The Shadow Games (1 other person)

(OoC: Sup Theo. My character is in ma siggie.)

UZ hated it when he had nothing to do. Looking up at the sky, he noted that there weren’t even any birds flitting about that day. “This – is the perfect epitome of boring,” he said to nobody in particular. Things certainly had been boring recently. However, he remembered what happened that last time he was bored out of his mind, and he certainly did not want a repeat of that whole adventure with The Dome. Silently, UZ chuckled and cleared his mind, thinking of possible ways to entertain himself. Beatrice had already been played out for the day, and the immense heat was almost making her wilt. The last thing that UZ wanted was to break his mandolin, so he sadly was forced to put her away for the day.

In the distance, UZ saw a bit of a glint from a large rock. It was nothing new - that sun had been beating down upon everything the entire day – but UZ decided that there was nothing better for him to do then investigate. It was a short hike of about half a mile to reach the enormous boulder, almost the size of a house. Taking in the sight, UZ realized that the rock was made of granite, certainly not bright enough to make bright flashes from the sun. “What the-” Confused, he searched around looking for obsidian, crystal, anything that could’ve shone so brightly. Finally he caught a glimpse of another light from the very top of the rock.

As UZ scaled the boulder, a sudden sinking feeling hit him as the rock exploded into a void of pure dark energy. Paralyzed from the blast and suspended in midair, UZ was helplessly pulled into the abyss before him. What felt like a cage of black and purple energy surrounded him as he was pulled from the world above into the depths of who-knew-where. A touch of cold shocked UZ’s back, and as the void above him closed completely, he passed out.

UZ awoke still in the cage, but no longer floating, no longer in a no-man’s land. He couldn’t see out of the cage, but he could hear – he heard a roar of what sounded like thousands of people cheering in excitement. It felt almost as if it were ancient Rome when a man was to be thrown to the lions, with the screams of the crowd proving to be almost deafening.

The cage opened and UZ fell several feet to the ground, his hole preventing any major damage from being inflicted. Around him was quite the sight to behold - what had to be 10,000 demonic and spiritual creatures seated around him in a coliseum, himself in the very backside of the actual arena grounds. The arena itself was shaped like a bent in horseshoe, with every seat occupied and on the far end a large throne with a gigantic shadowy creature sitting in it.

Silence! The creature’s voice boomed throughout the stadium. No actual words were coming out of him, but the power behind the words proved that they were his. Welcome to the Shadow Games, creature from above, he said while directing his glowing red eyes towards UZ’s shrinking form.

“Who – What are you and what do you want with me?” screamed UZ in a frightened and raspy voice.

Is it not obvious? The creature shrugged and every member of the audience applauded and laughed along. You are here for our entertainment. You shall battle another creature from above until I deem a victor. If you attempt to escape, you die. The audience seemed to especially enjoy that line, with cheers erupting from all sides.

No more talk, sniveling mortal, prepare to battle! UZ looked over to the other side of the arena near where the giant spirit was sitting as another cage was lowered. As it opened, a sprawling form fell out and a deafening gong was sounded, signifying to UZ that it was time for the battle to begin.

Donik sat atop the high stone wall looking at the sun, slowly sinking into the ocean, with half-closed lids. He had climbed the stairs to the stone bird’s nest and relieved the previous guy at three that morning. It was eleven AM, and, thus far, nothing reportable had occurred. Donik growled. He could be training, or reading, or whatever else, but no, he was assigned to guard duty. Who in their right mind would attack the fortress, honestly? There were 10 cannons and four mounted MAG Rocket Launchers flanking him in that corridor alone, and countless more throughout the rest of the facility—all ready and waiting to be fired.

Nothing had attacked the Fortress directly in over a decade, so, why would that change now? If anything actually appeared while he was on duty, he would probably be stunned for a few moments from sheer surprise. There was no reason for him to be there. Nothing’s going to hap—

At that moment, something happened. A black, reflective mound, no… pyramid slowly rose from the water. After a moment or two, it stopped, reaching to about twelve feet above the surface. Donik narrowed his emerald eyes.

“What the crap…?” he muttered—pushing the red intercom button.

A crackly voice answered to the inquiry. “What is it, Tower Four?”

“There’s a sighting off the Eastern side of the island. Initial observation: looks like a black, stone, pyramid. It seems to have risen out of the sea. How should I proceed?”

Donik could hear muffled shouts and commands barked out by the voice on the intercom. He managed to make out the word, “submarine,” which was repeated often. Then, the voice came back with the same cool restraint as before.

“Commands, Tower Four: Fire one shot at it with a MAG Rocket; I have an initial response team at the ready if a situation develops.”

Donik nodded to no one.

“Roger.”

Donik quickly grappled the nearest rocket launcher, placed the obsidian pyramid in its sights, and fired, the mechanism recoiling into his hands. The rocket was off like a shot, reached the pyramid, and—

Everything went black. Donik felt this strange, simultaneous, sinking and pulling feeling playing across his body. When it stopped, he was in a… cage, he supposed, surrounded by Shadows with eyes. He reflexively reached for his staff, but one of the Shadows quickly smothered his face, and he fell asleep.

[A few hours later]

Donik’s eyes shot open. His cloak was still on, which still bore the weight of his weapons. Good. At least he had some tools to work with. Donik groaned and stretched his left arm, touching a cloud of purple smoke, which responded like cold, hard, steel. He was in a smaller cage than the one he hazily remembered from before. Then, Donik realized that his field of vision was gently swaying back and forth. Adrenaline leapt into his veins with the perilous realization, causing him to immediately sit upright.

He and his cage were dangling from the sky. Donik looked upwards. Nothing was connecting his cage to--

There was no ceiling.

Immediately, Donik skimmed his surroundings. He was in an arena filled with thousands of Shadows, all sitting in rows upon rows of comfortable looking seats, cheering and exhibiting various forms of clamor. A lot of them seemed to be fixated upon him.

This was the freakiest and most frightening sight he had seen in ages, but that didn’t even dawn upon him. His survival instinct was in full gear.

Immediately, Donik prepared himself as if for a severely outnumbered battle. All signs seemed to point toward that direction, so he went about his work quickly. He unzipped his back pocket, pulled out his scroll, unrolled it, and placed his hand upon it. His mind navigated for a moment until it reached his desired object: his steel rope. Within about fifteen seconds, he had unpacked all twenty feet of rope and threw it about his neck. Then, he quickly unsealed his electric generator and thick rubber gloves, which he then put on, tied the rope to an exposed portion of the generator, and flicked the device into “ready” position, holding the generator in his right hand and the rope with his left.

He was just about to go for his bombs when a Voice bellowed out from below him.

“Silence!”

The excited clamor stopped in an instant and Donik looked below him to examine the Voice’s source. There, standing before an enormous stone platform, was the largest and most terrifying Shadow of them all, an indescribable mass of black smoke with glowing red eyes.

“Welcome to the Shadow Games, Creature from Above.”

Donik narrowed his eyes. Wait… he’s not addressing me. The Shadow’s eyes were directed down and across from him. Donik followed the spirit’s line of sight until he spotted a--

Giant Worm…?

And the thing was shivering in fear.

“Who – What are you and what do you want with me?” it screamed, Donik’s face twitching in irritated empathy.

“Is it not obvious?”

The audience roared with cheers and laughter.

“You are here for our entertainment. You shall battle another creature from above until I deem a victor. If you attempt to escape, you die.”

Another round of cheers.

This doesn’t bode well...

“No more talk, sniveling Mortal, prepare to battle!”

At that moment, Donik’s cage freefell to about eight feet above the arena floor, past the Shadow’s mocking red eyes, then turned on its side, and opened an unseen latch, sending Donik toppling to the dirt Arena floor.

A gong resounded throughout the stadium, while Donik quickly gained his footing and locked eyes with the Worm. He grit his teeth in frustration, not in contemplation of how to fight the Worm, but how to outwit his and, assumedly, the Worm’s ghostly captors. Donik didn’t want to fight the thing if he didn’t have to, much less kill it, so improvisation was in order.

He called it, ‘Creature from Above,’ which means that he doesn’t know its origin, which means that he probably doesn’t know mine either...

Donik motioned his arm toward the Worm and held his hand in a “Stop” position. The creature noticed this instantly and stared at Donik, head cocked in puzzlement. Donik smirked slightly, now confident that the Worm wouldn’t attack him while his preliminary plan was in action, then wiped the expression off his face and replaced it with one of deathly seriousness, and turned toward the, presumed, Head Shadow.

Donik bowed low with a fliffy rotating motion of the hands, rose up, looked the Shadow right into his red eyes and said, “Greetings from the planet of Dono, your Grace. I thought that, as the Worm was given a chance to speak, I may, perhaps, be given permission to make a statement before I engage in mortal combat.”

The stadium filled with subdued murmurs, while the Head Shadow seemed to examine Donik from his stony perch, like a falcon over a rabbit.

“Your flattery is slightly amusing, but tasteless, Mortal…” The audience chuckled. “I will allow one statement. What is it you wish to say?”

Donik smiled as sincerely as he could force himself to.

“In my country, there is something quite similar to this called, ‘The Coliseum,’ in which warriors fight each other for eternal glory and fame. I, as others have and will always do, have been chomping at the bit to fight in The Coliseum to prove my worth. Now, as you have called me here, I will simply replace the glory I would have received there for the greater glory of fighting with One from beyond my knowledge of space and time.

“Thus, I have one request, for the sake of you pleasure and that of your guests.”

The Shadow stood at attention.

“Yes?”

“I would wish for your arena to match the conditions of my world’s Coliseum, which, as I can see, entail a few easily remedied adjustments.”

The Shadow growled.

“Why would this bring me pleasure, Mortal?”

Donik continued on in a faux-composed manner.

“Because it would enable me to fight to my best, and give you and your patrons that much more pleasure in the watching of it.”

A relatively excited murmuring roved throughout the crowd.

The Shadow motioned for the crowd to silence.

“What do your alterations entail?”

Donik inwardly smirked.

“For you to show myself and my opponent the full measures of your company’s power that will befall us if we attempt to escape or fail to perform to the best of our mutual abilities--as it would heighten my feeling of imminent mortal danger, thus, forcing me to perform higher than my usual standards.”

Donik was playing Russian Roulette, and he knew it. If he hadn’t thrown in the bait of a “good show” or heavy doses of high-flattery, he would probably be dead by now. At this point, all he needed was for the Shadow to be tempted one last time. He needed to know how to fight ghosts.

After a long pause, the Shadow made a slight motion with what appeared to be the foggy outline of a hand.

Immediately, an enormous black cloud hovered over the arena floor.

“This will devour you, and, if this fails, I will use my own power to crush you, down to the deplorable pit of your disgusting soul, Mortal.”

Oh.

Donik creaked out a smile.

“It invigorates me, my Liege.”

The Shadow made another motion and the cloud vanished.

“Very well. Fight.”

(OoC: Quit stalling, haha )

“Jesus, what is he doing?” UZ looked upon his supposed ‘opponent’ wondering how crazed he must be. Questioning the giant shadow was not the first thing on UZ’s list of priorities at the moment. In fact, he had half expected the man to jump him at first opportunity. “He must be a lot less angst-y than I am,” he said to himself. He hadn’t been listening to the entire conversation between the two of them, so he was immediately surprised when the entire room begin to fill with purple fog.

This will devour you, and, if this fails, I will use my own power to crush you, down to the deplorable pit of your disgusting soul, Mortal. That certainly got UZ’s attention off himself. As the fog lifted UZ got a look of stupor on his face.

“What is this guy, an idiot? He’s just asking to get his ass beaten by that shadow dude!” UZ shook his head in disbelief. Suddenly the arena itself began to morph underneath UZ. He looked down as the purple misty ground began to change into what looked like a very strange forest. The shadow man was wasting no time in getting this battle off the ground. Looking over at his opponent, he noticed an almost annoyed look on his face, as if he didn’t have the will or energy to compete in a fight today.

The battlefield will change every 10 minutes until one of you is defeated. This will be quite entertaining. Beware however that if one of you does not fall, the battlefield itself will eventually kill you. We prefer speed over elegance.

UZ sighed as he heard that news. He quickly took Beatrice - still on his back after all of that mayhem – and quietly stuffed her back in his hole. It was time to look over his opponent in case things actually began to get hairy. UZ had learned long ago never to trust anyone for more than a minute. He might be stalling now, but who knows how long it would be before he changed his mind?

The man was incredibly tall, especially compared to UZ’s 2 and a half foot size. His skin looked pale and almost green in the dark areas of the arena, and he had on him an enormous cloak. UZ was smart enough to know he may be in trouble in a fight with the guy. “He’s probably got loads of weaponry and **** stuck inside that cloak.”

The forest around them was still growing with large lush green and purple bushes and shrubs. Very few trees dotted the arena, but the ones that did were small and covered in thick foliage. It looked almost like an area that had been burned down years ago and was finally rebuilding its plant life, excepting the thick layer of grasses. UZ was out of luck here, as most of the plants were taller than he was. He slowly sunk into one of the few clearings in the area, while his opponent – he never got a name – was turning to face him.

And by the way, don’t bother feigning defeat. I will know, and you saw what I can do to you mortals. Now, I command you to begin.

UZ whispered to himself “show time,” not showing the nervousness that was quickly spreading through his body.

(OOC: So, UZ is just barely sticking out of the ground? Alright. Also, I’m assuming that all of UZ’s dialogue up there is actually his thoughts, right? Kinda confuzzling.

Here’s the current set up: Donik has, in addition to his standard armaments, a 20 foot steel rope attached to an electric generator. He is also wearing industrial rubber gloves.)

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Donik looked around at the new, lush, beautiful, scenery, with a giant worm putting on his “game face” as its centerpiece.

Nothing was going as planned. Getting out of this by dramatically turning the tables seemed virtually impossible--one can’t fight spirits, apparently. Not to mention, his obviously sentient opponent didn’t seem to understand their mutual dilemma.

Donik furrowed his brow and unfurled his rope.

Chances are, both of us will die, you gratting idiot. Classic divide and conquer.

Donik paced toward the worm, making slow and methodic steps. He smirked.

Fine. If you’re raring for a fight and can’t take the hint, then I’ll just kill you and hope these guys reward victory.

He reared back his left arm, like he was wielding a horse whip, and let loose at the Worm--flicking the generator’s “On” button in mid flight, sending a surge of electricity through the steel rope.

He was going to kill that thing, and if, after that, the Shadows decided to kill him anyway, he’d find a way to kill ghosts. He'd kill every one of them, because he was Donik.

And that was all that mattered.

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(OOC: Short, but sweet. )

(OoC: He's about 2 and a half feet up right now. He can put as much as 10 feet of himself or so out of his hole, though. And UZ talks to himself out loud a lot, so he does a lot of that. Nobody heard it but himself, but he still audibly said it.)

So it seemed UZ had been right. His opponent began to wave a very frightening looking steel rope around, sending sparks all over. Bits of the grass were wilting under the heat from the flames, but as it was seemingly well watered, it wasn’t catching aflame. UZ put on his best imposing stare and inched forward. This guy obviously doesn’t know what the hell I am, with all those quizzical looks he’s been giving me. I think I have the element of surprise at least, I’ll bet he won’t be expecting stuff to fly at him. UZ’s thoughts were interrupted as the steel whip began to crack in the air around him.

UZ began to race to his left towards a rather large group of big-leafed shrubs. Hiding under a leaf in the depths of the foliage would have to do for now to anger the man in the cloak. Rage was a great weakness and the man was obviously already ticked off, although UZ couldn’t understand why. UZ looked for something, anything he could use to fight with. The cloaked man had begun to chop at the weeds with his whip as he shouted “Come out and fight, worm!”

UZ suddenly had an idea as he looked at the lush greenery around him. “Geez, pretty direct, ain’t ya,” he shouted back. Surprised by the sudden shout, the cloaked man stopped for an instant, which was all UZ needed. He shot out of the bushes, snapped several of the foot-wide leaves from their hinges with his mind, and shot them all at his opponent. The leaves wrapped around his head and UZ began to coast across the ground as the now infuriated man ripped the leaves off with one hand and began to chase UZ down with his whip.

The crowd was laughing and cheering at the already exciting turn of events, but UZ toned them out - the last thing he needed was distraction. He had to move quickly and would probably only get one chance before the whip burned him into toast. Behind him, Donik was continuing to swing the whip, slowly getting closer and closer to searing UZ’s back with voltage.

On a dime, UZ stopped and turned around with a smirk on his face, seemingly concentrating on something. Donik raised his whip and brought it down with a crack, only to be met by a jet of water from behind UZ. The whip shot back and began to send random shocks out of itself all over the place, short circuiting. Donik let it go, and as it hit the ground the whip sizzled and died. “A well tended lawn always need a source, cloak man!” UZ laughed as he sped off in the opposite direction, revealing the stream behind him and leaving Donik dumbfounded at what he had just seen. He may not have been good at much, but UZ was definitely good at pissing people off. He hoped that that would be enough to keep himself alive before he found a way to escape.

Donik smirked again, actually smiling slightly. The Worm was an instinctive telekinetic, which was surprising. He had thought the thing’s Hole was odd, but it all made sense now--like the inner workings of a lock finally falling into place.

“Well, at least this’ll be challenging,” said Donik at a whisper.

Lets just hope the thing can’t teleport.

Donik quickly discarded his gloves, released his Staff, and held it in standard position, with both of his hands, slightly outstretched from his body. Immediately, he began to pace toward the Worm, gaining speed as he went. He sneered as he came within a few feet of striking range, UZ tensed for a reaction.

Time to see what you can do.

Just as Donik began a swing at UZ’s head, his sensory perception roared into action--there was a rock about the size of a softball rocketing toward his head. With a blurred pair of hands and arms, Donik blocked the rock with his staff and, with another smirk and glint in his eyes, redirected its path toward UZ. To Donik’s chagrin, he Worm easily avoided it and sped away.

Donik chased and caught up to him, swinging his staff in what seemed like one fluid motion, moving all around his body--attacking UZ from every angle. He had actually managed to hit the worm a few times, but, surprisingly, there didn’t seem to be any “give.”

As Donik continued to attack, preventing UZ from escaping his range with his Staff, he furrowed his brow in concentration, leaving a fraction of the fight to his reflexes.

The thing, apparently, had some sort of natural defense involving either an already present hardness to its skin, or that its skin hardened temporarily, which was interesting, but not nearly as surprising as the telekinesis. It actually, sort of, made sense, considering that the thing was a Worm.

He would figure it out, and a way around it, eventually, but now was a good time to test its overall strength and mental acuity.

Donik returned all of his mental faculties to the fight, looking upon the Worm, which seemed to be slightly more tired than when he began the barrage. With his next movement, he moved the bottom right hand side of his staff toward the left side, to it, of the Worm’s enormous head. UZ swayed to the right, Donik’s left to avoid it, while Donik immediately went into a strike from his left side, much stronger and faster than the last, as he was left handed.

This one was headed for the Worm’s eyes.

He swiftly brought his staff down upon UZ’s head, which the worm saw and began to evade. However, that was not all. In mid-strike, Donik made what was now considered to be one of his trademark moves: a “Mid-Swing Release.” Donik, through his Staff’s mental link, released the three and-one-half foot blade from the butt-end of the staff that was, in a fraction of a second, about to miss UZ’s eyes by about one inch.

Now, a one inch miss was about to turn into a possible death-blow--all in an instant.

(OoC: I post too fast. )

Grand, I was right. UZ’s guess that the man he was fighting would have a plethora of weaponry was right on the money, and now he was fighting with some sort of long staff. The hits that the man was delivering were hard, but the worm’s natural toughness was able to deflect most of the blows. Several small black bruises began to appear on his lower body directly underneath his spot where most of the harder hits had registered. UZ knew that his lower body wouldn’t be a problem if he could keep his head all right.

Suddenly during a particularly swift barrage of swipes from the tall man, a blade leapt from the end of the shaft heading straight toward UZ’s eye. “Yipe-” was all he had a chance to yell before the blade swiftly careened past his eye. Thinking quickly, the blade was grabbed out of midair by UZ and shot back toward the staff, deflecting a sure blow to his head. In the moment of recharge that the man took to prepare his next swing UZ ducked through his legs, speeding over the ground to a place he could regain some energy. A large shrub proved closest, and as UZ sped by it he snagged a few large purple leaves in his mouth.

UZ quickly ate and swallowed them, feeling renewed and ready to face more. A gleam shone in his eye as he grabbed and threw a small army of stones toward his foe, all of them being easily dodged and swatted aside. As UZ continued, he focused his efforts on a larger thorny shrub behind the approaching opponent. The thorny mess shot towards him as UZ continued the rocky barrage. The ol’ bait n’ switch… Hope this works.

To UZ’s dismay, the man quickly noticed the brush approaching him and leapt out of the way, giving UZ only enough time to smash a pebble into the side of his neck before running away again. The next rock thrown by UZ barely made it halfway to his foe before exploding into a purple mist. “Wha?” UZ looked around him as the land began to switch and meld away from the grassy landscape. He looked and saw his opponent doing the same.

The lead shadow laughed as he looked at the confusion between the fighters.. It was time for the first change of the landscape.