, etc. I would prefer that only seniors and vets join, but newbies of high skill level and regular members are just as welcome. It is a free forum, after all. Remember, this is a tournament of high pedigree, and you will likely be facing tough opponents, so do not expect to be baby treated. High quality posts will probably be a must from the judges, and you would do best to remember that. Judges must be older members with a healthy amount of experience and lack of bias. Please heavily consider the responsibilities, as any judge who does not post a judgment within a week of the round’s end (with only a few exceptions) will be replaced or confronted.
3. There is a strict time limit. I've reset this to 2 days before a full point is lost, and one more before you're up for either another deduction or possible elimination. I'll make exceptions where due, but we need to make this a little quicker than last time around. Remember this, as it is standard, and complaints will only be considered if not simply whining. Also, reasons to have been absent are to be discussed by the judges as acceptable or not. If your computer explodes and you had no access to another, fine, but if you simply were too bored to try, it is elimination. It sounds retarded, but it isn’t. Trust me.
4. The judges word is final. I want to see good sportsmanship from the loser, and likewise from winner. I will be honest and tell you that if I lose my battle, I will not complain. Simply put, it is un-sportsmanlike and very dishonorable.
5. The first to post has battlefield choice in their specific battle. Make it something past generic, and give it some specialty and pizzazz. Not to say having an interesting battlefield is a rule, it’s just kind of useful.
The Title Match:
Phenom vs. Selene
Judges:
Seat 1: Saria Dragon
Seat 2: Repster
Judge 3 will be decided upon with further deliberation from tournament host.
Let the final battle begin.
NLBFT 12: The Final Battle
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Galefore
- Member
- Posts: 9354
- Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:00 am
- Location: ur wildest dreems lol
-
The Willful Wanderer
- Member
- Posts: 2221
- Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:00 am
- Location: Aisle 12, between the kumquats and the radicchio.
Hmm?
((Oh, so this is finally up, is it? I was starting to think it might not happen.
Alrighty then, here we go....))
{Music: Mirumu, Grandia II-Music Page-}
((Sorry about that. That'll teach me to try and post while a: groggy, b:suffering from nephew aggro, and c:feeling like the entire world is slightly surreal.))
************
It had been a good season.
The tribe was prospering, following the bison on their eternal migration about the plains. They had, not long ago, crossed paths with another tribe, one of traders and woodcarvers. As such many of the hunters were toting around their new and finely-crafted bows with pride, others breaking in bowls, pestles, or pipes. The herd had been doing well under its new stewardship, and there were many fine hides still left over for trading or crafting into new tipi and blankets. The previous few nights had been taken up in celebration, drums rumbling as the tribe-members went through their dances of thanks, of praise to the animals and their spirits for supporting the tribe, and of courtship. They celebrated, even, in praise of their returned lost one- though she might well never participate.
************
Echoing the beat she had heard the night previous from the tribe's distant encampment, Fallen Star's moccasined feet beat down upon the rocky soil. Her motions could have been considered a mere dance, were it not for the sharp whipping of fingerless gloves and leggings through the air. Each twist, each turn, brought with it a deft circular motion of foot or hand, precision of motion bound to an emphatic momentum that would have allowed her to crush stone at the right angles and points.
The shell of indigo hair flew as the tribal woman danced, practicing what some would have considered a martial art, but to her was a way of life. It was this focus that she held which allowed her to stay with the herd, to protect and guide it on its constant travel through the plains of her homeland. For all that her whole self was taken up in this practice, her senses were wide open, reaching for anything out of place. Predators might come to fall upon the herd and rend it, or strangers to take unthinkingly and threaten its stability.
Not that such was too much of a worry for the short woman with the differently-colored eyes. All her experiences afar, her time thrown beyond the reach of what her world had been, had changed her. Had strengthened her and grown her inquisitive, imaginative nature into a form of ingenious cunning. With this, she had survived even such as the fight that had left one of her most frightening scars. The sharp-ended slash ran from above her left eyebrow, down across the semi-collapsed bridge of her nose to just below her right cheekbone. Even in such a condition, the woman in the leather cloak had fought on, pulling off maneuvers that would have been difficult even for such as the snake-people of the hot south.
Not that she was too terribly flexible, her stocky build lending itself better to strength and durability. It was her speed, suggested by the falcon-and-wind embroidery on the leggings that hung from her knees, that combined with her precision and inventiveness to make her so capable. Speed she needed, as a Herd-Runner, though not so much as she had at other times, during her travels. The scarred woman brought herself short partway through one maneuver, interrupting her practice and her train of thought to focus on something.
Wind swept past the slightly-curved eruption of rock she was perched atop of, stirring the tassels on the bands holding up her leggings as well as those on the end of the loop of cloth that hung from her odd chest-binding to be pinned behind the front of her many-pouched belt. Her head cocked to one side as she listened, bare fingers curling slightly as the still-young woman sought out what had jarred her senses.
One of Fallen Star's heels ground into the dirt as she spun, facing along the outer curve of the rock, which seemed shaped nearly like the fin of some great shark. What manner of shark could tunnel through dirt, few could have supposed, but the Herd-Runner knew better. She had seen just such before, amongst other wonders.
There was some sort of disturbance, she was sure of it. She crouched so that her loincloth brushed the barren scree topping her perching-place. Leant over like that, with her brown cloak and brown clothing- even the silken cloth of her chest-binding was a soft, earthy brown- she might well be taken for just a mottled patch of rock, were it not for her deep-indigo hair or the moonstone set in her steel-wire headband, which glistened faintly in the morning light.
The herd below stirred slowly, the huge wooly animals finally beginning their day as the sun finished cresting the low hills of the horizon. Some part of Fallen Star's consciousness joined them, the guardian watching over her wards for all that they seemed so much more powerful than her. Whatever this mystery- this threat- was, it was not heading for the herd. Yet.
Rising, Fallen star adjusted the brass-plated torc around her neck, allowing it to settle into the folds of the hood of her cloak and half-exposing the mark of the slash that had once opened her throat. Strength be lent her, she might need more than she had just within herself for whatever was coming. Her eyes, one a deep jade color and the other a pallid silver, narrowed as she leaned forwards over the edge of the rock.
Dropped off.
Her fingerless gloves did nothing to cushion the meeting of tribeswoman and ground, Fallen Star having to do that herself by curling into a roll, redirecting and bleeding off her momentum. One would be hard pressed to pin it down, but at some point she shifted from a haphazard tumble to a swift run, leant overforwards enough that she really ought to be falling. Only the steady drumming of her feet on the dirt kept her moving enough to avoid plowing into it face-first, her arms more or less trailing from her shoulders. The scar over her heart, a jagged and vaguely rounded mark of slightly paler skin, seemed to her to pulse gently, as it always did when she felt real danger nearing.
She frowned then, wrinkling the scar running across her left eye from above the eyebrow to the top of her cheekbone. Something like this- would it have come after the herd, was it something that it was fortunate she was here to fight against?
Or- had it come after her?
((Oh, so this is finally up, is it? I was starting to think it might not happen.
Alrighty then, here we go....))
{Music: Mirumu, Grandia II-Music Page-}
((Sorry about that. That'll teach me to try and post while a: groggy, b:suffering from nephew aggro, and c:feeling like the entire world is slightly surreal.))
************
It had been a good season.
The tribe was prospering, following the bison on their eternal migration about the plains. They had, not long ago, crossed paths with another tribe, one of traders and woodcarvers. As such many of the hunters were toting around their new and finely-crafted bows with pride, others breaking in bowls, pestles, or pipes. The herd had been doing well under its new stewardship, and there were many fine hides still left over for trading or crafting into new tipi and blankets. The previous few nights had been taken up in celebration, drums rumbling as the tribe-members went through their dances of thanks, of praise to the animals and their spirits for supporting the tribe, and of courtship. They celebrated, even, in praise of their returned lost one- though she might well never participate.
************
Echoing the beat she had heard the night previous from the tribe's distant encampment, Fallen Star's moccasined feet beat down upon the rocky soil. Her motions could have been considered a mere dance, were it not for the sharp whipping of fingerless gloves and leggings through the air. Each twist, each turn, brought with it a deft circular motion of foot or hand, precision of motion bound to an emphatic momentum that would have allowed her to crush stone at the right angles and points.
The shell of indigo hair flew as the tribal woman danced, practicing what some would have considered a martial art, but to her was a way of life. It was this focus that she held which allowed her to stay with the herd, to protect and guide it on its constant travel through the plains of her homeland. For all that her whole self was taken up in this practice, her senses were wide open, reaching for anything out of place. Predators might come to fall upon the herd and rend it, or strangers to take unthinkingly and threaten its stability.
Not that such was too much of a worry for the short woman with the differently-colored eyes. All her experiences afar, her time thrown beyond the reach of what her world had been, had changed her. Had strengthened her and grown her inquisitive, imaginative nature into a form of ingenious cunning. With this, she had survived even such as the fight that had left one of her most frightening scars. The sharp-ended slash ran from above her left eyebrow, down across the semi-collapsed bridge of her nose to just below her right cheekbone. Even in such a condition, the woman in the leather cloak had fought on, pulling off maneuvers that would have been difficult even for such as the snake-people of the hot south.
Not that she was too terribly flexible, her stocky build lending itself better to strength and durability. It was her speed, suggested by the falcon-and-wind embroidery on the leggings that hung from her knees, that combined with her precision and inventiveness to make her so capable. Speed she needed, as a Herd-Runner, though not so much as she had at other times, during her travels. The scarred woman brought herself short partway through one maneuver, interrupting her practice and her train of thought to focus on something.
Wind swept past the slightly-curved eruption of rock she was perched atop of, stirring the tassels on the bands holding up her leggings as well as those on the end of the loop of cloth that hung from her odd chest-binding to be pinned behind the front of her many-pouched belt. Her head cocked to one side as she listened, bare fingers curling slightly as the still-young woman sought out what had jarred her senses.
One of Fallen Star's heels ground into the dirt as she spun, facing along the outer curve of the rock, which seemed shaped nearly like the fin of some great shark. What manner of shark could tunnel through dirt, few could have supposed, but the Herd-Runner knew better. She had seen just such before, amongst other wonders.
There was some sort of disturbance, she was sure of it. She crouched so that her loincloth brushed the barren scree topping her perching-place. Leant over like that, with her brown cloak and brown clothing- even the silken cloth of her chest-binding was a soft, earthy brown- she might well be taken for just a mottled patch of rock, were it not for her deep-indigo hair or the moonstone set in her steel-wire headband, which glistened faintly in the morning light.
The herd below stirred slowly, the huge wooly animals finally beginning their day as the sun finished cresting the low hills of the horizon. Some part of Fallen Star's consciousness joined them, the guardian watching over her wards for all that they seemed so much more powerful than her. Whatever this mystery- this threat- was, it was not heading for the herd. Yet.
Rising, Fallen star adjusted the brass-plated torc around her neck, allowing it to settle into the folds of the hood of her cloak and half-exposing the mark of the slash that had once opened her throat. Strength be lent her, she might need more than she had just within herself for whatever was coming. Her eyes, one a deep jade color and the other a pallid silver, narrowed as she leaned forwards over the edge of the rock.
Dropped off.
Her fingerless gloves did nothing to cushion the meeting of tribeswoman and ground, Fallen Star having to do that herself by curling into a roll, redirecting and bleeding off her momentum. One would be hard pressed to pin it down, but at some point she shifted from a haphazard tumble to a swift run, leant overforwards enough that she really ought to be falling. Only the steady drumming of her feet on the dirt kept her moving enough to avoid plowing into it face-first, her arms more or less trailing from her shoulders. The scar over her heart, a jagged and vaguely rounded mark of slightly paler skin, seemed to her to pulse gently, as it always did when she felt real danger nearing.
She frowned then, wrinkling the scar running across her left eye from above the eyebrow to the top of her cheekbone. Something like this- would it have come after the herd, was it something that it was fortunate she was here to fight against?
Or- had it come after her?
\"What if nothing means anything? What if nothing really matters?.....
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
-
Galefore
- Member
- Posts: 9354
- Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:00 am
- Location: ur wildest dreems lol
Just so we're clear, I'm working on a reply; I aim to finish this round, even if it kills me. I'm way past time limit, but it sort of kills the point to call that rule in the one round where default can utterly wreck it.
My laziness is off-putting, I know; I will finish this, believe you me, so be ready.
My laziness is off-putting, I know; I will finish this, believe you me, so be ready.
-
Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds
- Administrator
- Posts: 34048
- Joined: Sat Jul 15, 2000 1:00 am
- Location: Forteresse de Valois
- Has thanked: 59 times
- Been thanked: 44 times
-
Repster
- Member
- Posts: 6130
- Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2000 1:00 am
- Location: J'tun ostie d'Acadien.
I can't actually recall a final round that actually ended. So really, it basically ends up as a regular fight with a fancy title.
What with time that should be called tommorowish, kinda clear winner tournament wise.
What with time that should be called tommorowish, kinda clear winner tournament wise.
When our world is burning.
When all run like the cowards they are.
I shall stand in the inferno, and fight until I am consumed
When all run like the cowards they are.
I shall stand in the inferno, and fight until I am consumed
-
Saria Dragon of the Rain Wilds
- Administrator
- Posts: 34048
- Joined: Sat Jul 15, 2000 1:00 am
- Location: Forteresse de Valois
- Has thanked: 59 times
- Been thanked: 44 times
Some of the earliest ones had a full battle, with a winner decided based on the fight. Phenom's first NLBFT victory was a hell of a final fight.
Somewhere, I have some of the old battles all printed out (the ones I judged). There are literally hundreds of pages of text.
Somewhere, I have some of the old battles all printed out (the ones I judged). There are literally hundreds of pages of text.
Nonsense, I have not yet begun to defile myself.
-
Galefore
- Member
- Posts: 9354
- Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:00 am
- Location: ur wildest dreems lol
Haha, well, see, as I told Selene yesterday, I had begun writing a post, was about one and a half pages in, and the power went out. I should have saved regularly, but it was ****ing sunny. So in the end, as hard as I tried, this match seems like it won't happen. I may still try to squeeze a post out, or someone who will commit to this can take my place as not to give Selene an auto-win, but don't count me out yet. I really want to finish this.
And btw, the 10th NLBFT championship finished. It was between me and Bomby, was a pretty good match, and if you ask me, at a pretty good pace.
And btw, the 10th NLBFT championship finished. It was between me and Bomby, was a pretty good match, and if you ask me, at a pretty good pace.
-
Phenom
- Member
- Posts: 7914
- Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2001 1:00 am
- Location: Canada
-
The Willful Wanderer
- Member
- Posts: 2221
- Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:00 am
- Location: Aisle 12, between the kumquats and the radicchio.
Grr.
((Fine by me. I hate winning by default- because that's not, to me, a win. Or even a match. Last tourney, I won at least half of it by default. I don't like that. It means that passing to the next round has nothing to do with one's writing skill or imagination.
As one Goto Onishi said: Bring it, the hell, on.))
((Fine by me. I hate winning by default- because that's not, to me, a win. Or even a match. Last tourney, I won at least half of it by default. I don't like that. It means that passing to the next round has nothing to do with one's writing skill or imagination.
As one Goto Onishi said: Bring it, the hell, on.))
\"What if nothing means anything? What if nothing really matters?.....
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
-
Galefore
- Member
- Posts: 9354
- Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:00 am
- Location: ur wildest dreems lol
-
Phenom
- Member
- Posts: 7914
- Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2001 1:00 am
- Location: Canada
I promise I'll make this a final worth waiting for. No ****ing around this time, the Deadman's coming out of retirement. Selene, expect some action in the next few hours.
EDIT: Make that tomorrow. Work is bearing down on me tonight but rest assured it'll be worth the wait. Sorry, I will give you a match you deserve.
EDIT: Make that tomorrow. Work is bearing down on me tonight but rest assured it'll be worth the wait. Sorry, I will give you a match you deserve.
-
Phenom
- Member
- Posts: 7914
- Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2001 1:00 am
- Location: Canada
She's long, but she needs back story
Redemption is a particularly fickle concept. While the beaten, humiliated and the damned all seek this elusive state of reverence, it is a status impossible to achieve until one is able to forgive and vindicate oneself. Redemption is not merely attained by the last swing of the blade that claims revenge over a longtime foe or on bended knee begging for forgiveness to a loved one wronged. It is the ability to look within and purge personal the personal demons from the soul before the final rites can be performed. For this reason it is not a seldom sight to see once proud and heroic individuals crippled in their attempts to become whole again in the eyes of their peers. Try as they might, they will never achieve the redemption they seek until it is in their own eyes that they become whole again first. Pride and stubbornness can asphyxiate even the most valiant attempt at a moral comeback. If ever there was a case study of such an individual, a man of constant sorrow, it was the Deadman.
Tucked away in the windswept plains of a forgotten continent Phenom Vendetta had long taken refuge from the only life he knew. An agent of chaos to be sure, the man clad in black from head to toe was once a noted harbinger of mortality to those who crossed him. The patriarch of the infamous Vendetta clan, the man many came to know as the Deadman had crossed blades with every contemptible creature fate tossed in his path. From the daunting behemoths to the truly bizarre sociopaths, Phenom had brought everything from hulking Grendels to the God of Death himself to humility in his time. All that ceased over three years prior, when Phenom turned his back on those close to him in times of trouble. Incensed with rage at the time with his allies, it was not long before those fires died down and turned to shame. By that time it was too late to truly reconcile, and with a heavy heart and mind the Deadman laid his down his blade and faded into oblivion. In a physical and mental state of exile from his only passion in life, Phenom took to a life of solidarity in the forgotten plains, waiting for the day where one would coax him to return.
For over one thousands days and nights he assumed a dormant state of dreamless slumber under the endless blanket of prairie sky, clothed in nothing but a pair of cotton pants riddled with frays and tears indicative of countless battles. Months and years passed the warrior by, undisturbed by visions or premonitions or the harsh elements around him. The unforgiving summer sun pounded down upon his motionless anatomy in the short summers, and the harsh winters that spanned for months on end buried the Deadman in snow. Only the unmistakable aura of power that seemed to emit from within him kept predators from tearing him apart or the elements from reducing him from nothingness It would seem that he was merely waiting for his tormented soul to become bored with its inactive vessel and leave him to eternal rest. Then the dreams resumed abruptly and with a vividness Phenom had not experienced in his life. They were fighting again. The warriors. His brethren. In truth, he did not recognize many of the combatants that waged wore inside his mind, save for a flamboyant vampire and a time traveler he thought he had met a time or two long ago, but he knew that these men and women were cut from his same rugged cloth. Once the visions began they did not cease for months. He saw a thief and a behemoth meet their demise over the ownership of a sparkling emerald, and an octogenarian servant use his last gasps to strangle a young mercenary to within the inch of his life. He saw a bizarre cone-shaped creature from another world and the Spirit of Las Vegas himself. All fought, all fell in a blaze of glory.
Save for one.
She had conquered all challengers with an air of nonchalance and indescribable agility. She had laid waste to first a sadistic northern barbarian, and then to a creature from another world altogether. Most impressive of all, she managed to bury an entire tribe of sadistic pagan warriors and their bullheaded leader without so much as enduring a scratch to a battle-worn face that certainly did not need to endure another blemish if at all possible. Her hair was a brilliant violet and she dressed in an understated tribal garb. And now Phenom saw her dancing vision in his mind’s eye. Phenom knew her name as if it was told to him ages ago in a folk tale. It was Fallen Star, twirling with the elegance of an age-old spirit atop a fin-shaped rock overlooking plains that seemed to resemble those where he now slumbered. Then suddenly she stopped her dance, and her face marred with a long and deep scar scrunched into an expression of suspicion, her different coloured eyes turning into inquisitive slits. She leaned gradually to the edge of her rock perch and
Dropped off.
Phenom was awake in a cold sweat of anticipation. After years of uncertainty, it was now his time to return. This Fallen Star was a champion without a challenger; a pure force without a tainted entity to oppose her.
A thousand days had taken its toll on the already sallow features of the Deadman. His already pale skin was now as white as freshly fallen snow, and though his body functions had monumentally slowed in his hibernation, he had grown a thick and unkempt beard that was now speckled with white hairs as he neared his autumn years. His once short and jet-black head of hair had grown into a graying untamed lion’s mane that extended past his shoulders. New age lines littered his forehead, cheeks and mouth. If anything could make the infamously gaunt features of Phenom Vendetta look more pitiful, time and shame had combined to do just that. However, one feature shone even more brilliantly than ever against the depressing slate of an aging body. Phenom’s sky blue eyes sparkled immaculately as the sun began to crest the eastern horizon. While he was truly a sorry sight in his outward appearance, he was filled with vivacity from deep within his soul that he had seldom felt before.
“I’m coming home.” The Deadman uttered with a crooked smile on his weathered face, his voice cracking from years without use.
Snapping his fingers in the air, a black cotton poncho appeared out of thin air and draped around his previously naked torso. A black bandana wrapped around his forehead kept his messy mop of hair from his eyes. His tattered cotton pants remained the same but were now complimented by shin-high leather boots with large steel buckles on the front, no longer shined to military sufficiency like in his prime, but serviceable all the same to the Deadman. The coup de grace was next to come, as from oblivion came Phenom’s faithful steed, a magnificent structure of chrome and steel. His hulking motorcycle, The Pegasus, appeared in a mass of purple smoke before him, and laid delicately across his seat was his instrument of unfathomable destruction, the hulking cleaver known as the Death Sentence. Three feet long with a broadside spanning a foot, the blade has stood the test of time in limbo and now waited for its master to grab it by the hilt, which Phenom did with some relish, swinging it around with a sense of mildly restrained childish glee as he did.
Mounting The Pegasus with the Death Sentence grasped firmly in his left hand, Phenom revved the engine on the ageless hog, tearing up the dew-drenched ground below him. Kicking the chopper into gear, Phenom was off like a shot with a roar of thunder. He already knew Fallen Star was near, he could feel her in the air like an imminent thunder storm. In the distance he saw a herd of wooly creatures galloping en masse. They would lead him.
The wind in his face cutting into him as he sped along the prairies’ rolling hills until he began to weave in between the herd of mastodon-like creatures as if they were massive pylons along an interstate highway. He could taste her scent, pungent in the air around him. He could smell her violet hair. He could feel her heart beating. His long beard whipped to the left of his chin and behind him as he reached incomprehensible speeds. Yes, The Pegasus still had it. Then all at once he saw her. Even with his eyes squinting against the wind resistance in his face, the purple streak a seldom hundred feet away sprinting at impressive speeds in his direction was unmistakable.
It seemed she had yet to see him amidst the frontrunners of the herd of beasts, and Phenom used this fact to his advantage. Reducing his speed and tucking himself behind the front wall of creatures, He kept an eye on his target from between the massive tree trunk-like legs of the herd. As she reached the front of the herd, no doubt in search of the presence she felt in him, Phenom peeled out from his cover, Death Sentenced raised high.
To Fallen Star, the man in black atop an infernal machine and bearing down on her must have drawn immediate comparisons to some sort of heavy metal incarnation of the legendary Gilgamesh, a grizzled Odin atop chrome and steel spouting hellfire and brimstone. Phenom swung his hulking cleaver horizontally at the tribal warrior with intentions on parting her head from her body. However, as he sped by his target on The Pegasus, her legendary agility was made apparent, as she evaded the pre-emptive strike from the Deadman with an elegant back flip out of harm’s way mere milliseconds before meeting cold steel and still managing to evade the trailing herd’s massive feet that would have reduced her to nothingness with one wayward step.
Realising he had missed, Phenom leapt from his motorcycle, still clutching his blade as The Pegasus disappeared into oblivion with a brilliant puff of purple haze as swiftly as it had appeared. At his high speed he travelled some 40 feet in the air, black poncho rippling in the wind, before tucking into a roll upon impact with the sure-to-be unforgiving ground. Looking back to where he had last seen Fallen Star. Sword clasped between both hands and extended in front of him, he locked eyes for the first time with his chosen adversary. The tribeswoman seemed unperturbed by his attempted homicide, she had no-doubt been through the fatal song and dance before.
“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” the Deadman dead-panned. “But right now you’re going to have to do some surviving before I do. Come at me.”
With that, the Deadman motioned Fallen Star towards him. His path to redemption ran directly through her.
Redemption is a particularly fickle concept. While the beaten, humiliated and the damned all seek this elusive state of reverence, it is a status impossible to achieve until one is able to forgive and vindicate oneself. Redemption is not merely attained by the last swing of the blade that claims revenge over a longtime foe or on bended knee begging for forgiveness to a loved one wronged. It is the ability to look within and purge personal the personal demons from the soul before the final rites can be performed. For this reason it is not a seldom sight to see once proud and heroic individuals crippled in their attempts to become whole again in the eyes of their peers. Try as they might, they will never achieve the redemption they seek until it is in their own eyes that they become whole again first. Pride and stubbornness can asphyxiate even the most valiant attempt at a moral comeback. If ever there was a case study of such an individual, a man of constant sorrow, it was the Deadman.
Tucked away in the windswept plains of a forgotten continent Phenom Vendetta had long taken refuge from the only life he knew. An agent of chaos to be sure, the man clad in black from head to toe was once a noted harbinger of mortality to those who crossed him. The patriarch of the infamous Vendetta clan, the man many came to know as the Deadman had crossed blades with every contemptible creature fate tossed in his path. From the daunting behemoths to the truly bizarre sociopaths, Phenom had brought everything from hulking Grendels to the God of Death himself to humility in his time. All that ceased over three years prior, when Phenom turned his back on those close to him in times of trouble. Incensed with rage at the time with his allies, it was not long before those fires died down and turned to shame. By that time it was too late to truly reconcile, and with a heavy heart and mind the Deadman laid his down his blade and faded into oblivion. In a physical and mental state of exile from his only passion in life, Phenom took to a life of solidarity in the forgotten plains, waiting for the day where one would coax him to return.
For over one thousands days and nights he assumed a dormant state of dreamless slumber under the endless blanket of prairie sky, clothed in nothing but a pair of cotton pants riddled with frays and tears indicative of countless battles. Months and years passed the warrior by, undisturbed by visions or premonitions or the harsh elements around him. The unforgiving summer sun pounded down upon his motionless anatomy in the short summers, and the harsh winters that spanned for months on end buried the Deadman in snow. Only the unmistakable aura of power that seemed to emit from within him kept predators from tearing him apart or the elements from reducing him from nothingness It would seem that he was merely waiting for his tormented soul to become bored with its inactive vessel and leave him to eternal rest. Then the dreams resumed abruptly and with a vividness Phenom had not experienced in his life. They were fighting again. The warriors. His brethren. In truth, he did not recognize many of the combatants that waged wore inside his mind, save for a flamboyant vampire and a time traveler he thought he had met a time or two long ago, but he knew that these men and women were cut from his same rugged cloth. Once the visions began they did not cease for months. He saw a thief and a behemoth meet their demise over the ownership of a sparkling emerald, and an octogenarian servant use his last gasps to strangle a young mercenary to within the inch of his life. He saw a bizarre cone-shaped creature from another world and the Spirit of Las Vegas himself. All fought, all fell in a blaze of glory.
Save for one.
She had conquered all challengers with an air of nonchalance and indescribable agility. She had laid waste to first a sadistic northern barbarian, and then to a creature from another world altogether. Most impressive of all, she managed to bury an entire tribe of sadistic pagan warriors and their bullheaded leader without so much as enduring a scratch to a battle-worn face that certainly did not need to endure another blemish if at all possible. Her hair was a brilliant violet and she dressed in an understated tribal garb. And now Phenom saw her dancing vision in his mind’s eye. Phenom knew her name as if it was told to him ages ago in a folk tale. It was Fallen Star, twirling with the elegance of an age-old spirit atop a fin-shaped rock overlooking plains that seemed to resemble those where he now slumbered. Then suddenly she stopped her dance, and her face marred with a long and deep scar scrunched into an expression of suspicion, her different coloured eyes turning into inquisitive slits. She leaned gradually to the edge of her rock perch and
Dropped off.
Phenom was awake in a cold sweat of anticipation. After years of uncertainty, it was now his time to return. This Fallen Star was a champion without a challenger; a pure force without a tainted entity to oppose her.
A thousand days had taken its toll on the already sallow features of the Deadman. His already pale skin was now as white as freshly fallen snow, and though his body functions had monumentally slowed in his hibernation, he had grown a thick and unkempt beard that was now speckled with white hairs as he neared his autumn years. His once short and jet-black head of hair had grown into a graying untamed lion’s mane that extended past his shoulders. New age lines littered his forehead, cheeks and mouth. If anything could make the infamously gaunt features of Phenom Vendetta look more pitiful, time and shame had combined to do just that. However, one feature shone even more brilliantly than ever against the depressing slate of an aging body. Phenom’s sky blue eyes sparkled immaculately as the sun began to crest the eastern horizon. While he was truly a sorry sight in his outward appearance, he was filled with vivacity from deep within his soul that he had seldom felt before.
“I’m coming home.” The Deadman uttered with a crooked smile on his weathered face, his voice cracking from years without use.
Snapping his fingers in the air, a black cotton poncho appeared out of thin air and draped around his previously naked torso. A black bandana wrapped around his forehead kept his messy mop of hair from his eyes. His tattered cotton pants remained the same but were now complimented by shin-high leather boots with large steel buckles on the front, no longer shined to military sufficiency like in his prime, but serviceable all the same to the Deadman. The coup de grace was next to come, as from oblivion came Phenom’s faithful steed, a magnificent structure of chrome and steel. His hulking motorcycle, The Pegasus, appeared in a mass of purple smoke before him, and laid delicately across his seat was his instrument of unfathomable destruction, the hulking cleaver known as the Death Sentence. Three feet long with a broadside spanning a foot, the blade has stood the test of time in limbo and now waited for its master to grab it by the hilt, which Phenom did with some relish, swinging it around with a sense of mildly restrained childish glee as he did.
Mounting The Pegasus with the Death Sentence grasped firmly in his left hand, Phenom revved the engine on the ageless hog, tearing up the dew-drenched ground below him. Kicking the chopper into gear, Phenom was off like a shot with a roar of thunder. He already knew Fallen Star was near, he could feel her in the air like an imminent thunder storm. In the distance he saw a herd of wooly creatures galloping en masse. They would lead him.
The wind in his face cutting into him as he sped along the prairies’ rolling hills until he began to weave in between the herd of mastodon-like creatures as if they were massive pylons along an interstate highway. He could taste her scent, pungent in the air around him. He could smell her violet hair. He could feel her heart beating. His long beard whipped to the left of his chin and behind him as he reached incomprehensible speeds. Yes, The Pegasus still had it. Then all at once he saw her. Even with his eyes squinting against the wind resistance in his face, the purple streak a seldom hundred feet away sprinting at impressive speeds in his direction was unmistakable.
It seemed she had yet to see him amidst the frontrunners of the herd of beasts, and Phenom used this fact to his advantage. Reducing his speed and tucking himself behind the front wall of creatures, He kept an eye on his target from between the massive tree trunk-like legs of the herd. As she reached the front of the herd, no doubt in search of the presence she felt in him, Phenom peeled out from his cover, Death Sentenced raised high.
To Fallen Star, the man in black atop an infernal machine and bearing down on her must have drawn immediate comparisons to some sort of heavy metal incarnation of the legendary Gilgamesh, a grizzled Odin atop chrome and steel spouting hellfire and brimstone. Phenom swung his hulking cleaver horizontally at the tribal warrior with intentions on parting her head from her body. However, as he sped by his target on The Pegasus, her legendary agility was made apparent, as she evaded the pre-emptive strike from the Deadman with an elegant back flip out of harm’s way mere milliseconds before meeting cold steel and still managing to evade the trailing herd’s massive feet that would have reduced her to nothingness with one wayward step.
Realising he had missed, Phenom leapt from his motorcycle, still clutching his blade as The Pegasus disappeared into oblivion with a brilliant puff of purple haze as swiftly as it had appeared. At his high speed he travelled some 40 feet in the air, black poncho rippling in the wind, before tucking into a roll upon impact with the sure-to-be unforgiving ground. Looking back to where he had last seen Fallen Star. Sword clasped between both hands and extended in front of him, he locked eyes for the first time with his chosen adversary. The tribeswoman seemed unperturbed by his attempted homicide, she had no-doubt been through the fatal song and dance before.
“I’ve got a lot to tell you,” the Deadman dead-panned. “But right now you’re going to have to do some surviving before I do. Come at me.”
With that, the Deadman motioned Fallen Star towards him. His path to redemption ran directly through her.
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The Willful Wanderer
- Member
- Posts: 2221
- Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:00 am
- Location: Aisle 12, between the kumquats and the radicchio.
Let's knock some rust off there.
Music: FF Battles
-----------------------------
Fallen Star took only a brief moment. Standing, staring at him from a position that could only be called 'casually cautious', the somewhat stocky woman considered the man. Age was starting to gain its grip upon him, clearly, evinced by the way his beard and hair were starting to salt-and-pepper. His travel-golem had vanished, thankfully.
The Deadman spoke to her, then, in a language she had only finally learned just before crossing the Slabs to head home. Those same mountains stood visible on the far East horizon of the field, a jagged edge to the world. Much as they scraped the sky, the Deadman scraped her senses. He was a raw point in the world and one that appeared to now be pointed towards her. The sword from nowhere had nearly ended things ere they could begin- but nearly would never be enough from where Fallen Star stood.
"To be having a name, then? No? For well enough it is." She murmured. Despite the roughness of her appearance, the tribal woman had a voice that was smooth and even, a pane of smoked glass against her worn facade. "My being is Karna." She used her language for her name- who would do otherwise? Still, it meant the same. Fallen Star.
He had beckoned. So she came.
For a human, the scarred woman was blisteringly fast- but Phenom had fought those far beyond human in his time. The thrust punch coming in along the ground was turned into a forced evasion by a dip and twist of his blade, Fallen Star rolling aside from the Deadman's downward thrust. She twisted mid-motion and delivered an upwards sliding kick toward his belly. Releasing the blade with one hand, the bearded warrior forced her foot aside with one forearm, his immense cleaver of a blade swinging wide out to his left.
Immediately, with a strange twist, Karna was on her feet, the formerly-stabbing moccasined foot slamming into the dirt and turning her forwards momentum into an upwards spiral. The other foot came around in a viciously tight arc, all the momentum from her charge transfered into a single limb. It was a kick of the sort that could remove heads, and it returned the favor of the aged warrior's initial strike. Forced to bend over backwards, he strained to reverse the no-longer-viable arc of his blade with just one arm, the other stretched out in completely the wrong direction.
The purple-haired warrior's foot came down immediately. Caught by surprise, Phenom failed to see precisely what she was angling for. Thanks to their respective positions, though, she was able to trap his arm between her shin and calf, the spiral unceasing as she twisted still further. A sick, almost wooden snap sounded as she spun and Phenom didn't, his right forearm bending as if to have a second elbow in the midst of the two bones. Blood spattered across formerly-pristine moccasins briefly as ulna and radius protruded from the limb in small spikes.
Jagged ends that Fallen Star avoided by the sudden lifting of her formerly anchoring foot. As the Deadman was thrown down onto his back by the unbalancing twist, arm broken unevenly, she spun away- and a fortunate thing, as the Death Sentence nearly parted her cloak and could have parted her had she not moved. Blade digging into the soil, the prone man was left to reflect on something, though only for an instant before his adversary would return.
This time, Karna had nowhere she wanted to go.
Music: FF Battles
-----------------------------
Fallen Star took only a brief moment. Standing, staring at him from a position that could only be called 'casually cautious', the somewhat stocky woman considered the man. Age was starting to gain its grip upon him, clearly, evinced by the way his beard and hair were starting to salt-and-pepper. His travel-golem had vanished, thankfully.
The Deadman spoke to her, then, in a language she had only finally learned just before crossing the Slabs to head home. Those same mountains stood visible on the far East horizon of the field, a jagged edge to the world. Much as they scraped the sky, the Deadman scraped her senses. He was a raw point in the world and one that appeared to now be pointed towards her. The sword from nowhere had nearly ended things ere they could begin- but nearly would never be enough from where Fallen Star stood.
"To be having a name, then? No? For well enough it is." She murmured. Despite the roughness of her appearance, the tribal woman had a voice that was smooth and even, a pane of smoked glass against her worn facade. "My being is Karna." She used her language for her name- who would do otherwise? Still, it meant the same. Fallen Star.
He had beckoned. So she came.
For a human, the scarred woman was blisteringly fast- but Phenom had fought those far beyond human in his time. The thrust punch coming in along the ground was turned into a forced evasion by a dip and twist of his blade, Fallen Star rolling aside from the Deadman's downward thrust. She twisted mid-motion and delivered an upwards sliding kick toward his belly. Releasing the blade with one hand, the bearded warrior forced her foot aside with one forearm, his immense cleaver of a blade swinging wide out to his left.
Immediately, with a strange twist, Karna was on her feet, the formerly-stabbing moccasined foot slamming into the dirt and turning her forwards momentum into an upwards spiral. The other foot came around in a viciously tight arc, all the momentum from her charge transfered into a single limb. It was a kick of the sort that could remove heads, and it returned the favor of the aged warrior's initial strike. Forced to bend over backwards, he strained to reverse the no-longer-viable arc of his blade with just one arm, the other stretched out in completely the wrong direction.
The purple-haired warrior's foot came down immediately. Caught by surprise, Phenom failed to see precisely what she was angling for. Thanks to their respective positions, though, she was able to trap his arm between her shin and calf, the spiral unceasing as she twisted still further. A sick, almost wooden snap sounded as she spun and Phenom didn't, his right forearm bending as if to have a second elbow in the midst of the two bones. Blood spattered across formerly-pristine moccasins briefly as ulna and radius protruded from the limb in small spikes.
Jagged ends that Fallen Star avoided by the sudden lifting of her formerly anchoring foot. As the Deadman was thrown down onto his back by the unbalancing twist, arm broken unevenly, she spun away- and a fortunate thing, as the Death Sentence nearly parted her cloak and could have parted her had she not moved. Blade digging into the soil, the prone man was left to reflect on something, though only for an instant before his adversary would return.
This time, Karna had nowhere she wanted to go.
\"What if nothing means anything? What if nothing really matters?.....
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
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Phenom
- Member
- Posts: 7914
- Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2001 1:00 am
- Location: Canada
Had any colour ever taken up residence in the Deadman’s face, it was certainly gone now, as blood flowed rapidly to the site of the gruesome compound fracture before gushing out of the gaping wound and seeping into the dry ground where the downed warrior lay on his flat on his back. As Phenom’s eyes briefly stared up at the mid-dawn sky -- currently an expansive sheet of mauve caused by the sun cresting over the impossibly high peaks of The Slabs – the prevailing state of mind throbbing in his temporarily scrambled mind was not panic or anguish following the unceremonious fracturing of his arm. Panic was not a term the Deadman had in his lexicon, and having experienced the full spectrum of suffering up to and including excruciating death on numerous occasions, the initial agony of having his arm snapped like dry kindling would pass quickly as the rush of mid-battle adrenaline arrived. Instead, Phenom felt nothing but supreme humiliation as he waited a brief moment for his pain-inspired double vision to subside.
Three years in a deep slumber, waiting in a mental purgatory, only to have his arm shattered with despicable amounts of ease within half a minute of exchanging blows. Had he any more time to wallow in despair he probably would have, but with his adversary no-doubt primed to deal him a decisive blow in his moment of haplessness, self-pity was hardly an option. Rolling to his left side, left arm clutching its mutilated partner, Phenom rose to his knees and faced his aboriginal adversary. He would question how such an unassuming figure could house such explosive power, but he had seen bigger things come from smaller packages in his time. For a minute the one called Karna appeared to pause. In a battle stance she met his gaze with one of calmness and poise. Another moment passed with Phenom grimacing at her, daring her to come at him in his weakened state, yet the tribal warrior remained stationary, wise enough not to rush headlong at a wounded animal.
The Deadman rose slowly to his feet, his right forearm continuing to leak a variable waterfall of crimson down his arm to the growing pool at his blood-spattered boots. He broke his stone-faced gaze for a brief moment to glance over at the Death Sentence, its thick blade cleaving the soft earth casting a blinding gleam from the early morning rays. He could wield it adequately with his left hand alone, but after experiencing his opponent’s speed first hand, there he would not be quick enough with the massive cleaver to ward off further humiliations. Looking down at his useless right arm the Deadman scoffed indignantly at himself. He should have known better to bring a knife to a fist fight.
Phenom resumed his eye-lock with Karna, but this time with a sadistic look in his wide blue eyes and a twisted grin beneath his haggard beard. Clutching his crippled arm even tighter in his left hand, thick, dark blood spurted out even more so than before. Snapped in twain three inches below his elbow, it looked more like a door with a loose hinge as it hung limp at his side, splintered bones clearly protruding out of torn sinew and muscle. Then, in a display of pure indifference to his well-being, the Deadman roared in immense discomfort as he quickly and violently snapped the hanging portion of his extremity back in line, blood shooting in all directions like an erupting geyser. With his teeth, Phenom craned his neck downward, touching his chin to his clavicles and biting down on the front of his poncho. Jerking his head back, he tore a length strip of fabric from his garb, causing the rest to fall into the lake of blood at his feet, exposing his bare torso, its countless scars reading like a road map of wars past.
With one end of the strip still clenched in his teeth, he snatched the other end in his left hand and proceeded to wrap the cloth tightly around the massive wound. Immediately the makeshift gauze was soaked through with blood, but the Deadman hadn’t the luxury of a hard cast in the heat of battle. His eyes wincing, his nostrils flared, and Karna watching intently all the while, Phenom finished his amateur operation with a pathetic one-handed knot. His right arm was woefully misaligned and with the bandage saturated blood still seeped through, but a man without a heart need not worry about blood loss.
Phenom inhaled deeply, raising his arms in front of him in a shoot-boxing formation with arms clenched in fists and straight out in front of him. His right arm was completely incapable of being raised more than parallel to the ground, but for now it would have to do. Looking over at his female counterpart, the Deadman silently pondered her choice to allow him time to heal. Was it a sign of battlefield etiquette or merely an open invitation for him to enter her trap? Whatever the case, he knew that he would not take such a liberty as time again in this fight to the death.
Scarcely had he finished these thoughts when Karna broke the brief lull in combat. Once again she broke into a sprint, leaping into the air as she came two feet before him and once again extended her lethal legs outwards at his head level, primed to cave his skull on impact. Phenom was equal to her sudden challenge, warding her extended feet off to the right with a swipe of his left forearm. Karna nimbly adjusted her positioning in mid-descent, landing on her feet with her back to him; immediately swinging her right leg throat-high in a roundhouse kick. Once again her blow missed its target as the Deadman crouched low, letting the attack sail above his head. Eyeing her prone planted leg, he unleashed a low sweep kick with intentions of upending her with a blow to the ankle. Karna hopped over Phenom’s leg, aborting her roundhouse mid-rotation, only to thrust both legs downward at the apex of her leap, coming down in the form of a human missile at her crouching target. Nearly conquered again by Karna’s speed, Phenom was just able to instinctively outstretch both hands in front of his face with palms facing upwards. Karna’s feet connected with Phenom’s thrusting arms, causing her to be knocked backwards in mid-air and the Deadman to push off her attack and into a backwards somersault. Transferring her own momentum into a high-arcing back flip and landing on one knee, Karna once again launched into an all-out assault on the man in black, who had no time to assess the further damage that had been dealt to him by using his mangled right arm to ward off the preceding blow.
The two met each other halfway, with Phenom springing to his feet having grown tired of evasion. The Deadman was first to unleash a devastating haymaker punch at Karna, who dodged under the flight pattern of his massive fist and bleeding off of her own momentum flew upwards at Phenom with a jumping uppercut. The Deadman kept his feet planted but bent backwards at the waist, causing the attack to fly in front of him unsuccessful while at the same time snatching his enemy’s left ankle in his good hand as her leap had brought her feet to his eye level. Affording Karna no time for a counter-attack, the Deadman jerked down on his airborne opponent’s leg as if ripping an apple from a branch. In one fell swoop, he slammed Karna with all the force he could muster into the unforgiving earth which in turn reverberated with a blunt thudding sound as Phenom snapped her face down like a lion-tamer cracking a human whip. Her torso and face were nearly parallel to the soil when she slapped down with tremendous force, and her body expelled all the wind it had inside it, leaving her breathless. Her nose went from partially to completely caved-in as it crumpled like paper upon impact with a rush of cartilage, blood and other fluids exploding from her nostrils.
Not content in relinquishing his newfound momentum, Phenom retained his vice-like grip on Karna’s ankle, bestowing upon her no time to regain her breath as he yanked upwards her like as if she were a pull string on a doll. To his surprise, Karna torque her body in midair, twisting her free right leg towards him with aims to put a hole in his temple. By the skin of his nose, Phenom ducked under the assault while keeping his white-knuckled grip on her ankle. Karna’s momentum in missing the Deadman left her trapped leg twisted unnaturally towards the rest of her body that had sailed over Phenom and in this predicament the grizzled veteran of combat saw his opportunity to decidedly even the score. In his microsecond-long window of opportunity, Phenom reared back slightly while still clasping on to Karna’s prone and contorted left leg and thrust his boot savagely down on the side of her knee in a motion that was half-kick, half-stomp.
The sound was gut-wrenching even to the most firm of stomachs. In a sound comparable only to a bed sheet being swiftly ripped in half combined with the familiar snap of cartilage, Karna’s meniscus joined her anterior crucial ligament and other muscles in lurching completely out of their rightful positions, jutting out the opposite side of the knee when she was kicked. Karna let out a brief wail of pure agony as Phenom released her ruptured leg after completing his kick. The tribeswoman tumbled to the ground in a heap, immediately bringing both her arms around her massacred left knee.
Phenom backed up a few steps to briefly relish in the damage he had administered. He had felt the tear of ligaments and muscles, the thorough dislodging of her kneecap under his boot for that one glorious moment of contact. Phenom looked down at his right arm, which had already become detached underneath his mockery of a bandage, the massive gash from the compound fracture had widened even more from further use. Simply put, it was now beyond repair. His scar-heavy chest heaved and his throat was bone-dry and begging for air after the rapid exchange. Despite all of this, he could not help but laugh. Moments before it was she who had taken away his upper body movement significantly and now he had paid her back in full in ravaging her left leg. With both their primary means of offense briefly taken out of play, the battle of firepower was suddenly a war of attrition.
As Karna had done for him, Phenom kept his distance and waited for his foe to attempt a response. Though his lengthy slumber had ended for some time now, it was not until then that he felt truly awake.
Three years in a deep slumber, waiting in a mental purgatory, only to have his arm shattered with despicable amounts of ease within half a minute of exchanging blows. Had he any more time to wallow in despair he probably would have, but with his adversary no-doubt primed to deal him a decisive blow in his moment of haplessness, self-pity was hardly an option. Rolling to his left side, left arm clutching its mutilated partner, Phenom rose to his knees and faced his aboriginal adversary. He would question how such an unassuming figure could house such explosive power, but he had seen bigger things come from smaller packages in his time. For a minute the one called Karna appeared to pause. In a battle stance she met his gaze with one of calmness and poise. Another moment passed with Phenom grimacing at her, daring her to come at him in his weakened state, yet the tribal warrior remained stationary, wise enough not to rush headlong at a wounded animal.
The Deadman rose slowly to his feet, his right forearm continuing to leak a variable waterfall of crimson down his arm to the growing pool at his blood-spattered boots. He broke his stone-faced gaze for a brief moment to glance over at the Death Sentence, its thick blade cleaving the soft earth casting a blinding gleam from the early morning rays. He could wield it adequately with his left hand alone, but after experiencing his opponent’s speed first hand, there he would not be quick enough with the massive cleaver to ward off further humiliations. Looking down at his useless right arm the Deadman scoffed indignantly at himself. He should have known better to bring a knife to a fist fight.
Phenom resumed his eye-lock with Karna, but this time with a sadistic look in his wide blue eyes and a twisted grin beneath his haggard beard. Clutching his crippled arm even tighter in his left hand, thick, dark blood spurted out even more so than before. Snapped in twain three inches below his elbow, it looked more like a door with a loose hinge as it hung limp at his side, splintered bones clearly protruding out of torn sinew and muscle. Then, in a display of pure indifference to his well-being, the Deadman roared in immense discomfort as he quickly and violently snapped the hanging portion of his extremity back in line, blood shooting in all directions like an erupting geyser. With his teeth, Phenom craned his neck downward, touching his chin to his clavicles and biting down on the front of his poncho. Jerking his head back, he tore a length strip of fabric from his garb, causing the rest to fall into the lake of blood at his feet, exposing his bare torso, its countless scars reading like a road map of wars past.
With one end of the strip still clenched in his teeth, he snatched the other end in his left hand and proceeded to wrap the cloth tightly around the massive wound. Immediately the makeshift gauze was soaked through with blood, but the Deadman hadn’t the luxury of a hard cast in the heat of battle. His eyes wincing, his nostrils flared, and Karna watching intently all the while, Phenom finished his amateur operation with a pathetic one-handed knot. His right arm was woefully misaligned and with the bandage saturated blood still seeped through, but a man without a heart need not worry about blood loss.
Phenom inhaled deeply, raising his arms in front of him in a shoot-boxing formation with arms clenched in fists and straight out in front of him. His right arm was completely incapable of being raised more than parallel to the ground, but for now it would have to do. Looking over at his female counterpart, the Deadman silently pondered her choice to allow him time to heal. Was it a sign of battlefield etiquette or merely an open invitation for him to enter her trap? Whatever the case, he knew that he would not take such a liberty as time again in this fight to the death.
Scarcely had he finished these thoughts when Karna broke the brief lull in combat. Once again she broke into a sprint, leaping into the air as she came two feet before him and once again extended her lethal legs outwards at his head level, primed to cave his skull on impact. Phenom was equal to her sudden challenge, warding her extended feet off to the right with a swipe of his left forearm. Karna nimbly adjusted her positioning in mid-descent, landing on her feet with her back to him; immediately swinging her right leg throat-high in a roundhouse kick. Once again her blow missed its target as the Deadman crouched low, letting the attack sail above his head. Eyeing her prone planted leg, he unleashed a low sweep kick with intentions of upending her with a blow to the ankle. Karna hopped over Phenom’s leg, aborting her roundhouse mid-rotation, only to thrust both legs downward at the apex of her leap, coming down in the form of a human missile at her crouching target. Nearly conquered again by Karna’s speed, Phenom was just able to instinctively outstretch both hands in front of his face with palms facing upwards. Karna’s feet connected with Phenom’s thrusting arms, causing her to be knocked backwards in mid-air and the Deadman to push off her attack and into a backwards somersault. Transferring her own momentum into a high-arcing back flip and landing on one knee, Karna once again launched into an all-out assault on the man in black, who had no time to assess the further damage that had been dealt to him by using his mangled right arm to ward off the preceding blow.
The two met each other halfway, with Phenom springing to his feet having grown tired of evasion. The Deadman was first to unleash a devastating haymaker punch at Karna, who dodged under the flight pattern of his massive fist and bleeding off of her own momentum flew upwards at Phenom with a jumping uppercut. The Deadman kept his feet planted but bent backwards at the waist, causing the attack to fly in front of him unsuccessful while at the same time snatching his enemy’s left ankle in his good hand as her leap had brought her feet to his eye level. Affording Karna no time for a counter-attack, the Deadman jerked down on his airborne opponent’s leg as if ripping an apple from a branch. In one fell swoop, he slammed Karna with all the force he could muster into the unforgiving earth which in turn reverberated with a blunt thudding sound as Phenom snapped her face down like a lion-tamer cracking a human whip. Her torso and face were nearly parallel to the soil when she slapped down with tremendous force, and her body expelled all the wind it had inside it, leaving her breathless. Her nose went from partially to completely caved-in as it crumpled like paper upon impact with a rush of cartilage, blood and other fluids exploding from her nostrils.
Not content in relinquishing his newfound momentum, Phenom retained his vice-like grip on Karna’s ankle, bestowing upon her no time to regain her breath as he yanked upwards her like as if she were a pull string on a doll. To his surprise, Karna torque her body in midair, twisting her free right leg towards him with aims to put a hole in his temple. By the skin of his nose, Phenom ducked under the assault while keeping his white-knuckled grip on her ankle. Karna’s momentum in missing the Deadman left her trapped leg twisted unnaturally towards the rest of her body that had sailed over Phenom and in this predicament the grizzled veteran of combat saw his opportunity to decidedly even the score. In his microsecond-long window of opportunity, Phenom reared back slightly while still clasping on to Karna’s prone and contorted left leg and thrust his boot savagely down on the side of her knee in a motion that was half-kick, half-stomp.
The sound was gut-wrenching even to the most firm of stomachs. In a sound comparable only to a bed sheet being swiftly ripped in half combined with the familiar snap of cartilage, Karna’s meniscus joined her anterior crucial ligament and other muscles in lurching completely out of their rightful positions, jutting out the opposite side of the knee when she was kicked. Karna let out a brief wail of pure agony as Phenom released her ruptured leg after completing his kick. The tribeswoman tumbled to the ground in a heap, immediately bringing both her arms around her massacred left knee.
Phenom backed up a few steps to briefly relish in the damage he had administered. He had felt the tear of ligaments and muscles, the thorough dislodging of her kneecap under his boot for that one glorious moment of contact. Phenom looked down at his right arm, which had already become detached underneath his mockery of a bandage, the massive gash from the compound fracture had widened even more from further use. Simply put, it was now beyond repair. His scar-heavy chest heaved and his throat was bone-dry and begging for air after the rapid exchange. Despite all of this, he could not help but laugh. Moments before it was she who had taken away his upper body movement significantly and now he had paid her back in full in ravaging her left leg. With both their primary means of offense briefly taken out of play, the battle of firepower was suddenly a war of attrition.
As Karna had done for him, Phenom kept his distance and waited for his foe to attempt a response. Though his lengthy slumber had ended for some time now, it was not until then that he felt truly awake.
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The Willful Wanderer
- Member
- Posts: 2221
- Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2004 2:00 am
- Location: Aisle 12, between the kumquats and the radicchio.
I'm the tank?
((Sorry about the gaposis. Just after I finally had time after I got my password back (and finally remembered to fix the Email the board has to the one I actually use), my four-year-old nephew got himself suspended from the last week of summer camp- it threw all my scheduling off and this last week has been a real horror. Now I finally have some time without the nephew aggro, though, so I can get down to posting again.
Again, apologies to everyone, and Saria can verify that I was unable to post for a time. As far as the nephew thing.... I'll just have to ask you all to take my word for it. You know how reliable I usually am.
On with the fight!
Music- The Black Mages- Vamo Alla Flamenco (Final Fantasy IX)- afraid you'll have to find this one yourself.))
=========================
Fallen Star crouched there for only a moment, clutching her knee, then glared up at Phenom through eyes unhindered by the mashing of her nose. Staring him dead in the face, the tribal warrior slammed the heel of her hand into the side of her knee, wrenching the joint back into position. She gave her pain no voice, though the tension in her jaw increased as she felt the ingredients of her leg attain something rather more like their intended location.
Surprise colored the Deadman's face only briefly as the indigo-haired woman almost literally exploded off of the ground then, shooting into the air in a magnificent leap. If it weren't for the previous wrenching, and the split in her skin where her kneecap had attempted to depart, he would have thought her leg uninjured- she brought it around in a viciously fast kick as she approached him. Rather than lose the nose off his face to the moccasin-clad toes, he opted to lean backwards, out of the way.
As she sailed overhead, Karna shifted her spin, whipping her torso in the same direction as she was already heading. Her foot came around again, fair screaming through the air like a stooping falcon. It dawned on Phenom that she didn't neccessarily need to swing -with- her leg so much as swing the leg itself around, much of the power behind her kicks relying on the intensity of torque she could create. Leaning back still further, the white-bearded man stabbed his good arm up at his opponent's midsection.
His fist glanced its intended target, tall grass flying as his knuckles grazed her spine just above the hips. The rear length of loincloth slapped equally leathery skin with a faint sting as the fantastic midair spin continued. It was only then that the Deadman became appraised of the real danger.
Bent back so far, he was unable to shift so easily, and the stomp of Karna's left heel allowed the fringe on her legging to sear past his ear, friction of tiny tassels leaving a faint burn on the outer curve of it. Twisting up to his left, Phenom avoided another loose but swift swing of the tribeswoman's damaged leg, her planted right foot causing all her momentum to transfer into yet another spin. Though he'd so far dodged, the dark-haired woman seemed only to be getting faster, and his rising face was met by her forehead. His own nose smashed in with the force of the blow, the Deadman brought down off his feet as they snapped up into the air, attempting to continue his standing motion.
No sooner had his bare back slapped the earth than he recieved almost the full momentum of Fallen Star's entire jump, transferred into a whirlwind spin that left her slamming butt-down onto his sternum. Stars filled his vision as all the air exploded from his lungs in a mighty gust that carried along some blood from his freshly-crushed nose.
Counter-clockwise spin concluded, Karna quickly commited a crazed cartwheel. With her opponent briefly stunned, she was able to grab at his good arm, taking his wrist in her right hand as the heel of the left slammed into his throat. Larynx nearly crushed and definitely bruised, Phenom was unable to do aught but choke for another instant- which was all the dervish atop him needed.
Hopping into the air with her right leg, she rolled and slammed him, back-down, into the earth just as he had done her with a different grip less than a minute before. Her roll continued, though, left leg curled in as best she could as she lifted it into the air and stabbed down with her free hand. The knife-hand jab tore through the flesh between his lower ribs, fingers disappearing to the second knuckle in torn muscle and a welling of blood. Karna's spine arched as she planted her right foot and heaved, releasing him in an awkwards manner that dragged her fingers through the flesh between those two bones.
At first, the Deadman sailed through the air like a ragdoll, as Fallen Star assessed her own situation. Though her knee was once more intact, or something like it, and she'd managed to avoid aggravating it too much, she wouldn't be able to use the joint itself for much. She estimated she'd have a few moments of full-strength use if she pushed it, after which her leg wouldn't support anything but swinging loosely. Fortunately, she still had the other leg, and her left knee would hold up to light use.
As the gray-haired man came down, Fallen Star looked up to watch him, heterochromatic eyes narrowed in focus.
((Sorry about the gaposis. Just after I finally had time after I got my password back (and finally remembered to fix the Email the board has to the one I actually use), my four-year-old nephew got himself suspended from the last week of summer camp- it threw all my scheduling off and this last week has been a real horror. Now I finally have some time without the nephew aggro, though, so I can get down to posting again.
Again, apologies to everyone, and Saria can verify that I was unable to post for a time. As far as the nephew thing.... I'll just have to ask you all to take my word for it. You know how reliable I usually am.
On with the fight!
Music- The Black Mages- Vamo Alla Flamenco (Final Fantasy IX)- afraid you'll have to find this one yourself.))
=========================
Fallen Star crouched there for only a moment, clutching her knee, then glared up at Phenom through eyes unhindered by the mashing of her nose. Staring him dead in the face, the tribal warrior slammed the heel of her hand into the side of her knee, wrenching the joint back into position. She gave her pain no voice, though the tension in her jaw increased as she felt the ingredients of her leg attain something rather more like their intended location.
Surprise colored the Deadman's face only briefly as the indigo-haired woman almost literally exploded off of the ground then, shooting into the air in a magnificent leap. If it weren't for the previous wrenching, and the split in her skin where her kneecap had attempted to depart, he would have thought her leg uninjured- she brought it around in a viciously fast kick as she approached him. Rather than lose the nose off his face to the moccasin-clad toes, he opted to lean backwards, out of the way.
As she sailed overhead, Karna shifted her spin, whipping her torso in the same direction as she was already heading. Her foot came around again, fair screaming through the air like a stooping falcon. It dawned on Phenom that she didn't neccessarily need to swing -with- her leg so much as swing the leg itself around, much of the power behind her kicks relying on the intensity of torque she could create. Leaning back still further, the white-bearded man stabbed his good arm up at his opponent's midsection.
His fist glanced its intended target, tall grass flying as his knuckles grazed her spine just above the hips. The rear length of loincloth slapped equally leathery skin with a faint sting as the fantastic midair spin continued. It was only then that the Deadman became appraised of the real danger.
Bent back so far, he was unable to shift so easily, and the stomp of Karna's left heel allowed the fringe on her legging to sear past his ear, friction of tiny tassels leaving a faint burn on the outer curve of it. Twisting up to his left, Phenom avoided another loose but swift swing of the tribeswoman's damaged leg, her planted right foot causing all her momentum to transfer into yet another spin. Though he'd so far dodged, the dark-haired woman seemed only to be getting faster, and his rising face was met by her forehead. His own nose smashed in with the force of the blow, the Deadman brought down off his feet as they snapped up into the air, attempting to continue his standing motion.
No sooner had his bare back slapped the earth than he recieved almost the full momentum of Fallen Star's entire jump, transferred into a whirlwind spin that left her slamming butt-down onto his sternum. Stars filled his vision as all the air exploded from his lungs in a mighty gust that carried along some blood from his freshly-crushed nose.
Counter-clockwise spin concluded, Karna quickly commited a crazed cartwheel. With her opponent briefly stunned, she was able to grab at his good arm, taking his wrist in her right hand as the heel of the left slammed into his throat. Larynx nearly crushed and definitely bruised, Phenom was unable to do aught but choke for another instant- which was all the dervish atop him needed.
Hopping into the air with her right leg, she rolled and slammed him, back-down, into the earth just as he had done her with a different grip less than a minute before. Her roll continued, though, left leg curled in as best she could as she lifted it into the air and stabbed down with her free hand. The knife-hand jab tore through the flesh between his lower ribs, fingers disappearing to the second knuckle in torn muscle and a welling of blood. Karna's spine arched as she planted her right foot and heaved, releasing him in an awkwards manner that dragged her fingers through the flesh between those two bones.
At first, the Deadman sailed through the air like a ragdoll, as Fallen Star assessed her own situation. Though her knee was once more intact, or something like it, and she'd managed to avoid aggravating it too much, she wouldn't be able to use the joint itself for much. She estimated she'd have a few moments of full-strength use if she pushed it, after which her leg wouldn't support anything but swinging loosely. Fortunately, she still had the other leg, and her left knee would hold up to light use.
As the gray-haired man came down, Fallen Star looked up to watch him, heterochromatic eyes narrowed in focus.
\"What if nothing means anything? What if nothing really matters?.....
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
...Or suppose <b><i>EVERYTHING</b></i> matters. Which would be worse?\"
-Calvin
\"Joke \'em if they can\'t take a f$%k.\"
-
Phenom
- Member
- Posts: 7914
- Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2001 1:00 am
- Location: Canada
OoC: Don't call it a day just yet Gale, let us play some more. This is getting good. While it ain't video game music that Selene's been reccomending, give "Sout at the Devil" by Motley Crue to this post.
IC:
In a moment entirely counter-intuitive to the last barrage he had sustained, Phenom made a very brief stay on the flat of his back, donating no precious moment to assessing his damage and pondering the nature of his retaliation. What he had seen in the brief moments of lucidity that bridged together flourishes of pugilism to hi,s body was more than enough to go off of. Fallen Star, Karna, or whatever other epithet his mind had not wrapped around, was equal to and presently above the task of bestowing a thorough thrashing on him. His strategic assault on her lower quarters had proven fruitless for the time being, but he hedged his bets that as the battle wore on she would feel the dire affects of the structural damage to her leg.
As she was raining precise blows to his face, sternum and ribcage in ascending degrees of ruthlessness and efficiency, Phenom caught himself marveling at her sustained agility despite his utter decimation of her greatest weapon. Her ability to achieve such grace through what was undoubtedly excruciating pain did something to Phenom that even in his most sadistic heyday had never been accomplished.
He had not been intimidated by her dominance, he had been inspired.
It may have been the concussive blow that caved his nose to match her own or her entire body weight crashing down upon his torso, or perhaps the savagery of his midsection being ripped to threads with her hands with shocking ease. He knew not when the decisive moment struck, but it had struck him all the same. For her to continue on through impairment that would floor any other speed demon, he immediately forgot about the severity of his splintered arm and agony along with it. Rising quickly from the blood-smeared turf where he had landed, he rotated the mound of torn flesh and powdered bone that was his arm in a windmill motion. If she could press on, so could the Deadman. Through such a menacing display, Karna had provided as much boon as bane to her opponent. She had re-taught the age-old adage of mind of matter to the bedraggled man in black, and as such had unleashed her greatest enemy. A man who simply did not care for his own well-being.
Phenom’s side was opened up wide like a ruby-shaded second mouth, black blood spewing from the abscess like water cascading the side of a mountain. His nose was almost completely caved in and blood mixed with other bodily fluid flowing from his nostrils, coating his upper lift in crimson before dripping to the ground from his upper lip. His salt-and-pepper beard was but a memory, now saturated with the product of his wounds. None of this mattered to the Deadman.
Blood to Phenom Vendetta was no longer life. Now, it was merely a way of telling time. The more spilled, the longer the battle had drawn out. Judging by the amount that seeped from gaping lacerations his anatomy over, it was only about lunch time in his twisted bloodsport of a world.
With the surprising agility of a reinvigorated soul, the Deadman flashed a maniacal smile for a microsecond before sprinting like a man-possessed towards the un-phased Fallen Star. With Phenom sprinting in a direct line towards her, the moccasin-clad warrior responded in kind and sprinted to meet him halfway. The two battered trains seemed to share the same track, destined for a collision that would leave one or both of them in shambles. At the last possible opportunity before careening off of each other, Karna took to the sky yet another time, sailing clear over the shaggy head of the Deadman, extending both her legs fiercely behind her as she descended with aims to snap her opponent’s neck with a direct and decisive blow to the skull. Phenom had just enough time to pull up quick and duck the attack, and quickly pivoted 180 degrees to parry a gale-force spinning kick from the contorting body of Fallen Star with his stronger arm. The two once again faced each other for an instant as Fallen returned to the ground, before Fallen thrust forward with a barrage of high thrusting kicks. Each moccasined foot was dealt with by a corresponding hand of the Deadman, who made sure to pair up his strong and weak limbs with the corresponding legs Fallen berated him with.
Growing tired of once again defending, Phenom opted to gamble for momentum at the expense of his positioning. With both palms facing upwards he countered the ensuing kick in Karna’s combination by thrusting her heel skyward, his sudden altering of her direction causing her to bleed off her momentum by performing a long and arcing back-flip. This slight window of opportunity was just enough for Phenom to put every fabric of his being into a striding side kick that found its target right under his target’s jaw line at the precise moment she touched down.
First came the sound -- a resounding crack of the indigo enigma’s jaw that would seriously hinder any further dialogue between the two -- and the came the fury. Charging like a rabid pit bull, Phenom lowered his shoulder and, like a human spear, violently tackled the reeling carcass of Fallen Star, sending both figures to the ground, its decimation now evident in the full-fledged sunlight that poured over The Slabs. Turf flew to either side as Phenom’s momentum caused the two to skid several feet before coming to an abrupt halt. Still mounting his adversary, Phenom’s instincts as a seasoned cage fighter in his homeland came to the forefront of Karna’s knowledge as he pinned her arms down with his knees and mercilessly rained blow after heinous blow to her already bludgeoned face as she drove knee after desperate knee into his sternum in attempt to free herself. With a look of menace-defined on his now-wretched face, the penultimate Deadman’s ground-and-pound session with a savage head-butt right between Fallen’s multi-coloured eyes. For a moment her world was reduced to fuzz as a bell rung somewhere inside her skull. Her legs ceased to thrash for but a moment in her stunned state, just enough time for the Deadman to finish off his symphony of sadism by bringing his sizable and clenched fists to their full horizontal wing span and -- as if toting a pair of massive cymbals -- Brought them at full force down upon the native combatant’s ears as if to cave in her cranium like a ripe grape.
Cave in she did not, but what Karna did experience was a brief but incredibly pronounced popping sound in both of her ears followed by absolute silence. Phenom had rolled off of her and was now several feet away, his chest heaving in attempt to intake oxygen through his battered larynx, but she could not hear his evidently labored wheezing even in close proximity. Then it hit her harder than her opponent’s fists had moments before. Her eardrums had completely ruptured. She was deaf. But that was not the true worry, as with the decimation of her inner ears would surely come a pronounced lack of balance.
Several feet away, the blood-soaked mound of humanity that was Phenom snorted in glee.
IC:
In a moment entirely counter-intuitive to the last barrage he had sustained, Phenom made a very brief stay on the flat of his back, donating no precious moment to assessing his damage and pondering the nature of his retaliation. What he had seen in the brief moments of lucidity that bridged together flourishes of pugilism to hi,s body was more than enough to go off of. Fallen Star, Karna, or whatever other epithet his mind had not wrapped around, was equal to and presently above the task of bestowing a thorough thrashing on him. His strategic assault on her lower quarters had proven fruitless for the time being, but he hedged his bets that as the battle wore on she would feel the dire affects of the structural damage to her leg.
As she was raining precise blows to his face, sternum and ribcage in ascending degrees of ruthlessness and efficiency, Phenom caught himself marveling at her sustained agility despite his utter decimation of her greatest weapon. Her ability to achieve such grace through what was undoubtedly excruciating pain did something to Phenom that even in his most sadistic heyday had never been accomplished.
He had not been intimidated by her dominance, he had been inspired.
It may have been the concussive blow that caved his nose to match her own or her entire body weight crashing down upon his torso, or perhaps the savagery of his midsection being ripped to threads with her hands with shocking ease. He knew not when the decisive moment struck, but it had struck him all the same. For her to continue on through impairment that would floor any other speed demon, he immediately forgot about the severity of his splintered arm and agony along with it. Rising quickly from the blood-smeared turf where he had landed, he rotated the mound of torn flesh and powdered bone that was his arm in a windmill motion. If she could press on, so could the Deadman. Through such a menacing display, Karna had provided as much boon as bane to her opponent. She had re-taught the age-old adage of mind of matter to the bedraggled man in black, and as such had unleashed her greatest enemy. A man who simply did not care for his own well-being.
Phenom’s side was opened up wide like a ruby-shaded second mouth, black blood spewing from the abscess like water cascading the side of a mountain. His nose was almost completely caved in and blood mixed with other bodily fluid flowing from his nostrils, coating his upper lift in crimson before dripping to the ground from his upper lip. His salt-and-pepper beard was but a memory, now saturated with the product of his wounds. None of this mattered to the Deadman.
Blood to Phenom Vendetta was no longer life. Now, it was merely a way of telling time. The more spilled, the longer the battle had drawn out. Judging by the amount that seeped from gaping lacerations his anatomy over, it was only about lunch time in his twisted bloodsport of a world.
With the surprising agility of a reinvigorated soul, the Deadman flashed a maniacal smile for a microsecond before sprinting like a man-possessed towards the un-phased Fallen Star. With Phenom sprinting in a direct line towards her, the moccasin-clad warrior responded in kind and sprinted to meet him halfway. The two battered trains seemed to share the same track, destined for a collision that would leave one or both of them in shambles. At the last possible opportunity before careening off of each other, Karna took to the sky yet another time, sailing clear over the shaggy head of the Deadman, extending both her legs fiercely behind her as she descended with aims to snap her opponent’s neck with a direct and decisive blow to the skull. Phenom had just enough time to pull up quick and duck the attack, and quickly pivoted 180 degrees to parry a gale-force spinning kick from the contorting body of Fallen Star with his stronger arm. The two once again faced each other for an instant as Fallen returned to the ground, before Fallen thrust forward with a barrage of high thrusting kicks. Each moccasined foot was dealt with by a corresponding hand of the Deadman, who made sure to pair up his strong and weak limbs with the corresponding legs Fallen berated him with.
Growing tired of once again defending, Phenom opted to gamble for momentum at the expense of his positioning. With both palms facing upwards he countered the ensuing kick in Karna’s combination by thrusting her heel skyward, his sudden altering of her direction causing her to bleed off her momentum by performing a long and arcing back-flip. This slight window of opportunity was just enough for Phenom to put every fabric of his being into a striding side kick that found its target right under his target’s jaw line at the precise moment she touched down.
First came the sound -- a resounding crack of the indigo enigma’s jaw that would seriously hinder any further dialogue between the two -- and the came the fury. Charging like a rabid pit bull, Phenom lowered his shoulder and, like a human spear, violently tackled the reeling carcass of Fallen Star, sending both figures to the ground, its decimation now evident in the full-fledged sunlight that poured over The Slabs. Turf flew to either side as Phenom’s momentum caused the two to skid several feet before coming to an abrupt halt. Still mounting his adversary, Phenom’s instincts as a seasoned cage fighter in his homeland came to the forefront of Karna’s knowledge as he pinned her arms down with his knees and mercilessly rained blow after heinous blow to her already bludgeoned face as she drove knee after desperate knee into his sternum in attempt to free herself. With a look of menace-defined on his now-wretched face, the penultimate Deadman’s ground-and-pound session with a savage head-butt right between Fallen’s multi-coloured eyes. For a moment her world was reduced to fuzz as a bell rung somewhere inside her skull. Her legs ceased to thrash for but a moment in her stunned state, just enough time for the Deadman to finish off his symphony of sadism by bringing his sizable and clenched fists to their full horizontal wing span and -- as if toting a pair of massive cymbals -- Brought them at full force down upon the native combatant’s ears as if to cave in her cranium like a ripe grape.
Cave in she did not, but what Karna did experience was a brief but incredibly pronounced popping sound in both of her ears followed by absolute silence. Phenom had rolled off of her and was now several feet away, his chest heaving in attempt to intake oxygen through his battered larynx, but she could not hear his evidently labored wheezing even in close proximity. Then it hit her harder than her opponent’s fists had moments before. Her eardrums had completely ruptured. She was deaf. But that was not the true worry, as with the decimation of her inner ears would surely come a pronounced lack of balance.
Several feet away, the blood-soaked mound of humanity that was Phenom snorted in glee.
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Repster
- Member
- Posts: 6130
- Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2000 1:00 am
- Location: J'tun ostie d'Acadien.