The Honor Circle Returns! (IC)

[Tipod]

"Hot damn," Bart muttered and stared at the tiny parasol's disappearing act, downing a shot and pint of afterburner as it disintigrated into nothingness. Oh, this was the real stuff: the sort of drink that separated the boys from the men, and Witt shrugged it off without so much as a sniff. Not one to be outdone, he drained the remaining pints as swiftly as before and gripped the pineapple vessel. The caustic drink went down his hatch easily enough, but once it hit his stomach...

"*Aacck--*" It was almost enough to make him retch on the spot. In retrospect, ordering something that was the equivalent of a mouthwash, toothpaste and hickory ash cocktail wasn't such a smart idea after all. Desperately, Bart gripped the peculiar bottle of 307 and chugged it, hoping to douse the vile taste of acrid cleanser and smoke in his mouth. In another period of retrospect, that was an even worse idea as the implacable liquor hit both his digestive tract and brain in a nice one-two punch. With his stomach screaming and head pulsing, Bart leaned forward in his seat, both hands gripping the bar's front edge tightly.

"...That was--" He belched suddenly. "-- Good. Good, yeah." After a few moments, he straightened up and wiped his brow gently with a sleeve. Second round down. And yet...

This might not be so easy, Bart couldn't help but think as he glanced to Witt; the hedgehog was completely unphazed and even liked the dreadful 307, not to mention taking the Draino cocktail in stride. ...what the hell is this guy, anyway?

[techmaster-glitch]

The Mechangel

   The Mechangel kept up the stream of photon-fire until after the explosions, as Marya ducked behind the roof access door to avoid them. Then he stopped shooting, and gently glided down to alight on the roof, across from [Marya]. He shook his head in disappointment. That was it? She could have made a hole and tried to loose herself in the building again, but instead she hides behind effectively two thin walls? Of course, the Mechangel could still see her, very clearly with his electronic eye. She had just unknowingly trapped herself.
   Well, in her defense, this hadn't exactly been a "fair fight" in the first place. He had not gone all out. Oh well. Time to end it then. The Mechangel steadied the aim of his metal arm, retracting the dual barrels from his wrist. The metal hand then split, and began folding away, revealing a large barrel housed within the forearm. A white light then glowed from within it's depths.
    The plasma beam weapon was locked firmly onto [Marya] easily, even through the roof access. However, he stayed it from firing. The Mechangel's behavioral analysis of [Marya] suggested she may not give up easily, she seemed one who would always pick "fight" in the "fight-or-flight" response even if cornered and in danger, so he opted to try his best to convince her it wasn't worth it. The Mechangel then amplified his partially synthesized voice, and called out to [Marya].
   "Marya, was it?" (of course he knew perfectly well that was her name, but the uncertainty subtly made him seem more like a person, which helped quite a bit in diplomacy) "Marya, listen to me. Don't make any sudden movements. I can see you perfectly well, if you haven't already figured it out. I have, aimed at you, a weapon even more powerful than the railgun I used earlier. Of course, it can hit you behind those walls, and if it doesn't outright kill by vaporizing your entire torso, it will at the very least maim and dismember you irreparably. I am informing you of this because, since this fight was started without any victory conditions being explicitly set, I don't know if any of the inhibiting safety magic of this circle is active, because it seems to be an "on request' option.
   "I say all this because, to be blunt, this fight is over. You cannot move without being torn apart by my weaponry at this point, and even if any safety magic is active, the Circle will still register a victory for me. However, I do not want to take that risk. This pocket dimension is meant for decent, clean fights, and we have had that. You have nothing to lose by surrendering, and I have nothing to gain by harming you. I'm sorry that this wasn't quite a fair fight, but I haven't even been as lethal as I could be, for the very reason that I didn't want to hurt you too badly.
   "So, what will it be? Will you concede, and end this now?" He thought for a moment, and then cheerfully added something, figuring it could only help with someone like her. "I'll buy you a friendly drink if you do!"

[Boog]

Marya considered the angel's words carefully, doing some more quick math in her head to figure out her chances...
Eh, it'll do.
"Eat me!"
Two lone words echoed throughout the circle. Echoed forever in the empty cityscape it had made, and bounced back to the mongooses ears. Marya did a bit more math...
Then raised the unclasped gauntlet and punched through the walls near her, aiming for the barrel of the weapon the Mechangel was holding, and aiming a punch with the other hand at the ground below her. She raised the arm for a second punch even as the next floor approached.

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace looked dubiously at the drink in the pineapple that the bar-thing had put in front of her. With a paper umbrella in it. Which was steadily dissolving and sinking into the morass. Then the scent hit her nose: sweet, and smoky, and something that would have curled the hairs around her nosepad if they'd been long enough. "What in Tarim's name is this stuff?" she muttered. The lioness shrugged and picked up the pineapple. She'd tossed worse down her throat, that time when Irene and Zoe were settling once and for all the question of who could drink who under the table. Trying hard not to breathe in through her nose, she tipped her head back and gulped down the drink in one go.

And nearly coughed it up explosively all over Witt and Keaton. The smoky taste hit her first, scratching and clawing at the back of her throat as if she'd swallowed someone's camp fire that they'd extinguished without benefit of... water. The cloying sweetness made her stomach churn. Then the "something else" smacked her across the snout. She coughed hoarsely, her fur fluffed up, her eyes wide and bulging, her ears laying flat back on her head. She grabbed the first pint in front of her, and downed it in three quick swallows. Then the second. Then the third. She was panting roughly, with her tongue hanging out and tears streaming down her face by the time she'd finished the fourth pint. She tossed back the contents of the shot glass, and picked up the eye-twisting bottle with a noticeably shaking hand.

Andrace's other hand shot out, grabbed a firm hold of the front of Bart's shirt, and pulled him close to her. "Listen carefully, I'll say this only once," she rasped hoarsely, breathing right into Bart's face. "If y' order this stuff again..." In a quiet, steady croaking voice, the lioness described several acts of hideous carnage, none of which were guaranteed to kill Bart... immediately... but he'd definitely not be a happy camper by the time she licked her claws clean. She talked eloquently, enthusiastically, in fact, quite cheerfully, and without repeating herself once as she took a few gulps now and then out of the odd-shaped bottle to soothe her throat. At this point, she couldn't actually taste it. When she was finished, she let go of Bart's shirt, belched like a small earthquake, and put the bottle down next to her other empties.

"Y' know, I think I got m' second wind now," she said slowly and unsteadily. "C'mon, Keaton — drink up, girl, y're fallin' b'hind!" She nudged the jackal with an elbow and gave her what would have been an encouraging smile if she hadn't been feeling the effects of her spectacularly mismatched binge thundering down on her poor abused brain like a herd of tapdancing elephants.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt sniggered, putting down the ale to applaud, politely, Andrace's enthusiastic descriptions.

"Don't go holdin' back, now," he chortled, unconsciously falling into imitating her mode of speech, and picking the bottle up again. "Go on, tell us what you really think."

He snickered to himself, and took another swig of the ale. "So, while fuzz-o-bumble here is working up her courage to drink her second round, what did you two want for the third?" Witt waved one finger in a sort of loop, indicating both Bart and Andrace in his request. "Surely you can come up with something better than that? I mean, the ale was nice enough" and he nodded his thanks at the big lioness, "but the fruit punch was a bit weak and watery. Too much faffing about, not enough drink."

He swigged the last of the ale, put the bottle - somewhat regretfully - down on the bar, and raised one eyebrow over at Keaton. "You might think about what you want to drink next, too. If you think you can make it that far, of course."

He paused for a moment, then innocently added "You never said if you wanted a bed, after."

[Sunblink]

...Keaton:

Once again, the drinks were delivered. Keaton stared despondently at the assortment of revolting drinks, most of which would have been extremely appetizing if it weren't for the fact she was starting to feel sick, already, from drinking so much alcohol. Without a doubt, if she consumed the chemical abomination that Bart had devised, she would inevitably collapse. But after she made such an embarrassing proclamation earlier and with her arrogant pride, Keaton felt obligated to continue the contest. Her pride was at stake! And what mattered more than her pride?

Well, maybe she would come to regret her hubris after she was diagnosed with alcohol poisoning.

Somewhat hesitantly, Keaton grabbed for the pint of Andrace's mysterious beverage and immediately upended it in her mouth. The green fluid gushed down her throat, which she eagerly drank down - although her throat was protesting with every flexing movement of her esophagus. Even then, Keaton suspended any reaction as she slammed the glass down and reached for the other, hoping it would smother the horrific taste of the first - somewhat like she was hoping for Jesus Christ himself to turn water into wine, only in a reverse demonstration. Unfortunately, the next one was purely alcoholic - like concentrated amounts of the stuff. Impossibly so; Keaton couldn't imagine how a drink could be impregnated with that much alcohol. Keaton sat through that one, although her head was pounding and throbbing by the time she was finished. That glass was discarded on the table as well; carelessly swept to the side, where it coincidentally joined with the others in the neat stack Keaton had arranged.

In a magnificent stroke of Horrifically Bad Luck, Keaton had grabbed for the barbaric concoction Bart had made - her blurred vision couldn't distinguish the drinks aside from color, and she assumed the umbrella indicated something pleasant and relieving. She gulped the fluid down, but not before plucking the tiny paper parasol complementing the abomination and tossing it to the side. She did not stop to realize that it was dissolving.

The drink felt like she had just swallowed a cup full of vomit.

Oh, how appropriate, Keaton thought, her eyes wide and watering, even as she forced her reticent throat to swallow the drink, Seeing as I feel like throwing up right now.

She was able to handle all of the drink, and dropped the pineapple shell lifelessly on the table. Good thing it wasn't a drinking glass, otherwise Boog would have given her hell for being so careless with Honor Circle property. The instant the vestiges of the concoction slithered into her stomach, Keaton erupted into a horrific explosion of coughing and hacking, her hand clawing at her neck. Keaton had to resist the urge to regurgitate all of her precious booze on the floor. She had to prevent herself from keeling over from revulsion right there and then. Whereas Witt had reacted pleasurably, Keaton was occupying the extremities of the opposite end of the reaction spectrum. If taste buds were people, the nerves populating her tongue probably would have revolted against their superior.

Only then, Keaton was able to mute her reaction by slapping her hand on her muzzle and slumping in her chair, rolling her mortified, stone-cold gaze to the ceiling. Far away, across the room, Xianxi looked very much like he wanted to throttle all present, as though he indirectly blamed them for his mistress's indignation. Catapulting from his perch, he flew through the air and leveled expertly near Keaton's head, assessing her apparently catatonic state.

Before Xianxi could speak, Keaton lifted her hand and signaled to the others, still keeping her face downcast and cradled in her hand as she coped with her splitting headache. In case nobody properly translated her use of sign language, she spoke in a very hoarse, thin voice, slightly muffled by her hand. "Yeah. I'm going to have to sit the rest of this one out."

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt cocked an eyebrow at the little floating menace beside Keaton. "You want a hand with her, or are you set?"

While waiting for a response, he leaned over, grabbed the four pints she had yet to get to, and started downing them. "Waste not, want not..."

[Sunblink]

...Xianxi:

Xianxi shot Witt a judgmental, deterring glance that would have made a flower wither, and gently coiled his tail around Keaton's arm. His tail reacted instantly, becoming a long, tether-like cable. With some effort, he lifted Keaton out of her chair, making sure to support her, although with some effort. Still looking irate, the Demi concentrated, the gemstone centered on his brow sparking violently, and as the light pervaded to the rest of his body, both he and Keaton vanished. There were no fireworks - there was just a momentary eye-blink before they had simply disappeared, other than the small particles of light drifting in the air.

Not too far away from the group, another flash resounded in the infirmary, but that light died as well.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt shrugged, and downed the third pint. "Can't say as how I didn't offer t'help, there. I hope she drinks some water to wash that lot down, though, otherwise she's gonna regret it in the morning."

He promptly chugged the fourth pint, put the glass back on the counter with the impressive array already in front of him, and belched.

"More than now, I mean." He turned, and placed one elbow on the bar, eyeing Bart. "So. What was it you wanted, Heavy Drinker?" he requested, cocking that expressive eyebrow once more.

[Tipod]

Bart couldn't help but snicker and chuckle stupidly at Andrace's initial reactions. Not only were they great fun to watch, but they indicated this warrior woman wasn't nearly as impervious as Witt. Ahaha-- His expression changed abruptly as she gripped him by the shirt to deliver her little chat, however. With each bloody, visceral detail, he reasoned just how long it would take to heal, and factored in just how excruciatingly painful this dame could make each wound. Receiving such threats was nothing new for Bart; hell, family members would do it all the time during reunions, but Andrace was the only person whose words seemed to convey a certain blunt, genuine honesty and malice to them. "...yeah, no more bathroom cleaner cocktails." He didn't feel like being nailed to a wall, skinned alive, and otherwise shredded to confetti anytime in his foreseeable future.

And it was even more obvious why such drinks were a bad idea after Keaton dropped and was whisked away by Xianxi. He'd expected the diminutive jackal to last more than one and a half rounds, but on the other hand-- "...gee, looks like I did beat her in her own house. She's gonna be pissed when the headache's gone." He needed an amusing thought after listening to Andrace's dire proclamations of violence.

"Okay, so barring another cocktail," he said while palming the back of his neck, "how about a shot of blue agave tequila?" Even he could use something relatively pleasant after drinking so many horrible spirits.

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace turned her head to look at Witt, and succeeded on only the second attempt. "Not enough drink...?" she said in disbelief. She snorted, caught herself before the recoil toppled her backwards off her chair, and fixed the bar-critter with a gimlet, if slightly cross-eyed, stare.

"Right. N' more Miss Nice Kitty. Spike here wants somethin' wi' fru... fu... fruit in it? Scumble. Two thimblefuls. Each."

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt smirked widely up at the huge lioness, commented "Ooo, good call," then turned to the barthing. "So, the yellow and black fuzzy thing should have paid up to now. You should probably hold on to her change, and return it after she recovers, though. Big Shiny down the end wants tequila. Miss Nice Kitty here" - here, he turned and grinned at her again - "wants two thimbles of scumble - obviously, not in thimbles. It'd ruin the flavour, and make a mess of your bartop. As for me, I'll go for another bottle of that 307 ale, I think."

He paused, then added "Oh, and you might make up a cup of Klatchian Coffee for Keaton. Red Desert Special. On me. Tell her to be careful with it, though."

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace's ears perked up, rather lopsidedly, when Witt ordered the coffee for Keaton. She looked around, turning her head slowly and carefully, and counted the others. Then she counted again, getting a different answer. A third count confirmed it: they were short one jackal, and she hadn't even noticed. "Say... uh... wha' happn'd t' Keat'n?" she said, speaking very slowly and precisely in the manner of the truly sloshed. "She's packed it in? Aww, an' we're jus' gettin' started!"

[Tipod]

"...Big Shiny? You--" Bart pointed down to Witt with an accusing finger and shifted in his seat. "You makin' fun of me 'cause I'm bald? I'll have you know that chicks dig the look, Spiky. It lets them know they're with a real man. And it tells the other guys in the room that this bald guy's one mean sum'bitch, y'know?" The alcohol hadn't gotten him stupid-drunk, but his speech gave hints he was approaching it.

"You're a lady, aren't you?" He turned to face the lioness, finger still in a pointing gesture and tapping on the bar. "Tell me, am I right or am I right? 'Cause I know I'm right." His hand tapped against the bar for another minute before he realized just how pointless and annoying it was. "...right?"

[SpottedKitty]

Andrace looked intently at Bart's pointing finger, her eyes crossing a couple of times as if she was seeing more than one and wasn't sure which one to focus on. Her gaze travelled back up his arm, and finally settled — after overshooting only once — on his face. She leaned forward until she was looming over Bart, her eyes flat and emotionless, giving the impression of staring at the throat of something small and tasty. Her jaws opened on a dentist's nightmare vision of gleaming, sharp fangs surrounding a cavernous red gullet...

... then she breathed on Bart's head, pulled a scrap of cloth from a hidden pocket on her jerkin, and gave him a quick polish. She sat back again and grinned. "O' course y' are," she said, "... Shiny."

[techmaster-glitch]

   "Eat me!"

The Mechangel

   The moment [Marya] uttered that, The Mechangel's fleshy side turned slightly cold as he consciously registered what was about to happen...
   His electronic eye registered her movement as she turned to punch through the roof access, and instantly fired off his weapon. An intense, concentrated beam of white energy erupted into existence, utterly disintegrating all in its path, almost completely draining The Mechangel's reactor, and then dimmed away as [Marya] tore up the roof access. From the other side of the roof, The Mechange hastily crouched and covered himself with his metal wing to try and shield himself from the flying debris, but a few pieces of rubble beaned him.
   Marya continued punching, this time actually going down through the roof. However, she'd realized that, for some reason, breathing is coming a little difficult. If she looks down, she'll notice she's missing half a lung due to the 3-inch diameter hole in the right side of her chest, which looked almost as if it was taken out by a cookie-cutter.

[Paladin Sheppard]

The dust rolled in against Pal, a choking cloud that blended with the shadows into a mushy soup. Steel and ash collided and in the furious clash the Cubi swung his axe. Yet once again he found himself striking out at air. Stygian remained right at the forefront of the rolling destruction, but as soon as the dust and the shadow of the taller structure behind them fell upon him that haziness made him somehow blur before Paladin's eyes. The shadowy something that was split by the axe's edge felt cool and choking together with the dust. Yet it must have been the real man up until the very last few instants. And judging from his direction, he'd have to have overshot him and gone around his left. He was moving fast...
  'Ah, but you just said it yourself!' the man's voice hissed out at him from the murky space around. 'Horror is just a matter of perception...'
  There was a slicing, sharp sound to Paladin's right, and a silhouette approached, wicked clawed fingers drawn up to strike. Illumined dimly by that sickly light from the horizon off to the Cubi's left, smoky blackness falling around its feet, it approached the Cubi quick and intimidatingly, sharpening as it went.
  The ambush was set. From his vantage point within the settling ashen smoke, Stygian made for the kill.

Impaling the charging shadow-Stygian though the chest with a wing tentacle, Paladin span around to face the true threat.

Focusing on his target, Paladin roared, the microphone built into the helm picked it up and transmitted it out speakers with a force and sound that had stunned many opponents into inaction before.

As two of his tentacles drew the short swords from his back Pal charged. Just as he struck out at Stygian, he released the spell he had stored and suddenly Pal was as bright as the sun as viewed from space.

[Boog]

"Oh..." Marya gasped, coughed, staggered backwards, and gave the Mechangel a look that should by all rights had left him a pile of scrap metal and smoking jerky. "Held back. Sonovabitch was holding back. I'll, I'll..." She coughed again, a slight liquid edge to the noise, and fell.

Back in the bar, Richard swore profusely and bolted for the door, knocking over a stool in his haste to get outside. He ran to the edge of the circle, pounding at the still-dissolving edge. "MARYA!"

[Tipod]

"Oh, har har," Bart mumbled as Andrace leaned back to her seat, wiping his now glistening scalp; in a more cartoony setting, it would have given off a nice *shing, sparkle sparkle* sound. "...and the hell's that guy's problem?" He gave a slight leer to the departing Richard before finally noticing the televised Honor Circle match and carnage therein. Just like any other bar would show football or college basketball, only this place displayed all the carnage taking place just several yards away in high definition. Not too shabby.

"So are there, like, any rules for challengin' people in this place?" It couldn't hurt to learn a few things before the next round of drinks. "Like someone who's ten feet tall can't challenge a midget? Or is anybody fair game?"

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt sniggered at Bart's reaction. "Now, would I do something like that?"

At Andrace's reaction to the attempt to bring her into it, he chortled. "Now he's real shinee. All we need is some pins, and we can have a game..." He frowned, in thought, and looked back over his shoulder at the thing behind the bar. "That and the next round. It is showing up, sometime, right? I wouldn't want us to lose our stride..."

At Bart's final question, the spiny little ball of muscle shrugged. "No fighting in here. I'd guess they don't like breaking the fixtures. Anything more, you gotta ask the feller with the drinks." He looked Bart up and down - or, at least, up, and further up - and sniffed. "I'da thought you should stick with the one challenge at a time, thought. You seem to have more than enough to handle here."

[Tipod]

"Are you kiddin' me?" Bart leered down at the hedgehog. "'More than enough to handle'? She looks like she's about to keel over!" A thumb pointing over his shoulder to Andrace; her little mannerisms made it clear she was being affected by all the alcohol, moreso than Bart was. "And then it'll just be down to you n' me." At which point he'd still be in a losing position. Not that he would admit it.

"There's never been a time where Bart Thompson was in over his head." He placed both arms on the bar and leaned forward. "Never ever, and I've been in some crazy-ass situations."

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Witt shrugged. "I wasn't referring to her." He smirked up at the half demon. "Want another drink? We can play double-or-nothing..." He flicked his fingers, and the coin from earlier appeared between them, rolling over his knuckles in an almost hypnotic fashion.

"As for being in over your head, I do believe your ankles are swimming now..."

[SpottedKitty]

Behind Bart's back, Andrace glared in mild annoyance at this idiotic hairless monkey's cheek in thinking she was nearly finished off and about to flake out: she'd only just got started! She made a face, stuck her tongue out, and thumbed her nose at his back. Perhaps more the sort of thing her baby sister Eugenia would do when she was this drunk, she thought, but oh so satisfying.

Suddenly she hunched her shoulders, winced and laid her ears back at a particularly spectacular pyrotechnic outburst from the viewer that had been showing the ongoing fights. She got herself turned around (without falling off her chair) just in time to see the skinny but tough little mustelid-looking woman collapse in a heap of gory fur.

"Ouch, that's a bad 'un," the lioness muttered, "hope she lasts long enough t' get healed up." She turned back to the bar-critter, looking noticeably less drunk than she'd been a moment ago. "Say... ah... do many folks come out o' these Circles feet-first? Or in a bucket?" She didn't sound all that worried, or overly nonchalant, just intensely interested in hearing the answer.

[Tipod]

Bart had to give a quick look into his wallet before answering Witt, noting a distinct lack of coinage. "...depends. Do you take bills?" Which was a stupid question. What use would a creature like Witt have for paper money? "If not, then I'm droppin' out after the last round." But as he glanced once more to the Circle match, the little cogs in his head began to turn. ...unless...

"Barman, can you challenge anyone for anything?" If so, all he'd need to do is find an easy target, challenge them, pummel them, and walk away a richer man. The only problem was, how could he readily identify a patron as a weak opponent? Like Witt: he was small, but obviously tough as nails and sheet metal. And Andrace... as he gave her a good, hard look up and down, it was clear she could cause some damage. Tough calls all around.

[Stygian]

For a moment, Stygian flashed two grins; one from atop the beam solidly planted in the ground not far behind Pal, another one shadowed before him. The unexpected tentacle stab seemed like just another melee move, one that his shadow would not even have to recover from to strike at the man. Even as Paladin turned, he felt confident. Any sort of attack would just bring him closer.
  Then, the Cubi seemed almost to explode, and that shadowy image was obliterated in a static-like, momentary cloud of dissolving particles. Stygian's world turned into blindness and misery, and with a breathless scream he tensed and leaped back. A flicker of a second later he flickered backwards, seemingly instantly twenty feet back where his shadow had fallen previously, leaving only another afterimage that was shattered by the burning light. Another moment of focus, and he was even further away. He seemed to float across the ground as he at last slid into the image of his own shadow, mercurially moving behind cover into shadow that he felt, rather than saw, wrecked metal and acid-stained concrete shielding him.
  Up until then, the delirium of whatever that poison the little alien had pumped into him and the promise of an easy fight had filled Stygian's mind with dizzy joy, drowning concern and effort in a drunken haze. Now, instead, pain jarred all that loose, and he felt himself flood with fury behind his blinded eyes. Ideas and images, estimates and equations, attempts at forming a plan formed halfway, and were immediately shattered by the tidal wave of rage that filled him and made him tense and bite down until his joints and tendons ached and creaked. He was shaking, he realized, claws formed from his distorted fingers digging into his burned features even as they seethed and healed. Droplets of black blood trailed them as he ripped his hand from his face and gouged into the concrete behind him instead. He tried to think clearly once more, but his focus was blown away like smoke to a breeze. He growled, and the black veins through his skin crawled, growing. Some tainted green light, dim but burning to the eyes, crackled, almost in time with the distant lightning in the sky.
  'So that's the way you want it, you piece of shit meat?!' he snarled. The weight behind him groaned, and cracks and creaks sounded over it. 'Then you'll have to come get me!'
  A piece of wall, about the size of a dinner table and a couple times thicker, came loose, spun, and was hurled right at Paladin at breakneck speed. Holding it like a shield before him, Stygian crouched together in the air and shifted his balance.

[techmaster-glitch]

The Mechangel

   As [Marya] collapsed, the Mechangel swore loudly. "DAMN! I knew the safeguards weren't active!" He rushed over to her, scooping up her limp form. "Oh, why couldn't you have just taken the drink, you silly berserker?" Before the buildings beneath him completely shrunk, the Mechangel took to the wing, gliding over [Richard], and touching down next to the door to the medical ward. His left hand darted out to snatch the handle and twist it, and retreated to catch [Marya] before she fell. Shouldering through the door, he put [Marya] down on the nearest hospital bed and called for the Doctor of the Honor Circle.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Extremely pleased he'd finally managed to tic off his opponent, Pal sized up the attack, hauled back 'Edge' And then let fly the massive cobalt rune covered axe right at the incoming block of wall.

Not wanting to get hit by the chunk of masonry Pal, still shining like the sun, rolled gracefully, but in a blur to the side.

[Stygian]

Just moments before the slab of armored wall hit the Cubi, from his new position, Stygian spun and pushed off, flying backwards, still in the shadow of that concrete shield, flipping over and landing on the ground with scraping feet and hands. Then Paladin's axe hit it, and the reinforced block was cut and split neatly in two, though the sharpness and the force of the impact only sent the pieces spinning as they continued on their course, their momentum rather great. Hissing, moving after their shadow, Stygian swiveled back and flew backwards onto his hands from a crouch, throwing himself up. In a moment he was a flicker in the air again, speeding backward against the cover of darkness beneath the buildings. Gliding just inches off the ground, he seemed to fade, the darkness around him flowing onto his features like liquid, the faint green glow of his eyes the only hint of him, before those too dimmed away.
   There was no trap set, but there were the makings of one. At the moment though, the rage clouded Stygian's mind too much. He needed an outlet.
   From within the black there came an acid, electrical crackling, and flickering green light sparked to life, leaping and burning, weaving within the darkness. Beyond Pal's glaring brightness, the surroundings seemed to dim, and the clouds to darken...

[Yugo]

Kaela sipped at her lager, enjoying the smooth frothy taste as she listened to the bartender-thing's discourse with mute interest.  It was just her kind of luck that if it wasn't one kind of fighting, it was another, although she hadn't quite expected to run into a magical all-encompassing fighting arena in the middle of the forest, and the interdimensional part certainly explained the strange patronage at the bar. Nevertheless, she wasn't quite sure she even wanted to talk part in such an event.

She considered her options as she watched her companions at the bar drink themselves into a stupor, the black jackal taking her leave after a particularly vicious round involving a drink that was more hazardous material than liquor. She mused to herself as the three remaining competitors asked queries of their own regarding the strange place. "Judging by that poor girl's predicament, I imagine this place has a fairly high mortality rate," she muttered, answering Andrace's question for her, watching one of the fight screens intently.

[Tipod]

"...say, how drunk is you?" Bart asked Andrace in eloquent fashion. "Better question: how fast can you sober up when we're done?" His fingers drummed anxiously on the bar as he spoke. In terms of opponents, there were worse choices. Witt was... well, how could he wrestle somebody with spikes all over? And the robot? Yeah, right. Kaela wasn't a good choice either, and looked pretty tired. Bart had enough sense to not bother people kicking back with a good drink. That just left the slightly inebriated Andrace.

"Putting it real simple, I need money. You got money, I fight for money. You beat me, you get..." He thought about that for a moment, but the alcohol in his system made it hard to consider the consequences of a failed duel. "...I'unno. I could give you my jacket. It's never been washed, but it's a damn fine jacket."