The Honor Circle Returns! (IC)

[techmaster-glitch]

Karazkt

   Siolen had managed to dodge the conicle groundblast, and was zigging around toward the mech again. Karazkt decided it was finally time to reveal his trump card. A few lever pulls, and the right arm swung out from behind him. In place of the hand was...
   Well, it was quite obviously meant to be a digging implement, but looked all too much like it would be a seriously lethal weapon. It was a large two-feet-thick metal disk, covered in spikes, but it started spinning so fast the spikes became blade-like blurs. This was something that was meant to shred the deepest bedrock of the planet. Under normal circumstances, if it were to hit the gargoyle, he would be turned to gravel. However, with the special rule in place, if it was unavoidably imminent that Siolen would be hit by it, it should go insubstantial and the match should end.
   Siolen got close for his final assault. Karazkt hit levers, the arm raised, then came down in a wide sweeping motion. Unfortunately, in the heat of battle, Karazkt was already forgetting his engineering physics. If it didn't sweep through Siolen and end the match, Karazkt's mech would be sent stumbling from the momentum of the massive arm. Siolen would have the perfect opportunity to do what he wanted while Karazkt was trying to regain balance.

[Angel]

In retrospect, Sylvie should've said something like 'whenever you're ready' or given some hint that she was waiting for a signal. In retrospect, maybe she should've just run from the start. She could almost imagine Dani screaming at her right now for being so stupid.

On the plus side, the second the elf saw Stygian lift his gun, she'd started to run away. On the minus side, she hadn't had time to get far enough away and the bastard had really good aim. The bullet ripped through her calf - an inch or two below and to the right of her knee - and she fell to the ground, biting back a scream of pain as one hand flew to her leg. Watery-green chloroplasts and chlorophyll oozed from between her fingers. She pulled herself up to a kneeling position with her staff, glaring at Stygian as he drew closer with a fiendish smirk on his face. She could feel the wound beginning to heal in the dim light, but it wouldn't heal fast enough for her to run from him now. She had to act fast.

She didn't respond to the human's statement, but released her leg and spread one palm over the ground, muttering a fast spell through gritted teeth. As Stygian neared her, vines sprouted up from the ground to wrap his legs to the knees. Sylvie didn't wait to see how he'd react; she pulled herself up with her staff and started to limp away from him as fast as she could.
---
Dani nodded absently at the wolf's response to her nervousness and continued to watch the fight. The second she saw the bullet hit Sylvie's leg, she reacted.

"Idiot!" she remarked, managing to keep herself from shouting. One got the feeling her commentary was mostly directed to herself, the wolf, and the bartender. "Why'd she let him use guns? If she was gonna let him do that, she shouldn't have told him about the light thing! Did she even know what it's like to be shot?!" The guard took an angry gulp of coffee, trying to calm down; if the plant was going to make another mistake, she'd need to keep from getting too angry about it. It's either cataplexy, or dealing with it. No need to scare anybody.

"Sorry," she said when she'd relaxed. "Didn't mean to freak out."

[Stygian]

Two more shots rang out from behind Sylvie, but both were misses brought on by Stygian's movement. He skidded to the side and almost had another one that would probably hit her right through the shoulder. He was afraid to aim through her torso, even though a well-aimed bullet should simply have collapsed one of her lungs. But he didn't know how her internal organs lay and he certainly didn't want to harm her beyond the point of being able to surrender. Part of him was thinking that it was just typical, that when he met a pretty girl who was actually nice then of course he had to get himself into a situation where he had to shoot her.
   He had been about to move, but his skid ended with an abrupt stop and a trip, as he fell to the side, his feet firmly snagged in something. He could feel movement against his shoes and the outside of his pants, and looked down to find his feet entangled in thick vines, greenish-brown tendrils even then creeping up to snare his legs. Growling, he slammed his hands into the ground which made him practically jump to a standing position again, trying to lift his legs out of the sinewy things around his feet. His strength meant that they gave way a little, and he could probably have freed himself if he used his hands. But away down the slope, Sylvie was escaping. And he...
   From a snarling expression, the man's face went into a nearly blank half-scowl in a heartbeat. He looked at Sylvie's back, and then down at the veins. It is only fair, he thought, and made a decision.
   The shots snapped off quickly, and made little sharp splinters of rock hit his legs. He shot at an angle though, to keep the bullets from bouncing too wildly, or he might have gotten one in his leg. The vines were cut off at the base, as he counted down. Eleven, ten, nine, eight... Finally, he pulled his legs free, and ripping moss and thin grass with him, he dashed after the retreating figure of the elf. Seven bullets left. I hope she finds a spot in the sun...

[Angel]

Sylvie hobbled over a sloping hill, eyes hunting for a sunny spot. She whipped her head around once at the gunshots ringing out. At first she heard two, but neither of them hit her. Then she heard a pause, and the sounds of struggle. Just had to let him use guns, didn't you? she chided herself mentally. I finally meet a nice guy, and I let him shoot me. God, I hope he doesn't think I'm a masochist.

She found a patch of sun at last and stood still, kneeling again and lifting the bit of skirt over the wound. She watched the hill near her as the wound slowly closed. There were more gunshots, and the sound of bullets ricocheting off something. Then her eyes widened as Stygian came running down the slope, moss still clinging to his legs.

She watched him carefully, debating whether to run again, but standing and backing up nonetheless. Her leg was reasonably healed now - she'd stopped "bleeding", at least, but there was still a dark spot there that hurt quite a bit. And there was no sense in wasting energy when there as a good chance he'd catch her anyway. In the meantime, she pointed her staff at the ground and created a good-size patch of thorns, sidestepping around it carefully so she was on the other side when it closed. She tightened her grip and waited for the human to come closer, ready to run if he shot again.

[Stygian]

If Sylvie had thought that the thorn patch would slow Stygian down, she was only half right. It was in his way and forced him to stop running, yes. But it was far from the obstruction needed to stop him.
   There was a short pause as the steps paused beyond the thick of thorns, and then a stamp. Some dirt flying behind him through the air, Stygian came leaping over the bramble. It was a thirty-foot leap, at the very least, and easily brought him twice his height into the air and more as the slope disappeared beneath him. The sort of jump that would break the leg of a normal person. Yet he landed without hitch past both the thorns and Sylvie, hitting the ground and digging into the gravel before he rolled around and into a crouched position. His gaze swiveled around quickly, once, before his eyes landed on her. And he smiled. Again, he brought his gun up, training it on her as he rose and began slowly moving toward her. Slowly, he began squeezing the trigger.
   Come on, sweets. Fight back this time...!

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

After Sahlena moved to stand up, Keaton drove the heel of her oversized combat boot into the floor and thrust out her chair, easing herself to her feet with the help of her hands, which pressed, palm-first, against the tabletop before her. Now on her feet, Keaton stretched her arms luxuriantly over her head and smiled languorously, nodding her assent to the android. "Let's," she said with falsified grandiloquence, whirling around on her heel and purposefully striding toward the door. Maintaining that aforementioned pretentiousness, once she reached the door she pushed it open and held it there for Sahlena, gesturing flamboyantly through the doorway.

---

...Piix:

Piix immediately threw up her hands defensively, trying to forge a hopefully-convincing grin to deter Giles's curiosity. Since he wasn't aware of his slightly hilarious nose injury, she wasn't going to offend him by bringing it up. "Uh, nothin'!" she said, hastily adding, "...Looks great!"

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Boog]

Siolen attempted to swerve out of the way of the oncoming whirling death appendage, as he decided to call it. This half-worked. While he managed to avoid the brunt of the assault, the spiked disk skimmed along his back. The gargoyle bellowed as the weapon gouged out chunks of his back, shattering the membranes of his wings, turning the finely carved armor along his shoulders into so much gravel. He lunged for the leg he'd set his sights on, reaching out...
But when he got there, they weren't in the ravine anymore. The match had ended; that attack would have been lethal. He let go of the mech and dropped to the ground, feeling along his neck and back where until a moment ago there had been nothing but air. Finally, Siolen took a step back from the mech and bowed.
"An excellent fight, and a most ingenious use of the terrain in question. Thank you."

[Cogidubnus]

 Cog let Dani ride out her indignation, simply chuckling into his glass as he watched the fight. It certainly had started off with a bang, although Cog was nowhere near writing off the green-colored elf anytime soon.
"Guns are powerful weapons, yes." he said, lounging at the side of the bar. His gaze seemed distant. "That one, though...I think if she can't make it past the bullets, she never had a chance anyway. Something strikes me about him."

He paused, slurping his drink. "And it's quite alright. No rules against excitement, I don't think."

* * *

The blackguard stared at Piix unmoving for a good five seconds, blue eyes boring into the alabaster shades of the Orin's own, his entire visage a mask of steely observation and restraint.
He cracked.

A wicked grin spread across Giles's face, his soot-black face only highlighting his eerily white teeth. He took a step forward and to the side, suddenly ruffling the little alien's hair as he let out a long-reserved, somewhat strange-sounding laugh.
"Bahahaa! C'bmon, Ib'll bhuy byou a brink." he said, making his way to the bar.

[Angel]

Sylvie boggled as Stygian cleared the patch of thorns like an Olympic athlete, jumping far higher than she'd ever seen anyone do before and landing safely. The moment his gaze caught her, she braced herself. She wasn't going anywhere; she'd guessed by now that neither of them wanted that. She waited and glared as he came closer, his gun already aimed at her again and his finger pulling back the trigger...

As soon as he was close enough, Sylvie bolted up to him, ignoring the pain in her leg, and jabbed her staff upward to knock the gun out of his hand, then ducked to his left and moved to knock him in the head with the heavy end of her weapon.

[Stygian]

That was more of the sort of response he had expected. Sylvie moved fast on her wounded leg, and knocked the weapon from his hand. It didn't matter that this could be partly attributed to his slack grip; her strike was powerful for someone her size and numbed his fingers, even if it didn't crush them or bruise them adequately for him to lose his handhold. And as she came close, he didn't draw his other gun. He only had one bullet left in that one either way. Instead, he dropped it and threw up his hand to try and get in a swipe at her side that would knock the air out of her. This turned out to be a bad maneuver, since he was keeping his movements and posture relaxed, and thus when she bent swiftly to her right and made a jabbing, twisting strike with the end of her staff, his face was exposed and his neck almost slack.
   Sylvie could feel the hard, smacking sensation traveling down the length of the staff, and the way his head snapped around and tendons showed in his neck and his face twisted as well, and a spatter of something wet revealed that the man had taken a hard one. He took a step back, and put a hand to the side of his face, turning it away and growling something in his throat. He stood still for two seconds, face turned away from Sylvie and shielding it.
   'Bloody... The face. The pretty face...' he muttered under his breath. 'I hate it in the eyes...' It seemed almost as if he were distracted away from fighting her for a couple of seconds, hissing between his teeth. Until he turned to look at her again.
   The crooked and branch-like edge of Sylvie's staff had caused a rough, blunt tear in the man's skin, and a few smaller ones next to that one besides. It had ripped a lot of skin with it as well, and torn at the side of his eye. And what had become exposed in those areas was anything but human and attractive. Some sort of half-liquid... blackness oozed from the wounds, like little shapeless tendrils writhing about, sending veins of itself fanning out thinly across his cheek while the tendrils almost hooked themselves into his fair skin to pull it together. His face seemed to literally crawl where she had struck him, thin snaking and spidering shapes underneath it, and his ripped-up eye was turned into something smooth and monotonously polished black, a slight sickly green to the edges of its color, or lack of it, and a sort of invisible, similarly venomous glow to it. He made a snarl, and hunched slightly as he steadied himself.
   'I wonder... Do you stay beautiful too?' he said, wickedly. It was only then that she noticed; his hand had somehow undergone the same sort of vile metamorphosis as the side of his face. As large as before, it seemed more long-fingered now, though that was easily attributed to the talon-like claws of black that tipped every finger of it, long as kitchen knives and seemingly as much part of them as the darkening skin itself. She had only a second to glimpse the grotesqueness of it, before he swiped out at her in a suddenly far more focused strike, aimed to pierce her shoulder. He began advancing, hoping, nearly knowing, that the intimidation and the sudden change in pace would decide the fight.

[techmaster-glitch]

Karazkt

   Karazkt's mech still went stumbling a bit, and when he stablizied himself, he quickly noticed something: the maze was gone. That's it, it was over. Karazkt was actually slightly stunned. Did he actually win? He could hardly believe it.
   With a shhhaaaannk, the cockpit cover slunk back, once again revealing Karazkt in the seat. He stared at Siolen through his huge opaque goggles. "I...won? I did noT eKzpeKT thiz...buT iT waz very zaTizfying." Karazkt then looked over to the left arm of the mech, where the elbow was all gunked up. "I'll be kleaning thaT ouT for hourz!" He lamented. He turned back to Siolen. "You are indeed a worthy opponenT. You were righT, thaT waz good fun."

Mechangel

   The cloaked figure saw that the battle between [Siolen] and the Insectis end. He couldn't tell who was the victory until they spoke. It seemed the bug had won. Another battle had also started, this one between the plant-girl and [Stygian]. He looked behind him, and saw the Jackal succubus and the feminine android walking out. The figure under the cloak had already worked out a plan of what he wanted to do, and the succubus was part of it. A white-furred left hand appeared beneath the cloak--clenched in the fist was a small slip of paper, with a very small electronic thing attached to a corner. Written on the paper in minute writing was a message: This is a challenge. When the red light flashes, go to the Circle where I am.
   The cloaked figure walked towards the door back into The Honor Circle Inn. As he passed the jackal, in a very swift, but gentle motion, he pulled up her hand and dropped the small slip in it. It should be so quick that the jackal should be completely surprised and not have time to react. Before the jackal would be able to say anything, the cloaked hunchback was already past her and through the door.

[Angel]

Sylvie took a startled step back when the hit turned out to be harder than she'd thought, sending shockwaves up her staff as Stygian's head twisted with the attack. The crooked edge of her staff had scratched Stygian's face very badly, and when the man turned from her, growling and covering his wounds, she regretted having hit him so hard. She was about to ask if he was all right when he faced her again.

What she saw on Stygian's face made her breath hitch sharply, and she covered her mouth to keep herself from screaming. Some sort of ... living darkness was crawling out of his wounds, pulling his ripped skin together with little veinlike tendrils that snaked across his face. She'd ripped open one of his eyes, and it had become something akin to a black marble, odd little edges of color framing it and a faint, ominous glow exuding from it.

At his next comment, she began to back away, slowly, trying unsuccessfully to hide her fear. It wasn't his transformation that scared her, though that was certainly frightening; it was the idea of what he could do to her in this form that made her tremble. Her eyes traveled down to his hand, and had she had time to scream, she would have. His hand was normal-sized, except for the black blades the size of carving knives that were apparently his fingernails. Before she could do anything else, Stygian leapt up and swiped at her shoulder, causing her to drop her staff as she jumped away from him, letting out one short, piercing shout as his claws made solid contact.

She landed unsteadily, one leg skidding across the ground and slipping out from under her. She winced as she avoided using her wounded arm to get back up, which thankfully she'd managed not to lose. Still, the slashes had ripped open the fabric covering her shoulder, and deep, dark green cuts were visible across her shoulder and collarbone, the worst one about five inches long and at least two and a half inches deep. If she hadn't lost her arm yet, she surely would if she kept fighting. But some little part of her told her not to give up just yet - she had asked for this fight. Giving it up seemed so cowardly, even now...

The translated human began to approach her, a deadly look still in his eyes. She steeled her nerves and dropped to a crouch, placing her hands on the ground and saying a lightning-quick spell. Thick vines and roots sprouted up from the ground beneath Stygian's feet as Sylvie lunged for her staff...

[Stygian]

The vines shot up and gripped Stygian's feet before he could move too much, yet it was still only a temporary hold. While it gave Sylvie the time to roll away and grab her staff, she heard the snaps as he broke and cut the bonds with ruthless speed and carelessness. A rattling sound reached her ears, some sort of low hiss that no human could have made.
   'You can't run from this, little girl...' the 'man' snarled from behind her, his voice distorted in some terrible way that caused her to shiver. 'You can't hide from it either. You should face it while the sun's still up...' He made a short, grating laugh that sent her spine twitching, and moved in closer, similar claws growing from his formerly untainted left hand.

[Angel]

Sylvie grabbed her staff with no interference on Stygian's part, but her vines didn't buy her much time. Soon the voice of the 'human' (which it was now abundantly clear to Sylvie that he wasn't) was behind her, threatening her in a different voice. His voice was still his, but something, something black, demonic and terrifying had crept into his tone. Upon hearing his laughter, her spine felt as if it might jump out of her skin, and an odd, cold feeling was permeating to her very bones.
She gripped her staff so firmly that were she a bit stronger, she might have snapped it. He doesn't know I can fight after the sun's gone down, it occurred to her. But how well would he fare in the darkness? His footsteps were getting closer every second - and yet he was still taking his time, either relishing this or still giving her a chance. Whether this was a good thing or bad thing, Sylvie didn't know anymore.

She waited until he was a little more than an arm's length from her back, then she jumped up and swung her staff at his hands - which were now equally changed. Break his nails; try to knock him out; just don't run yet! You're not a coward! Don't act like it! 
---

Apparently, no-one wanted Dani to relax today, or, like the wolf, didn't care either way (not to say his understanding wasn't soothing right now). The human fighting Sylvie was turning into some kind of monstrous... thing and was attacking the plant girl, just when it had seemed her friend might have gained the advantage.

"Oh shit," Dani said quietly, her brick-colored eyes becoming wide as shooter marbles. "Oh shit shit shit shit shit..." She stood again, her face going white as new paper around the marks on her face. Her coffee and pumping adrenalin were keeping her awake, but at this point, she didn't care; if that bastard hurt her friend any worse, she'd kill him even if it meant she had to sleepwalk. At the same time, she knew that Sylvie still had a fighting chance. She's survived prison in a town of racists; getting shanghaied; fighting a fire-breathing dragon; and being friends with me. If that hasn't killed her, there's not much chance this will.

Even so, she whipped around to face the bartender. "How many people die in these fights?" she asked, her voice barely level and her eyes burning through him. "Because if she dies, I don't give a damn what the rules are about fights indoors." She glanced at her weapon once, not caring who noticed.

[Boog]

"How many?" Boog thought hard, brows furrowing as he tried to remember. It just wasn't a question people around here asked all that much, "Call it thirty percent of all who enter, maybe." He shrugged, but didn't miss Dani's glance at her weapon. He slinked out from behind the bar and motioned the woman to a seat.
"Now now, lets not do anything we'll regret, hm?" The thought entity smiled in what he hoped would be taken as a friendly manner. "Your friend knows the rules and the risks, and we have a good medical staff on hand if anything goes awry." (Meanwhile, in the back room, Dr. Holic was running out of pills. His breath started to become labored and his hands twitched...) "So don't worry, hm?"

[Stygian]

Compared to the movements he had been exhibiting before, the man's next sudden shifting came as a shock, blurringly fast. The strength that Sylvie lacked he seemed to have in abundance, and he caught her staff mid-strike one-handed, gripping around it and tugging on it to bring her in close. His teeth now longer and beginning to tint to a darker color together with the flesh of his mouth, he grinned at her and hissed, parting them halfway.
   'I won't make the horrible pun of "getting physical" with you...' he rasped, one corner of his mouth quirking upward, 'So I'll just say that was a bad move.' He twisted his hand around hard, released it, and then threw his whole arm out in an almost equally quick blow strong enough to knock her through the air and a good way up the mountainside, though 'incidentally' also a pretty wide one that would at most break one of her lower ribs.

[Angel]

Sylvie was amazed at her opponent's strength - and at the same time a little indignant. Surely she wasn't this weak, or had he just gotten stronger in his new form? Stygian's rapidly darkening appearance and newfound quickness froze her in place for a moment as he grabbed her staff and pulled her towards him. She tried to dig her heels in the ground, and for once wished she'd worn shoes. With almost no resistance, she was dragged much closer to him than she wanted to be right now.

A shudder of something - disgust, fear, disbelief, who could say? - ran through the Green when he spoke, but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on which way you looked at it) she didn't have to dwell on it for long. The man twisted her staff around, forcing her arms into an awkward position, then let go and knocked her in the stomach, sending her flying.

Sylvie landed a few yards from their starting place on the mountain, her back scraping against a few errant rocks and branches. Apart from that, Stygian's punch itself hadn't hurt her that much; one of her ribs was bruised, but that was it. She got up, wincing a bit as she tried to avoid any extra damage to her shoulder and leg. Her staff lay a few feet away from her, unharmed. She grabbed it quickly and looked over the hill she'd run down earlier. The thorns were still there, but either one of them could easily clear them, magically or physically. Especially now. She decided her best bet would be to charge up a spell and wait for him to come to her. She spoke a few strange lines under her breath as her hands lit up with plant energy, taking a few steps forward and waiting for Stygian.
---

The corner's of Dani's mouth turned downward at the statistic the raggy-dressed bartender gave her, but she saw his point well enough. Sylvie wasn't a stupid girl; she knew when a fight wasn't worth winning. She'd get out of it when she realized she had no choice. With a begrudging sense of acceptance, she took her seat and nodded at the bartender. "You'd better be right," she mumbled, taking another gulp of coffee and turning back to the fight.

[Stygian]

Making a little chuckle, Stygian exhaled slowly and stood in place for a few seconds, straightening as he watched his blow connect and Sylvie fly haplessly through the air a good distance. It was surprising how easy and conversely how hard some things were, when you just took them into consideration. For example, when you pondered how much force was needed to throw a body of, say, a hundred and ten pounds over a distance of twenty yards and a height of four or five, and then put this force on the end of a meter or so of swing arm, and calculated the muscle strength needed to make such a throw, attachment points factored in, you would say that it would be impossible for any human to do. Even in an ideal movement, it was still beyond human capabilities. Terribly hard. But at the same time, comparing proportionally, it really wasn't that far from human capabilities either. Not the ideal human capabilities, at least. And as for Stygian, he knew that he was quite a bit beyond ideal human capabilities.
   Stepping out of the pronounced marks that had formed under his soles - you could use balance, momentum and friction to distribute the force over time and area, but there were limitations - the man rolled his arm and neck slightly, and paced calmly, patiently up after Sylvie. His hands were entirely blackened by now, his skin far more reminiscent of some glossy, almost partly liquid substance, oily and black, with greenish oozing tones. Subtle movements under his shirt along his arms hinted at something there as well, and as he walked he gently applied his wicked fingers, whose claws had now somewhat reduced in length, to the task of opening up his cuffs.
   'Brawlers and idiots take to hands and clubs when they fight', he said, looking down and folding up his sleeves slightly. It wasn't really something he needed to do, but what he was doing right then was as much acting as it was fighting. 'Cavemen knew how to smash someone's face in. Is that all you can do too?' His eyes, one gray and subtly green-tinted in the playing dusk light, the other obsidian and almost glowing emerald from some point within, turned up against Sylvie. 'Because if you think you can throw fists with me and win, you're no better. Show me how you fight instead!'

[Angel]

Sylvie glared down at Stygian as he approached her. His patience irritated her, and at the same time, scared her. This was probably the reaction he'd been hoping for, but she couldn't know anything for sure about him. She had to know what he was. No human could have knocked her so far - no matter how weak she may seem. And he was changing ever more as time went on; soon, she might not even recognize him. She just needed a chance to find out something, anything about him...

Then the man voiced his challenge to her. So I come off as a common brawler, eh? was her first angry reaction to this, but a millisecond after, she realized the perfect opportunity that had just walked right into her path. It wasn't just a challenge, it was an invitation: You don't need to keep this fair until you know what he is, so quit restricting yourself.

She stared right in Stygian's mismatched eyes, and began to laugh. "Finally!" she exclaimed, pitching a single bolt of magic energy off to the side as she approached him. She had a better idea in mind than simple blasts of energy...

Her eyes began to glow bright green from within as she focused all her attention and energy on the hypnosis spell. "Tell me exactly what it is you are and how you got this way."

[Stygian]

The man stopped, hesitated, and looked at the elf. His eyebrows slowly rose upward, as his eyes fixed straight into hers. For a second, Sylvie could almost think that she had gotten him. There wasn't any resistance from him, but neither was there some sort of response or sign that she had somehow affected his will. Then he slowly smirked again.
   'Ah, right. The fight against the rat. I remember now. I wasn't paying attention there', he said, stepping closer yet. 'Interesting little trick you have there. I can imagine it might come in very handy. Myself, I have to resort to less... pleasant methods to achieve the desired effect...' He made a gesture with his hand, and vaguely Sylvie could perceive something dark, twisting and moving in his hand.
   'As for the questions... Good ones, both of them', he continued, nearing her. 'But you'll have to get to know me a lot more closely before you will have any answers to either. Truth be told, if you could say what I am...'
   The man grinned. His teeth were now almost as dark and glossy as his eyes, and as he parted them to laugh, there was nothing but glistening blackness behind them. He stopped, and in a particularly hideous gesture, let slip out a tongue long as his forearm and drew it up to lick his lips. That smirk never fading, he raised his right hand, slowly, fingers stretching out and his open palm against the Green. And then, he moved again. Pulling his arm back and dashing for her, he threw a swipe at her that turned into something else mid-movement, as it gathered blackness to it and whipped out. A long gleam of something utterly black, like a lash, flared out against Sylvie and ripped up the ground under it as it went.

[Angel]

Well, this isn't right. Sylvie had just been about to smirk in satisfaction when Stygian revealed that he hadn't been affected at all by her hypnosis. No-one had ever resisted her, and she'd never made a request they could refuse. She forced her feet to stay in place when the man advanced at first, but they betrayed her and shifted her backward when he licked his lips and revealed the new blackness of his teeth and mouth. Though how he'd become this creature was still subject to her morbid curiosity, she was more than a little scared to find out what he was now.

As it turned out, that unrestricted fear was what gave her the extra time she needed.

The man ran towards her; a black, blade-shaped object generated from his hand and lashed out at her, ripping up soil and moss underneath it from the energy behind it. She grabbed her staff and flattened herself against the ground as fast as she could, rolling away from the attack. This didn't help her as much as she would have liked; the edge of the blade lashed a sizable cut into one side of her back.

She hissed her pain through her teeth at the air grazing her stinging cut, but focused on her next spell. She hadn't had to use this one herself before, but she'd seen it done enough times to know. She listened as she heard a particularly large vine, as thick around as a maple tree, take root and sprout up quickly underneath Stygian, snaking around his waist tightly and, with any luck, throwing him back the way they'd come.

[Stygian]

Stygian noticed the rumbling just in time to look down, but didn't have the chance to dodge. The thick vine struck him right in the gut and threw him back. Fortunately for him, his reaction to this came naturally, and his reflexes meant that he was quick to tumble over and flip back on his hands. He'd lost a few more meters of distance, but it was nothing that couldn't be compensated for. Standing straight again, he coughed once, and then growled through a pleased grin.
   'Come on, can't you do worse than that?' he goaded the elf. More of that darkness he had thrown at her was beginning to gather to him, snaking and writhing shapelessly as it formed and vanished momentarily around him. He strode a bit to the side, the crackling sound of his boots against the gravel having vanished completely, and the blackness following him. He kept smirking, until he let his expression dim into an almost dull, mocking look of disappointment. 'Then again, plants are pretty slow. And harmless. I can understand if you don't really have an idea of how to advance up the evolutionary chain...'
   He raised his hands and shrugged, however that movement soon became another sweep with his hand, passing over the ground. The darkness was larger now, thicker as it condensed and took form with his command. Pushing up from the ground, out of his shadow, it grew limbs and claws and tentacles and teeth, turning into some hideous thing that burst from and crawled over the ground at breakneck speed, ripping the ground up with its movement and leaving dissipating streaks of black over the soil and through the air like some freakishly large slug. Sylvie saw a glint of green, hideous eyes, four of them, before the darkness opened up and turned into jaws large enough to swallow her whole.
   'But don't blame me if that gets you eaten!'

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel hummed rather tunelessly to herself as she fiddled about with something on the bar in front of her. It almost looked as if she were playing with tinker toys, except that normally the sticks and discs didn't shimmer and pulse and make your eyes swim to focus on them. She was pulling each piece out of the pile of supplies that had mysteriously appeared beside her and carefully doing something to it that gave it that hard-to-look-at aura before adding it to her construct. It appeared as if there, in the midst of all the dueling, she had decided to create a gaudy ornament for the holiday of some mysterious religion. Eventually she picked the thing up and gave it a once over. Nodding as if satisfied she stood then hurled her prize at the ceiling, where it impacted with a sound much like thin glass crackling. But rather than return to the floor in splinters it stuck. After a moment it unfurled into an almost flowerlike display. "There is the receiver done. Now for the transmitters." She looked at Boog, "There are four circles, correct?"

[Angel]

Sylvie slowly got up from her prone position, watching and finally smirking as the vine threw Stygian a few meters away. But she noticed that although he had indeed gotten farther away, he was unharmed, and simply got back up and taunted her again. She narrowed her eyes, shifting a little closer to the writhing, still-intact vine. She didn't trust the way the enchanted darkness seemed to flock to the man, like moths to a flame. Or followers to a religious extremist. This isn't any kind of dark magic I've seen before... what can he do?

Then Stygian shrugged and, once again, used a simple, innocuous movement to mask his real attack. The darkness that had been gathering to him started to take shape, growing teeth and claws and tentacles and eyes and turning into a monster. It headed towards her faster than she'd ever seen anything move in her life, its jagged mouth opening large enough to eat her alive.

Sylvie didn't bother exercising any restraint. She screamed and ran for the magically-charged vine as fast as she could move, placing her hands on its 'trunk' and saying the spell without freaking out between words. The man was right; plants were, as a general rule, slow-growing. But that didn't mean she was powerless to speed it up. The vine lashed out lightning-quick to wrap around the upper jaw of the beast, seeming to grow and stretch at her command. As a final touch, she said a few more words and thorns as long as her own fingers sprouted out of the vine's skin.

[Stygian]

The horrid thing crashed into the thick vine, now more of a branch, its jaws locking around its thorny length. The monstrosity seemed immensely strong and heavy, and for a moment the plant was pushed back, its roots breaking the soil. But it held, and before another second had passed, the slug-like, gnashing thing began... melting, for lack of a better word. Its glossy form had already been half-liquid anyway, and the parts of it that seemed most organic, ridged and carapaced merely crackled and flaked and joined the rest of its form. Most of the darkness continued on the same course as the beast had headed first, but with all the light around and the damage it had suffered from the thorns of the vine, it couldn't sustain itself. It began dissolving, and dissipated like black smoke in the air, inches from Sylvie's skin. She could feel a few wisps of it touching her face, chilly and carrying an odor like cold cinders. It was shocking to say the least. For a second the beast was there, real and hard and as heavy as a car, and the next it had just turned into nothing.
   A hard laugh broke the dizzy impossibility of the moment, and beyond the vein, Sylvie could see Stygian walking again, slowly approaching as he circled her, grinning. There were... things, tendrils and creepers of continually shifting blackness crawling over the ground toward him, from where the monster he had created had just disappeared. They vanished quickly, seeping away somewhere underneath him, but she saw them clearly enough.
   'You've a little more power than you showed at first, it seems', he said, taking step by measured step. Drawing out on things didn't seem to push her hard enough, but he had to make her see the need to exert herself. He'd tried shock. Now he might try slow terror. Change the pace continually, and shake the world around her... The problem lay in doing that while the sun still hadn't completely set. Half of the golden orb still lingered heavily on the horizon, and while the light wasn't strong enough to do more than dull his powers, he couldn't do anything about it.
   'Why are you holding back?' he stated, suddenly, more bluntly than he had really wanted from the start. He flexed his fingers, and a hint of something, perhaps disappointment, perhaps contempt, began edging its way into his features. And as it did, so did more of that taint that seemed to have grasped him. The veins on his temples and neck began taking on a dim, black tint, and his teeth and jaw seemed longer than they had before. 'Are you scared of what might happen?' Something seemed to creep up the inside of his neck and around his back, and darkness condensed and gathered to him in thick, twisting shapes. It seemed to be swirling and circling him at his feet. The very air around him shivered in places. 'You should be. But if you won't resist, then it'll be all the easier for me to... extend the pleasure of devouring you...'
   He swept his hands out, palms facing outward, and the darkness followed his movements, growing outward from the few warping shapes of it into a veritable flood, and then rushed forward as he struck out against her with a snarl. The rays of light burned it, but the black mass was too strong and too fast to be affected. Teeth and eyes and raking claws, spikes and spines and skeletal faces all swarmed against Sylvie from two directions, amid a cacophony of ethereal growls and shrieks and moans.

[Angel]

Sylvie would have stayed behind the vine, but the creature lunged and snapped its teeth around the trunk, forcing her to jump back and away. For a moment, it seemed like the beast was going to uproot it, but in the next few seconds, it ... turned to liquid. Well, maybe turned to liquid wasn't right; it had seemed to be mostly fluid before it was destroyed, but now the parts that had seemed real were melting. Bits of it stayed behind, but most of the creature dissolved and turned to smoke under the light of day. Sylvie felt the cold wisps brush over her, smelling like soot and something she couldn't place.

The brief amazement at the moment died with a strong laugh from Stygian. She moved from her shielded place, coming out to face him. He was approaching her again, circling her, every step seeming calculated and planned. She tried to make her soft features look threatening, glaring at him as he casually noted her unused power. She didn't speak while he did, listening to him and observing the remaining daylight with a sense of caution.

A second later, Stygian gave her an almost disappointed look and asked why she was restraining herself. Had she had the time, she'd have given her reason: I've never needed to use half the attack spells a plant mage learns. If I used them, I might end up hurting both of us more than I want to. But his changing features distracted her from telling the man. The blackness that had been gathering to him appeared to be part of him somehow, circulating in his veins – how had she not noticed that? His dark power crossed his face, which seemed to have ... elongated somehow. The shadows from where the creature had been swirled at his feet. What kind of power lay in that void?

Then the man swept out his hands and the darkness followed, like puppets on strings, growing into a deluge of the stuff. Sylvie heard only a growl from Stygian as a new slew of creatures rushed her, shrieking and snarling in dissonant chorus, sharp teeth and claws and eyes that seemed to burn right through her...

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" the elf-girl screamed, fairly jumping to the side and crouching to the ground. She didn't bother to say a spell this time; just charged the ground with pure, raw plant magic, gritting her teeth and her eyes blazing with effort. Within seconds, gnarled, spiked trees broke through the ground, sharp and twisting branches piercing the creatures and aiming for Stygian.

[Stygian]

The machine stepped out on the street and straightened her jacket, casting a glimpse first at Mel and the Boogeyman, as if looking what their business was but not really minding. Next, she paced over to a free circle, and in passing took a good look at the one where the fight between Sylvie and Stygian was taking place. Stopping just outside the ground she had selected, she watched that one closely for a while.
   ':damn but he is messing around', she commented, at last. ':hope he's enjoying himself, because she's going to be terrified of him from now on. i think it would have been better if he had just beat her into the ground and been done with it...' she added with a meaningful look to Keaton.

- -

At last! Stygian laughed again, cruelly and coldly hard, as the elf finally dropped and aimed a counter-assault at him. The coalescing blackness from his former attacks already dissolving into something like dark smoke and then nothing, he called more of the darkness to him. It gathered like cuts and holes in the air, distorting the light around it, as he drew his hands inward, following his movements as if he were the one tearing up the world around him with the clawed tips of his fingers.
   'Magnificent!' he exclaimed, snarling and throwing his hands out. The blackness rushed forward again, flaring out from his back in almost wing-like shapes, before it divided and flashed out into the air in swiping motion like blades. Teeth and claws followed the motions, running head-first into the hardened spikes of wood that Sylvie were sending up, whittling them away. She could feel it right through the connection she had with the things, see it before her very eyes. The wood wasn't just ripped and whittled away, it was corroded, blackened and chilled and peeled apart as if exposed to some horrible acid as it touched the black matter. The spikes she sent reached into the dark before Stygian and almost out on the other side. But then it was torn apart, and once the process was started...
   She had barely a moment's warning when the man suddenly showed up through the blackness. It was terribly hard to see anything even through the slight gaps in it, and when he came leaping through it for her, black matter still drawing close behind him, his arm brought back for a strike and his darkly gleaming eyes fixed on her, she only had a fraction of a second to respond.

[Angel]

Sylvie didn't take her hands off the ground, even after the spell had taken effect. She looked up and watched as Stygian's creatures were impaled and their creator stood there laughing. The shadows were broken now, blocking out various patches of light. Her cuts and injuries were healing much more slowly, but she'd come to ignore that in the past few minutes. She watched in shock as the man's dark magic gathered to him again, flaring out like wings before splitting and slashing at her trees, teeth and claws forming yet again.

The girl shuddered, feeling the pain of the forest. It wasn't just being cut; it was being rotted, trees collapsing like they'd been burned or poisoned. She glanced over once at her staff, which she'd dropped when the swarm attacked her. She reached out one tentative hand to snatch it, keeping her eyes on Stygian all the way. The darkness was becoming thicker now; all she could see was that the trees she'd sent to attack Stygian hadn't made it past his magic, and then...

Stygian jumped out at her from the blackness, one arm back to hit her, magic trailing off him like some sort of living smoke. In the heartbeat of a second she had, she slammed her hands to the ground again, and another blast of magic caused a plant to break open the ground. But instead of another twisted tree, several thick, tightening roots whipped to the man's throat, sprouting jagged little barbs as Sylvie shifted into a good position to grab her staff and run.

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

During the escalating conflict between Stygian and Sylvie, Keaton remained safe on the sidelines beside Sahlena. Occasionally she'd stop observing the battle to examine the message transmitted to her by the unidentified figure which had bypassed her previously, weighing her options, but otherwise her partially-divided attention was focused on the ongoing skirmish. Her expression was mostly unreadable, but her thoughts reflected two different emotions. One was impressed bewilderment.

The other, meanwhile, mirrored contemptuous envy at the monster-man's manipulation of darkness.

Or, she assumed it was darkness. Keaton hadn't witnessed control in that form - when someone would endow the shadows with an organic embodiment. Nobody in Jyraneth Clan had ever -

It was hurting her to elaborate. She was getting confused; she decided to discard the issue and tend to it later, preferably by interrogating the tall blond human once this battle concluded. Shoving her emotions aside, Keaton craned her head around to look at Sahlena inquiringly, her eyebrow raised. "Aren't you worried about him killing her?"

---

...Piix:

Piix tried to keep herself from looking uncomfortable as the blackguard assessed her with a stony, unreadable visage. Amidst their unofficial staring contest, her eyes occasionally slid from side to side, searching for an easy escape route in case he decided to go berserk on her and fling her to the side, but once he cracked and invited her to a drink, she felt whatever apprehension dissolve in favor of relief. Although she was still nervous, she decided to accept the offer - after all, she didn't want to exhaust her boundaries in this partnership, and besides, he could make a good ally even if she nearly killed him. Orin venom could be very deadly.

Piix made herself grin, and bounded over to a bar stool, leaning Orpiment against the counter and nestling into a seat beside Giles. Her tail lashed back and forth excitedly, and she started rifling through an ornate drawstring bag she drew inexplicably from the confines of her cape. Her fingers emerged, clutching a few coins engraved with an odd, abstract scrawl. Probably enough in monetary value to purchase some drinks. Piix dropped them on the counter, followed by a paper bill dyed in a blue shade. Depicted on the portrait in the center of the bill was a regal-looking specimen of Piix's species, garbed in grandiloquent draperies of decorative jewels and ornaments.

"'Ey, have any Blue Xvarru?" Piix asked to the Boogeyman.

Xvarru was a very bitter drink ground from a fruit harvested on the Orin planet of Oriaendi. While it was dangerous if consumed by someone outside of the Orin species, or one with a reasonable endurance for something ranked so high on the Ph scale, Piix's species, with their poisonous blood and propensity for venom, could easily drink it. It was even a very popular beverage because of its favored bitter taste.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Boog]

The Boogeyman shook his head and turned away from the fights at Mel's question, "Ah, yeah. Four of 'em. Nice craftsmanship there," he glanced up at what Mel had constructed. He didn't GET magic. The entire way it worked, it seemed, was by being unable to be held accountable for what it did.
Then again, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Ergo, any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. Thus were the subjects of his thoughts as Piix bounded into her seat.
He grinned and pushed the bill back to her, "Coin only, but the rest should cover your drink. One minute." He reached under the counter, which as one may guess had another one of it's Arguments (although it took some truly mindbending logical paradoxes to achieve it) and brought forth a bottle of the desired drink. It set a cup down before her with a flourish of slender fingers and served it to her.
"Also, if I may ask, wherever did you get that?" He asked, gesturing to Orpiment. "I find myself curious."