The Honor Circle (IC) [Fa Teen, for language]

[ardaron]

Now that Ardaron knew that Stygian wasn't drunk, he watched the battle with renewed interest.  Watched Stygian disappear, and a hand grab Keaton's bum.  He gave a nervous almost-laugh, but it was almost instantly sucked back into his lungs as a gasp at what happened next.  Keaton swung her mace, and Stygian's head was obliterated!  The dragon stood up from his seat in alarm, suddenly clutching the feather that he still held in his hand, so tightly that the stem snapped.  Then his hand went limp, and he let the feather drop to the floor.

But wait a minute.  Something wasn't right.  As the shock of seeing someone 'die' began to wane slightly, Ardaron's sense of reason came back.  The shadows were still moving, he realized.  And Stygian still felt alive to Ardaron's senses.  Soon, the shade's body began to reform, and Ardaron smiled an approving smile; Stygian sure knew how to bluff.  Apparently, Stygian bluffing drunk had not been enough to teach Ardaron that lesson.  Realizing he was still standing, he glanced at the other patrons of the bar, feeling a twinge of embarrassment as he realized he had overreacted to a false alarm, and sat down again.

The battle continued, Stygian's re-formed hands grabbing both Keaton's arms.  Ardaron began to wonder if the shade could be defeated at all.  Ardaron found himself mentally rooting for Keaton; if she could beat Stygian, it would prove that the shade wasn't as invincible as he seemed.

[Sunblink]

Keaton felt a growl escape her as her hand was easily ensnared by Stygian, her muscles tensing as she struggled, yanked, tugged, and attempted to twist her way out of his powerful grip. Gritting her teeth, the glow returned to her eyes, flooding them with incandescent electricity in a way almost similar to how the light spread out from Stygian's own eyes. Nearly distracting her from her rage was the feeling of Stygian's body shifting somehow, modifying itself so instead of his hands, a pair of ichorous tentacles were gripping her. Keaton gazed in horror down at the tendrils, straining and pushing to jerk herself free, her glare growing all the more intense as she glowered down at them.

Stygian garnered her attention once more, her still-glowing eyes snapping up to meet his in a panicked rage. Suddenly, much to her shock, she was released simultaneous to a fluid movement of his arm--

--and it hooked right into her, sweeping her right across the arena with a shriek. Keaton slammed against the wall, back arching, muscles clenched, as she slumped to the ground in a shuddering heap. Catastrophe clattered to the earth beside her, rolling a few inches away from the jackal. Keaton groaned and tried to ease herself back onto her feet, still reeling from the lingering pain stabbing at her throbbing spine. Dirty blonde hair dangled like a cowl before her bowed head, concealing her expression thoroughly as it went from agonized, to stunned, then at last to frighteningly murderous.

Purple sparks crackled along Keaton's obsidian-painted nails defensively, bending and twisting like fiery snakes. Bending, serpentine wisps of livid violet danced up her arms, her legs, her tail, until they focused like a spasming web over her spine, which began to ripple and quake erratically. With an undetermined blast of light, a pair of leathery, yellow wings tore themselves loose from Keaton's back, slipping through flesh and fur effortlessly and stretching, free, toward the air with groping claws. Spirals of black covered the muscle and sinew of the wings in a manner similar to the markings on her body, sloping from the fingers of their claws to the tips of the membrane. Shortly after the appearance of their brethren, smaller, petite wings flexed from Keaton's scalp.

Gripping her head, Keaton used the handle of Catastrophe as leverage as she rose to her feet, sweeping her hair back and out of her face. The glow in her eyes, which had extinguished upon collision with the wall, had returned, guttering dangerously until it completely illuminated her face with blinding white light. "Not bad," she said, flashing a wicked, likely forced smirk at Stygian, "But you're going to need to do better than that..."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

With the hit having connected, Stygian moved back over the ground to the ring's edge, the shadows snaking and circling around his feet. He took a simple position, standing just a bit sideways from Keaton, his stance casual and his arms folded across his chest, while his wings shifted and moved to a closer, less unwieldy position.
   Then, he stopped, and looked up as the woman began changing. He could feel the power coalescing off her, feel the concentration of it and the almost electric sensation when her previously held back powers came into action. He had sensed darkness in her before, smelled and felt it, and he had guessed at her power too. But still...
   The fallen arced his neck and bowed his head forward just a little bit, shifting his feet into a more comfortable stance. His expression went from chill, to surprise, to exaltation. And then, when the light in her eyes returned in full force, he laughed with joy.
   "Yes! Spirit. Heart! That, I wish to see," he called, and laughed again. Then, his face settled into that chilly smile again, and he said; "Amoto quaeramus seria ludo..."*
   Then, without warning, his right backwing morphed, and he made a sort of striking motion against the ground with his right hand. The wing swiped down into the stone under him, and his shadow stretched out...
   The next second, he raised his arm in a sweeping motion, and with a series of whipping sounds the surface of the stone erupted into dozens of black spikes, all of them heading straight for Keaton.

*(Jokes aside, let us return to serious matters)

[Sunblink]

Now on her feet, Keaton stood where she was, shuddering occasionally with her heavy breathing, and the jabs of white-hot pain that assaulted her abused back. The emergence of her wings had numbed the pain, but its slow descent from agonizing to tolerant was torturing her. Some part of her felt relieved, however, that she had endured far worse in the past, while another seethed as it was reminded that there was probably more to come.

Lopsided smirk still on her face, which was bathed in the luminous energy radiating from her eyes, Keaton straightened her posture the best she could and readied her mace. Witnessing her resolve, Stygian's attitude had apparently been uplifted somewhat, as his boisterous laugh indicated. Not long after his declaration, his composure drifted back down to where it was, the icy smile on his maw returning.

His wing twisted itself about as Stygian gestured to the ground, his shadow morphing and convulsing. Suddenly, a torrent of pikes emerged from the earth with a final swoop of his wing, darting right for Keaton. Teeth sinking into her lower lip, Keaton swung her arm around in a wide arc, purple-bruise light surging from her palm. Lightning flashed, thunder crackled and with a sweep of Catastrophe, a massive shell of pitch black energy weaved itself before her, the spikes crashing against it with a collective screech. The surface of the shield buckled slightly, wavering, but it managed to endure the entirety of the onslaught before it vanished altogether.

Hefting Catastrophe, Keaton leapt forward, wings spread and fresh energy collecting in the white symbol carved into the top of Catastrophe's base. Gripping her mace tighter, Keaton swung her arm back around, sparks flinging from the spikes of the mace's globe, then thrust it up into the air. Halos of light pulsed around Catastrophe, concentrating into the very top of the uppermost spike on the club, then contracting once Keaton swept her arm downward. The air surrounding her tensed, retracted--then rushed as a spear of black lightning lanced out, dashing toward Stygian like a crackling pillar.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Stygian snarled shortly when he felt his attack being deflected. Still, he had felt it take, and if he could just apply more pressure... come closer...
   Then, he felt power surge between the woman and the mace. Had he really had vision in this form, one would have seen his eyes dart, his attention shifting for a split second as he made a connection. He had no time to stand around though, before her attack came; a black spike of power, blinding to his senses. He flowed and dashed to the side, using all his speed. Still, he had the upper hand. Still, he could take her out, with just a bit of maneuvering. Separate them...
   The way that Stygian had to move, a substantial part of him still felt some of that blast, the static around it enough to sizzle and surge through the darkness to his core. He didn't pay it any heed though. Trailing darkness and shifting light, he speeded like a bullet to the side and circled up on Keaton. Then, from about fifteen feet away, he nearly stopped and shifted his momentum into his darkness. His wings broke up and morphed into a good dozen large, almost serrated tentacles, blurring through the air as they lashed out at Keaton and her mace, aiming to knock them both very separate ways. Stygian himself almost leaned through the air as he leapt, smoothly moving to do a spinning kick to Keaton herself.

[Cogidubnus]

 "Poor dear..." Cog said, his eyes dancing with mirth. "I wonder, has she figured it out yet?" He tilted his head and grinned strangely at the fight, entranced. If she can beat the shade...that would be surprising indeed. he thought.
  Giles sat in stoic silence, alone with his thoughts and his smoke. Looking closely, one could see the fire smoldering in his eyes beginning to catch...and his mouth was beginning to grin involuntarily. He wondered if the shade could even be truly be beaten with such magics...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

"Sebastian vs Keaton: Fight!" is heard, quietly, from the, as yet, anonymous pool player, as the two move into the circle. {0} No further attention is granted, although...


After a minute, it becomes apparent that the strokes of the cue are in time with the strikes of the players. As Keaton is bounced off the circle itself, several balls are sunk. Perhaps more attention is there than is immediately obvious. Perhaps... and perhaps not.



{0} Hey, you guys posted this much overnight, I get to throw my moves in when I like.

[Sunblink]

Much to Keaton's eternal frustration, the bolt of lightning which had rocketed toward Stygian was swiftly and effortlessly dodged, the electrical spear sailing past and crashing in a glorious flurry of sparks and ripples against the wall on the other side of the periphery of the circle. Angry, but hardly shaken, Keaton pulled back, unaware of Stygian's revelation up until it was too late: with a barely unseen movement within a sudden, tumultuous storm of mixed darkness and light, he appeared a few feet away from her. Keaton's head jerked to the side, struggling to follow Stygian--it was impossible to tell where her eyes trailed after him, as her pupils had disappeared in the glow suffusing her eyes.

Stygian's wings began to twist and morph again, this time taking on the appearance of dozens of razor-sharp tentacles. Narrowing her eyes, Keaton began to lift Catastrophe into a defensive position, simultaneous to the moment the tendrils launched themselves at her. Unfortunately, one of the tentacles managed to snap itself across Keaton's wrist, loosening her grip on her beloved mace. Following a split second after, yet another lashed out and after a quick struggle, both mace and jackal were thrown seperately to the side, Keaton managing to land on her feet a good distance away from where her mace clattered. Snarling, Keaton moved to run to Catastrophe, only for Stygian to go flying at her with a powerful roundhouse kick. Once more, she was caught off-guard, his leg catching into her side and flinging her back, her backside crashing against the ground.

Now unarmed, Keaton rolled back to her feet, concentrating deeply. Suddenly, the tips of her wings began to spasm and twist, shaping themselves almost like clay as they elongated, forming necks, ears, heads...

Within seconds her wings were now sporting several, strangely jackal-shaped heads, each one sporting frilled ears, glassy, brown eyes, and covered in stretching coats of gnarled black, much like their owner's. Each one grit their teeth simultaneously, chattering and snarling at the person who dared to harm their mistress. Looking back and forth briefly, Keaton's gaze landed squarely on the mace discarded to the side, her body reacting involuntarily as her feet started to carry her to her fallen weapon.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

This was it, Stygian thought. If there was any time where it was right to go out with force, then this was it. Moving smoothly, he aimed to place himself next to the mace, before and in the way of keaton. Much like she now called on her full strength for a close-in fight, he too prepared to go all-out, should she decide to attempt to attack him at point blank. Now, much of him hoped she would not. What he had mentioned back in the bar about his techniques was true...
   Behind Stygian, the swirling darkness thickened and intensified as he began calling out the full of it. In short, he was soon immersed in a veritable swamp of tentacles and tendrils, their black surface serrated and shifting. There were maws and heads among them as well, but hardly anything like the jackal heads of Keaton's. They looked more like horrid parodies of black-eyed, skull-like human faces, with long, fanged jaws. And rather than grit their teeth they seemed to scream soundlessly...
   Stygian moved, relatively slowly, amid this mass of darkness. He looked down at Catastrophe, studying the mace, while his darkness moved to cut Keaton off. His fingers flexed, and he readied...

[Sunblink]

Just as Keaton closed in on the last few feet separating her from her mace, Stygian appeared before her, effectively blocking her from her target. Clenching her fists, Keaton's jackal-headed tentacles reared back on their craning necks and snarled threateningly at Stygian, trilling aloud in sharp, shrill screeches. Out of my way, Keaton's narrowed eyes and bared fangs seemed to say, or I'll tear you to shreds.

This did virtually nothing to faze Stygian, however, who merely prepared himself for what would become the climax of their battle. Distanced from Catastrophe, it seemed as though Keaton was completely unarmed, left defenseless...

But that couldn't be further from the truth.

The spasming darkness encircling Stygian began to churn and thicken into impenetrable, atramentous nothing, transforming itself into a vile, lurid puddle around his body. Tendrils emerged from the mishmash of shadows, containing oddly skull-shaped, horrific faces of some kind, shrieking in an unheard voice.

Keaton folded her arms over her chest and lowered her head, dirty blonde hair falling over her head in a tumbling shroud. Slowly, it seemed as though her surroundings were oozing onto her body, spreading outward from the outlines of her blackened markings like a gooey net of ichorous sable, smothering her in a manner quite similar to how the lines on Stygian's face materialized. Webs of black stretched themselves taut over her wings, the tips of her hair began to dye themselves an obsidian black, and every inch of yellow on her was soon drenched in shadowy ink...

Her wings unfurled from her body, which was now coated from head to toe in nothing but pure, lifeless black, as though she had torn the shadows from the ground and shrouded herself in a palpable blanket. Layers of sable hugged every muscle and curve on her body almost like a second skin, rippling as she flexed and moved, then tightening altogether so it assumed a more stable state. The only source of light on her was the glow of her eyes, and the strange, white outline that had appeared on her right hip, resembling the sigil on Catastrophe, which was now in Stygian's possession, and the carving on her shoulder. Smiling a fanged, serrated smirk of pure, insane malice, Keaton pulled her arms back, the heads of her tentacles disappearing within the rippling expanse of her wings. The tips of the elongated tendrils started to sharpen automatically, as though chiseled away by an invisible stone, sparking with ferocious, livid energy.

She was now ready.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Yet another transformation came over the girl, and Stygian's eyes narrowed. It was the same power, the same person, but... The darkness in her was more pronounced now, much more. He did not know how she hoped to achieve victory this way, but she was sure to have some sort of trick up her sleeve.
   Regardless, Stygian had already let out the full of his own power, that which he controlled. Now, if he needed to be more threatening to make this girl realize that she had no hope of winning if she persisted, he could be so.
   Catastrophe seemed to lift of itself, floating up next to Stygian, carried by the darkness. It was placed just at arm's length from him, and he lifted his hand to touch it, trailing fingers across its surface.
   "How do you think that I earned my power, sweets?" he asked. "Dreaming too many bad dreams?" He laughed sarcastically. Slowly, the claws of his fingers extended, until they were the size of kitchen knives. The razor-sharp edges played over the mace. "I can tear life and magic asunder, both as easily..." What he really meant to say should not have passed her.
   The fiend turned against Keaton, and looked at her with those hollow eyes.
   "You have no hope of winning this, whatever power you bring. The dark is mine."

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

The pool player starts to sing, quietly, to himself, a little ditty about shades of grey...

[Gareeku]

"Thank you very much." the wolf replied to the compliments he received from the others as he sat on a barstool, leant against the bar top as he let Risky tend to his injuries. He hadn't noticed up until now, but the injuries he had received in the fight were beginning to make their presence felt through dull aches and pains.

It was then, however, that his attention was turned to the fight. Aisha's and Stephen's words would fall on deaf ears, as the wolf was keeping his full attention on the battle inside the circle. He didn't mean to be rude, but there was something taking his notice. It was Keaton.
There is something worrying about that woman... Gareeku thought to himself, looking on with narrowed eyes as he observed the almost insane expressions that Keaton sported on her face.

[Aisha deCabre]

"This 'gal' is a friend," the panther answered simply and stood up, having decided to answer for the wolf as his attention was trained back on the fight that was now starting again...he couldn't be blamed, and to her relief at least he was getting his injuries looked at.  She grabbed her drink and finished it in a gulp, then took a seat nearby at the bar and placed the empty glass there with another nod of thanks to the bartender.  "Though I guess here, friends are as much rivals.  You too are to be commended on that fight," she complimented with a polite smirk before following their gaze back to the Circle.

She was perhaps as amused as the others at first about the jackal girl battling someone who appeared to be drunk...but as it started to heat up, Aisha was having some second thoughts about judging the fighters...both of them.  Her eyes narrowed at the hits and misses, dangerously powerful, and at times just plain wierd.  Something tells me that before the day is through, that place is going to look like a tornado went through it.

[Sunblink]

In the face of Stygian's increasing intimidation, Keaton only continued to grin, her already questionable sanity having deteriorated with her physical state's transformation. White teeth flashed in whiter light between blackened lips, her smile never faltering in the slightest, up until Stygian's statement, in which it fell nearly instantly. Ephemeral eyes followed the movement of her mace as it levitated into the air, hovering beside Stygian's face. Part of her wanted to snatch Catastrophe as it cried out to her, begging to be returned to its mistress--while another presence kicked and screamed within it, rattling at the shadowy cage of the weapon's interior.

Keaton had long learned to ignore that presence, and even enjoy its suffering. After all, 'he' deserved it.

"You know, I was assuming you had earned it the same way I had earned mine," Keaton said in an echoing, detached voice that was no longer hers, seemingly radiating through the air, "Unless you have a story to tell me."

In retaliation to Stygian's elongated nails, Keaton lifted one of her tentacles up before her, its sharpened edge glinting behind the layers of tangible darkness coating it. Once more did the virulent smile return to her face, a grin that was not of benevolence or gaiety, but all poison. She looked protectively at Catastrophe for a moment, watching Stygian's fingers play tantalizingly along the painstakingly carved, gnarled decorations.

"I need to give you some credit, however... I've never fought anybody quite like you," That was all the respect Keaton allowed in her voice. "It'll be a shame to knock you down. We'll have to see who the darkness belongs to."

And with that, Keaton pulled back her serrated tentacles, which all began to gleam with erratically pulsing halos of electric, corrupt energy. Her eyes narrowed, her hands orchestrated the movements of her tentacles, and with a roar, she thrust them forward with as much speed as she could manage, lightning bursting from the surfaces of the tentacles in fluctuant, tempestruous waves.

The time for fun and games was over.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[TheGreyRonin]

 Risky finished tending Gareeku's wounds and smiled softly at him. "There we.." Her voice trailed off as she realized his attention was fully on the battle, and turned to see what had him so engrossed.

Her jaw dropped slightly as she saw the transformation Keaton had undergone. In a heartbeat her attention was riveted, and her hands began to tremble. "Oh please, don't let it be one of those..." she whispered softly.

Stalker watched the battle avidly, his eyes glued to the fight. He had stopped leaning against the pillar earlier, and was now tensed, as attentive as a tiger watching a deer edge within range.

Syphon stopped cracking his knuckles, stood, and went to the bar. His face still a mask of cold rage, he grabbed a bottle of beer from behind the bar, knocked the cap off on the rail, and drank half of it in one draught. He went back to his table carrying the beer, and went back to ignoring the other patrons entirely.

[ardaron]

Ardaron winced as Keaton was thrown into the wall of the circle.  Now that he had decided to hope for her to win, he didn't like to see her get hurt.  But she seemed to get up fairly quickly, so the dragon relaxed.

Ardaron leaned forward in his seat as more magical abilities began to come into play, Keaton's first obviously magical move being to reveal her wings (Ardaron was far enough away that he hadn't immediately noticed the electric light in the jackal's eyes).  So, Keaton had magical abilities, too.  For whatever reason, this didn't surprise Ardaron at all, although he briefly wondered why she would choose now to reveal her wings, since she didn't seem to be intending to use them.

This didn't occupy his attention for long, however, as the battle was moving along at a rapid pace.  Stygian created black spikes from his controlled darkness, which Keaton blocked with a shield as black as Stygian's shadows.  Keaton responded with a lightning bolt made of darkness that lanced from her mace.  At this point, Ardaron had accepted the fact that non-Paleon magic could combine different elements without difficulty, but he still didn't understand /how/.  Keeping at least some of his attention still on the battle, he decided to amuse himself with a little experiment; the prevalence of multiple-element magic in this world was too much for his curiosity.  He created a tiny sliver of darkness, and tried to endow it with the properties of electricity.  Immediately, the electrical energy separated from the darkness, refusing to do anything more than touch it, and even then, unwillingly.  Both the darkness and the spark of energy Ardaron summoned were tiny, making them easier to work with and harder for the other patrons of the bar to notice, for Ardaron wanted to be able to surprise his opponent when it came time to battle.  The Omni Dragon kept at his experiment for a few seconds, then tried a tiny spark of fire instead of electricity, using an element he was more familiar with.  Still nothing; the two elements stubbornly remained as separate entities, and Ardaron could not make either one take on any of the fundamental properties of the other.  There really was just something fundamentally different about the kind of magic Paleon Dragons used, he decided, as he dispelled the spark of fire and bit of shadow, watching the battle with renewed interest.

He hadn't really missed much; he had kept some of his attention on the fight, so he had seen Stygian dodge Keaton's strike, transform his wings into tentacles, and throw Keaton away from her mace.  As the dragon finished his short experiment, he watched as Keaton's wings transformed, growing heads; followed by a more drastic transformation of her entire body.  He'd never heard of cubi, so he just thought she was an expert at shape-shifting magic.

[Stygian]

Stygian looked at the jackal as she seemed to be swallowed up by the darkness she possessed. And he cursed. It was enough that he had been bluffing when it came to the mace, but now the girl seemed to be losing herself to her darkness. And this was all becoming very irritating. No holding back, was that what she was saying? He wasn't holding back. But he hadn't moved yet.
   That was exactly what he did now, at last. Move. The darkness was truly his advantage, after all, despite what she might say. She drew on dark power. Shadows loomed around them. All of it was perfect.
   Stygian's movement was very hard to see. The way that he slipped between shadows, the way he blurred and sped, leaving trails almost like afterimages... The darkness didn't move precisely with him either. It broke up around Keaton's assault, the lightning coalescing off it and Stygian growling a bit at the pain that flared. But nevertheless, it moved along with him, according to his directions. And him with it.
   It took less than half a second for him to move out of position and make the first strike, a tentacle whip to crush Keaton's tentacles from the side. Then, they began coming even faster, an assault from claws, tentacles, fists and feet from all around. He moved with practiced fluidity, mixing elements of Kung Fu with Shaolin Long Fist and Tae Kwon Do. And at the same time, he was lashing at her, barbed whips of darkness not yet formed to spikes, meant to wound and lacerate, but not yet impale or tear asunder.
   "There is a fundamental difference between you and I," he shouted, standing still after a swipe, just before blurring around her again. "You've just taken your power," he hissed, and threw an arm against her with full force from the side, a broad sweep that would have made a car fly. Then, he stopped, and glared at the jackal with dark eyes whose surface seemed to glow like a corona, sheer power condensating around them.
   "I have paid for mine!"

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

o/~ "thirty pieces of silver, thirty shekels of shame..."

[Sunblink]

Stygian was moving now, his body blurred and unfocused, trailing behind illusory shades of himself as he sped by. Keaton whirled around to follow Stygian's movements as the darkness seemed to dissolve around her attacking tentacle, its brethren rearing back with barely-contained magic sparking at the daggered tips. Before she could react, Stygian lashed out first, one of his own tentacles smashing against hers, breaking one and returning it to its normal state with one successful hit.

Keaton barely reacted to this reversal, the darkness cloaking her evaporating some of the pain. It was why this was one of her favorite tactics in the midst of battle: it absorbed some of the damage, some of the pain, and helped her fight longer. However, no matter how much speed she possessed, it would do little to help her from the bombardment that ensued. Keaton withdrew, struggling to counter and deflect some of his assaults, but failing--they were just coming too fast, at a rate too unpredictable. A veritable blitzkrieg of tentacles snapped and whipped at her, met with swift stabs and jabs from Keaton's undamaged tentacles.

Several of the hits penetrated her frantic defenses, tearing through the cloak of darkness like it were a carpet of magma, flinging beads of oily substance about. Mingled glimpses of red-stained yellow filtered through the lacerations, only to be sealed back up again by the shell that contained it, which repaired itself quickly, concealing the scratches and gashes that the onslaught of Stygian's tentacles created.

Within a second, Stygian started to blur around her again, only for an unexpected swing of his arm to sweep out, just as her head turned around to face him--

--then it smashed right into Keaton's side, piercing right through the very shadows that enveloped her. Shards of caliginous nothing went flying around where Stygian's arm struck, floating weightlessly for a split second in the air before they disappeared, particle by particle. Keaton herself went flying easily--after all, Keaton only weighed 110 pounds in comparison to a car--and smashed against the wall of the ring. More chips of darkness sailed off of her, deconstructing the skeletal shield that protected her and steadily exposing her body beneath it, as though it were a collapsing jigsaw puzzle. Keaton slumped to the ground, clutching her head with a partially-unshrouded arm, groaning, her tentacles lying limp akin to lifeless serpents around her.

"Auugh..." Keaton moaned, voice as distorted as her physical form. The shadows around the place where Stygian's hit impacted was falling apart, revealing yellow fur dirtied with an ugly, gigantic bruise swelling beneath her skin.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

"Finish Her!" the pool player chuckles to himself...

[Stygian]

While still, Stygian's form took on some solidity again, the darkness instead coalescing out from him and forming those wings and tentacles again. He walked slowly over against Keaton, the smile on his face replaced by a bitter, cold stare.
   "I have died for this. And it is all that I am," he said, a statement just as icy as his face, and as horrid as his voice. He motioned with his hand, and threw Catastrophe before the prostrate jackal. "But I'm glad, since there's a lot to be," he murred, some of the smile returning to his face, though not to his eyes. He flexed his fingers with some cracks, still pacing slowly over against her.
   He stopped at about five feet away from her, the dark that snaked around and behind him almost reaching out to her.
   "I can keep this up. So if you wish to continue, please do. But I have proved my point already, so I won't be fighting for fun..." he said, and then just looked, not moving an inch while the darkness seethed and snaked around him.

[Boog]

Near where the rules of combat were written, there was a flash of red light and a sound like fireworks in reverse. Of course, such things rarely happen for their own sake, and so Tock was now standing near the poster on the wall holding an old, musty looking tome.
"Aha! So that's what that spell does! Gabriel will be so pleased that I tested it for him..." He looked around, smiling as he brushed soot off of his suit and face, "Now, whatever did it do?" then, of course, he took note of the poster.
Honor circle? Hmm.... Face cracking into a yet further smile, Tock picked up his bag of spare parts off of the floor where it had fallen after he'd arrived and strode toward the bar, turning gears visibly moving under his jacket.

[Sunblink]

Keaton continued to lie where she was, cursing fitfully in her head and snarling against the hand that cradled her head. The mantra of expletives that circulated in her mind drowned out everything surrounding her, from the rapid, jackhammering palpitations of her heart, to the jeering of that stranger, and the footsteps of Stygian as he approached. Glowing eyes widening, Keaton's downtrodden head looked up at Stygian, too delirious-looking to appear defiant, or smug, or as insane as she did before.

Catastrophe was flung to the ground before her, the voice she felt radiating from it uttering a low grunt as it collided with the floor. Keaton looked at it for a moment, feeling her rage boiling up inside of her, sizzling up her insides like crawling acid. Narrowing her eyes venomously, Keaton tried to lift her tentacles again, sharpening them down, only for them to fluctuate in and out of their acicular state. It was just too hard to focus, it was as though someone had dragged a giant stormcloud into her head...

Finally, Keaton glanced back down to Catastrophe, her eyes lingering there for a long, decisive moment. She lifted her hand and snapped her fingers.

The darkness covering her started to peel off of her, slowly stripping away in massive, foggy clumps. Within a matter of seconds, every trace of shadow had disappeared, revealing the cuts that criss-crossed along her body, and the gruesome bruise on Keaton's hip. With her atramentous armor gone, Keaton curled her back in, her wings beginning to sink into her shoulder blades until they, along with their diminutive spawn atop her head, disappeared completely.

Her transformation finished, Keaton leaned back, stared up at Stygian, and finally said, "You're not a half bad fighter..." she forced a lopsided smirk, obviously as stiff as her begrudging words were. "You win."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Stygian might not have looked it, but he was a bit on edge, until finally the blackness that covered Keaton's skin began peeling back. At the final confirmatory words from the jackal his stone-like face softened somewhat, though it was hard to see in his form.
   The skull-like faces and tentacles that whipped around him began retreating inward, fading away into his darkness at the same rate it slipped back in under his skin, and the shadows of the surroundings lightened. The dull grey of his skin itself spread out over more than just some of his upper body and face as well, cracks of darkness sealing up as it regained a more vivid color, along with his hair, and some darkness solidifying into strips of black, melding together and re-forming his clothes. He walked, as smoothly and silently as ever, up to Keaton, and then bent forward again, reaching down a wrapped arm and hand.
   "You look like you could need some help," he said, and actually smiled. "And you're none too shabby yourself."

[Sunblink]

As the darkness bastardizing the area started to subside, Keaton took a moment to curb the throbbing irritating the back of her head and the centers of her numerous cuts, more importantly the stabbing sensation that stemmed from the bruise she cradled. She watched Stygian's physical appearance warp back to its normal state, along with the rest of the world around her, with a piqued fascination, too detached by the antagonizing injuries to really observe. Idly, as she inspected Stygian briefly, she wondered if she had actually succeeded in striking him in any way.

Ah well, she would do better the next time. While Keaton could be a sore loser, she could respect a good opponent when she could, and at least conspire to do better the next time--if she lived, that was.

Keaton took Stygian's hand and allowed him to assist her to her feet, cracking her wingless back and shifting her shoulder-blades a little further apart. "Erf. Maybe a little," Keaton admitted, looking at the bruise with a raised eyebrow. "Really clocked me there."

Off to the side, perhaps within or outside of Stygian's vision, one of Keaton's tentacles, sporting a jackal-head, slipped out from her hip just over the belt of her pants and dipped down, scooping up Catastrophe with its maw and returning it to her waiting hand. Just as quickly as it came, the tentacle retreated back into her body, and it disappeared for good.

"Christ, I think I need a beer."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[TheGreyRonin]

Stalker relaxed from his aggressive posture, realizing Keaton wasn't what he had first thought. He moved with an odd walk off to one side of the circle again, like a man walking through deep mud. He retracted the tendrils he had sank deep into the sandy earth through his feet.
Warping matter inside himself, he began to harness the power necessary to the task at hand.

Nodding to Stygian and Keaton as they left the circle, he glanced up for a moment. "They go unstable when they're scribed. You might want to stay out of it for a bit."

He drew his blade in one smooth, swift motion, and began steadily slicing at the ground. It picked up speed quickly, becoming a silvery blur that arced down to just graze the sand. Runed shapes began to take form, drawn by Stalker's blade, which began to him and glow as it moved as though alive.

The first circle began to flash, bursts of light pulsing outwards from the center as energy was drawn from it. It formed a bluish nimbus in the air, then flowed towards Stalker's blade like swirling smoke drawn towards a fan, sinking into the ground.

With a flare of energy, a second circle rose from the sand. Colored charges began arcing along it with the humming sound of a million maddened hornets. The sand itself glowed and flowed like water, then suddenly stopped as Stalker's sword stopped moving.

The sound died at the same time, leaving Stalker standing next to a second circle, this one seemingly carved from obsidian and giving off a slight greyish mist as it stabilized.

The grey-clad swordsman sheated his sword carefully, breathing heavily as though he had just moved a mountain by sheer will. He turned and nodded to Stygian and the others.

"Go ahead," he said in a weary voice. "It should be safe now."

At the bar, Risky had closed her mouth and watched as Stalker summoned another circle up from the depths. "It never ceases to- Hello?" she said, as she caught sight of the newcomer as he appeared.

[Stygian]

Stygian almost picked up Keaton, but decided that she'd neither appreciate it nor need it, so he just slung her arm over his shoulder, and supported her, having to bend a bit to make up for the ten inch height difference. He snorted at her remark about beer, thinking that much better drinks were in order.
   He almost began walking back to the bar, but couldn't keep himself from stopping when the creature that had introduced itself as stalker began working. While the signs were unfamiliar, Stygian's senses and knowledge itself guaranteed that he could make out what was really going on. After all, if there was anything that he knew...
   When Stalker stopped, Stygian whistled a bit. Now, there was some really complex and powerful stuff. And yet, it only seemed to be a link, a small part that tied into a much, much larger chain or system. The kind of thing that would be the result of long and hard research, and much work. It did live up to expectations.
   Then, he quickly turned, and soon he was taking the limping Keaton into the restaurant, helping her to a chair, and then heading for the counter himself.

[Boog]

"Ah! Hello there," Tock said with a jerky bow to Risky as he reached the bar, "It would appear that I'm here to compete in this circle affiar. A pleasure to make your aquaintance," With that, he sat down to wait for the barkeep, "My name is Tock. And yourself, Madam?"

[TheGreyRonin]

 "Mariska Callan, you can call me Risky." She nodded out to where Stalker was walking back inside. "The circles are out there; if you want a look at one while it's not being used, now's your chance."

Syphon rose from his seat, downed the last of his beer, and strode out to inspect the new circle. He muttered something as he passed Stalker, who stood up straighter and glared with hatred at the young man.

Reaching the bar, Stalker flowed under the divider and back to his usual place. "Young bastard's going to get himself killed someday. Soon, I hope," he said.