-17-
No normal man has ever stepped into the source of Mecone's power.
The Gerousia is the legislative and political center from where all Meconian power is projected outwards. In this building live ancient giants called Ephors, and a twinned Tyrant-Emperor whose grotesque body is a solid, colossal, humanoid form, perfected flesh of a man who has two coiling, enormous snakes for legs. Hidden from detail, those only visible in the half-round marble senatorial floor are the oldest of giants, citizens of Mecone called Ephors, whom are armed and wearing the cape of red, the gleaming armaments of Orichalcum over their war torn bodies. The giants form a semicircle.
At the center are six human-sized forms, kneeling.
The voices of the Tyrant echo in the vastness of the room. With complete domination, these six Claimants are emptied of thought, in a state of complete and receptive submission.
Varhas and Anax know the other four Claimants besides them, but they had no moment to spare for pleasantries. The rules of the upcoming game are categorically laid out. Rules upon rules of such minute details that do not matter. Instead this ritual is only a public display. A short battle of fatigue laid thus to anyone who is watching.
After an hour of kneeling, the six human-sized Claimants turn around to leave.
As soon as they cross the threshold of the Gerousia, the enormous crowds outside scream out to them, a mixed echo of lauding, cheering and curses. Any meaning in these words, in the magic-less atmosphere of Mecone, the deeper hues of language dissolve to mere uproar.
Varhas and Anax can only turn their head to the other Claimants and remember their names as they look into their eyes.
Maras, Chilon, Varsov and Fenrika stand next to Varhas and Anax. Maras the druid of life, Chilon the sage, Warsow the Machine and Fenrika the Orange-Sly are exceptional Claimants, with legends to their name and great track records in the Immaterial Contest. Fenrika specifically, as Anax knows, has been involved with two different championing teams and she is considered one of the most proven upstart Claimants in the Contest. Said victories had been recent and followed back to back.
Matter of fact, if she is here, Anax knows, the opponents have some advantage of intrigue. His realization is confirmed by Fenrika herself when she turns to face him waving her closed fingers. In her hand, there is a raven-feather, black and revealed as poking through her closed fist.
-
In the locker rooms, Jorj has finished wearing the Orichalcum powerarmor. His face is hidden behind a Corinthian type helmet that also covers the powerarmor's sleek and infinitesimal circuit of logic and unobstructed automotive functions in his neck. The breathing hole and eye sockets are covered with a mesh that filters and enriches air, while also offering protection to those weak points and enabling enhanced senses on all fleshly parts under the helmet. A cuirass covers Jorj's chest, back, waist and groin. Engraved on it, are the sigils of Anax, the alchemical symbols of mythical Sol's seven planetary metals imprisoned in zoomorphic patterns of Norse embroidery. His shoulders, biceps and down to his fingerprints, various plates adorn the Contestant, offering complete cover and modular flexibility. Likewise from the waist down, thin plates envelop his quads, knees and ankles. The sheets of alloy, fold along and in certain microscopic corners the patterns appear to ignore order, seemingly passing through each other.
The man is gleaming, almost a muted purity of gold, the way the other Claimants and Contestants see him, is an awe-striking image. A hero among men perhaps, divine protection made manifest, in the shape of his body giving earnest description to nimble curve and stout strength alike.
Otto is the only one watching the scene from a distance. When Hab begins a game of dexterity with Jorj, Otto leaves.
Hab sends quick strikes towards Jorj and Jorj stops each advancing blow with his open palm. The material there is soft, malleable to one's will of changing need for grip.
Varhas sees Otto pass by him, then he enters and speaks.
'How is the armor Jorj?'
'Good. I just can't make sense of all these glowing lights in my vision.'
'Give me a moment to conceal them.'
Varhas closes his eyes to that half-there concentration and the moment passes.
'Better now.' Jorj replies.
'I'll keep your interface clean, you won't see a thing. Anax have you gone over the plate? Any imperfections in the Orichalcum?'
Varhas missteps. A dizzying flow overcomes him, of equal length to his very short inverse dream entry.
'Heavy isn't it?' Anax speaks.
'Indeed. This armor has depth.'
'I found only one misalignment in the layering. A one centimeter wide spot on the left heel. Other than that, we are working with an incredible piece. It will take a lot of beating before it is bypassed. There are so many layers to this alloy and a citadel of inverse Apto-security that should handle multiple intrusions of Claimant circuit bending. This is truly divine work.'
-
'Got a story for me?'
'A few. What do you want to hear?'
'I love a good story of powerarmor mayhem.'
'Era?'
'Hm... back when there were only five or seven planets. Speak to me of when mankind's long sleep was just ending.'
In the complete cover of the tiny room before exit, as Jorj sits on a small stool of bygones, utterdark come words of raven, pleading efforts, motherly warm to speak of simpler times.
'Once, these powerarmors had the faces of dogs, in underground labyrinths they held ax and sword, grappling against knights of zweihanders and abyssal horrors. Animated hauberks shifted, man within but moving in boneless crawl, a shambling skin, the Claimant inside equally without form, a grotesque flow of teeth and nails. And how fortunate, for these wars to be fought by divine heroes, for the silver spear to crash against the filth, to have built the world of today in such foundation, in such heroic expungement of malignant cultural pathways that were never taken. Sever Jorj. Sever and let the strands remain.'
-
The arena is a square pyramid with a flat top that extends forty meters in length. Jorj stands at this peak. The base must be thrice wider.
Gigantic steps roll downwards over the pyramid's edge and the other four Contestants are not yet visible to Jorj as they have spawned at the base of the pyramid. Around the construct is a wide plain of golden grain, a sea of wheat that turns to waves in the winds and glitters with the sunbeams passing through black clouds.
Nothing else is moving. The great Tyrant and Pantokrator of serpentine legs, somewhere out there, amidst the colossal flatness, is staring at the arena. In the palms of grander beings, flesh and the power it holds, remain as stiff rubber, waiting for the voice to begin the match, to tell men to butcher men and bring about boundless spectacle. And his voices resound, then rapidly echo out of existence and along with them goes this oppression. The air dissolves and becomes navigable, full of boundless options.
As such, Jorj sprints. A normal, unaided pace is only enough to bring him close to one side of the pyramid. An enemy Contestant is waiting, forewarned by another opponent behind Jorj who has already climbed to the top. However, Jorj's Shock Lanza fires dead center before the opponent is able to fire back and the azure lance turns the pile of bones into a grotesque offering, an expanding red crescent of gore.
Two weapons fire on Jorj's back. The initial barrage is of Armor-Bypassing Dynamically-Learning Antimatterial High Explosive bullets from a rapid firing machinegun. The second weapon that fires is a rifle that also fires a singular bullet of the same type, yet of larger caliber.
Eighteen bullets connect, while Jorj spins around to face the three Contestants. Seventeen of which ricochet off, the last one with its larger caliber, managing to dig its tip one micrometer into the o\Orichalcum plate in the armor's left shoulder. The explosive force dissipates and it remains only as a passing black cloud.
However, this cloud is enough to obscure sight for the microsecond it takes for the Claimants to pierce through with infrared sight.
Ahead of Jorj is a Contestant of great proportions. The half-Meconian Contestant is clad as well in bright clay-crimson powerarmor and the charging shape crashes with full force against Jorj who is thrown backwards.
The score is one to zero.
-
The moment powerarmor to powerarmor connects, the inverse dream fills with conflict. Counter-aligned forces of logic crash against each other.
To both Claimants within the fantastical Orichalcum fortress, the sky turns initially to a white explosion, then bleak dark clouds that stand as a citadel of compressed shadow and finally, the shape parts to another, equally grand fortress of fire-clay rapidly descending.
As the massive shape nears, the walls of that other citadel appear, in layers of bricks, red granite and mortar, gray woven through crimson. Anax becomes momentarily of iron skin. His pink flesh is made lusterless alloy and he begins a long spell of circuitry logic, a manifestation of hardness. The floor underneath the two Claimants, the citadel of Orichalcum, gleams in sunlit glow, and it appears that the sudden surge of light sends Varhas to a walking retreat, underground to hidden tunnels between the walls, deeper yet to the foundations of Cyclopean machinery, into the damp, wet waterfalls and cisterns of pale-glowing coolant.
On the armor's surface, the two fortresses collide. A hail of bricks begins, then a torrent of buildings and finally entire cobblestone highways and cityscapes of armed concrete and brick come crashing down.
In this moment of contact, the inverse dream turns to a battlefield. An attack and defense of fantastical beasts and warriors manifests, the logic of both powerarmors clashes in such cerebral abstraction. One Orichalcum, of cyclopes and slave-militias, the other, a torrent of hounds with swollen bellies full of ravenous hunger, beasts that foam at their mouth, and breathe away maddened howls.
Now, to all directions around Anax there are many ruins and he rallies the many fantastical warriors to his side, keeping tight formations against the endless tide of rabid beasts.
When an enemy Claimant appears in the distant rubble, the formation charges through the bites and the howling, creating an opening for Anax.
Contestants kill other Contestants, but in the inverse dream, it is most often that Claimants can only dissuade other Claimants by expressions of pain and intimidation. As such, when Anax places his right arm on the gleaming floor, the two flattening slabs that manifest to both sides of Maras, they only close against each other with enough force and accuracy to shatter the invader's femurs and shins.
-
Jorj backflips from the tackle and lands at one level below the pyramid's top. He runs, using the shoulder-high steps as cover, while the large and armored Claimant above fires his beam weapon to create an alarming increase of temperature on the plates of Orichalcum.
Varhas speaks to Jorj inside of the helmet. The opponents are trying to increase the powerarmor's variable load, so that it becomes harder and harder to calculate against the vibrating bullets.
When Jorj turns to aim against the large Contestant, the enemy ducks in precognitive hint and the Lanza Blue misses him by half a meter, only scraping away parts of the half-giant's armor.
In turn, Jorj runs again. The movement invites air to the armor and helps it cool down. Somewhere in the distance a sniper round connects to his head, glancing off far outside the boundaries of the arena. The shot causes no imbalance to Jorj's step.
To that occurrence, in a moment's passage, Varhas maps celestial strands of light that leave from the ricocheted bullet as it keeps flying far away. Their light-thin circumference carrying vast data that he bends from afar and coalesces it towards the gleaming armor. The Claimant can see some of the light, becoming refined into information and it speaks of a tiny percentage of mapping. The enemy's Armor Bypassing Pattern Recognition is only at a 2% of the required certainty to Bypass the Orichalcum. For now, Jorj's armor is vastly superior in its centralized calculations and it outweighs the combined calculatory power of three distributed weapons and their bullets.
Two enemies appear, breaking this moment. One is above Jorj and one far below, both holding machineguns.
Four bullets connect and glance off. Varhas calculates that the Contestant underneath must be newly re-spawned and that his Claimant is still around his armor and weapon. The Contestant above might house the Claimant that just got severely injured by Anax and within that rapid calculation, Jorj turns to the man underneath.
Thirty two bullets connect to Jorj. Twelve from above and twenty from below, it appears that Varhas was correct in his stream of thought. Any injuries of a Claimant affect a Contestant's aim. The opponent below aims truer than the one above. As such, in-between microscopic decisions, the most dangerous opponent is fragged by Jorj's Lanza.
Nine more bullets connect as Jorj sprints to the side while turning upwards. The man above ducks before the Lanza can hit him.
The score is two to zero.
-
Maras has retreated. The beasts subside in the inverse dream. Driven back by Anax and without a tight-reign from Claimant hands, their forms give way to unordered retreat, hunted down by automated defenses in the shapes of naked slave-hunters armed with bows.
Anax performs geomancy, his mind takes the form of all solid things and he tries to see the specifications of the brick ruins left behind. Within the grand mountains of rubble lie many complex circuits, antennas and communication arrays that have remained functional even after the colossal collision. He also scries through all solid matter, buried weapon caches, artwork and many exotic objects. Things that make little sense to him, for such inverse-dream assaults.
With that same wholeness of metal and stone, the message is relayed to Varhas in imperceptive vibrations through the walls.
Varhas' hand scours over the darkness and deep underground, within the machine's dream, he holds complete dominion over any and all shadows. The coolant pools ahead are evaporating in their glowing darkness. Deeper, the granular and microscopic cosmos of circuitry is beaming with strands of logic, binding concept to action, calculating and feeding said calculations back into their world, ordering the vibrating layers of walls to keep the flesh within safe.
And yet something is amiss. Farther than this cosmos of circuitry, at the exact spot where machine meets the Contestant's flesh, there is an utterdark corridor leading to skin and that place is painted with a few droplets of blood.
Whatever causes these fantastical injuries, by the time Varhas turns his focus, it has already disappeared. Mere bite or nick, that something has commandeered the machine's allegiance, ordering it to harm the pilot instead, if only for a minute string of willpower.
-
Jorj continues the sprint. The machinegun-wielding Contestant peeks over and fires few shots, all missing.
Jorj attempts to climb upwards. A sharp pain now manifests in his sternum, whenever he draws breath.
On the pyramid's top, two Contestants stand very close to Jorj. The half-giant lunges to grab the man but the reflex is that of dodging in-between the two opponents, bringing at the same time the Lanza to aim and firing directly at the open hand, severing it from the bicep as the blue glow is less intense, quickly dissipating in a backdrop of falling droplets.
The other Contestant charges with his weapon first. The machinegun presses hard against Jorj's right armpit and the bullets belch into the depression of Orichalcum. Fire and projectile become one superheated force that pushes Jorj to his back and sends him down the pyramid again.
As the Contestant rolls and rotates downwards, thirty bullets connect to him in total, from his shoulder blades to his heels, to the neck, head, wrist and chest, all glancing off, but still sending data back in the process.
Jorj stops the momentum with his leg and free arm. Sideways, the Lanza turns upwards and misses the enemy Contestant by a small margin, causing some vacuuming damage to his head.
Once again, Jorj goes upwards, this time by running and jumping directly onto the flat pyramid.
The Lanza fires a slow moving sphere of blue against the three forms ahead. Two are close and one is further back. The half-giant contestant fires his beam directly at the helmet of Jorj causing a blinding glow of burnt out synapses, a blue and patterned-in-neurons of radiant purple shadow that covers sight. The machinegun armed Contestant fires and five more bullets connect to Jorj's body before his sight calibrates again.
All three opponents are moving away from the sphere while shooting. The half-giant is sprinting to the left while firing and the other Contestant is sprinting to the right, mostly missing. The shorter Contestant in the distance is running away from the sphere without regard for firing his sniper rifle and he reaches the end of the pyramid on the other side.
Now, better than never and with absolute certainty, Jorj fires his Lanza against the sphere.
-
In the inverse dream, Varhas steps out of the shadows, momentarily stopping his pursuit of the hidden invader. At the surface of the imaginary world of the powerarmor, Varhas sets to a wide focus of the mind, celestial sorcery without gestures, focused on the far away.
And that far away is but an abstraction of the vacuum, a reflection of the Lanza's terrifying implosion of two firing modes used together.
In the inverse dream, the catastrophic force beckons an extreme distance far away, a voice that screams of obliteration, grasping and pulling so ever-flaying. Two human figures nearest to it, become broken at their shape. Metal and flesh stick together as they are pulled into the center of the blue force and then they are expunged outwards, made to, overwritten in their molecular function, needles against the greater distance.
Blood rain and rubble begins to fall onto the gleaming machine. The citadel of Orichalcum, the inverse dream is made suddenly into a hellscape of fear, bathed in a mirror of what has happened in the real. Anax and Varhas bask in the filth, taking the spectacle as is and finally Varhas achieves the focus that he wants. He sees threads of information, highways of light amidst the sticky rain, and he sees them bending ahead at the still radiant glow of dissipating blue. With a weaving motion, a slight curling of his fingertips, these strands are spun together and their data is funneled to the machine.
Anax protects Varhas against the falling debris with his body, while this celestial sorcery occurs. When he turns to look at the person behind him, Varhas has already vanished. A Blink, mere complete, sudden absence.
Varhas manifests into the left heel, exactly at the point where the tiniest imperfection in the powerarmor exists. This deep layer of the armor is dark as usual, and the vibrating layers light up the tight space in a long length that stretches further than the imaginary horizon. There is indeed a gap on these layers far into the distance, a misalignment that appears as a geometric impossibility and manifests as a big vacuum. Not shadowy, to where Varhas can feel the absence of light, but an impossibility, the birthing place of horrors, the merging of Blood and Astral sorcery that any sane Claimant avoids.
But that warp of the flow, the impossibility, even glanced at, hints to oddities and Varhas believes that he will never find the invading Claimant, the one that hides and leaves only droplets of injury, by normal use of his shadows. Two paths then manifest within him. One, the usage of forbidden magic, the handful of horrors that he knows, the easy path of abuse and the second, an earnest try of his abilities, the path of effort that is bound in struggle and its repetition.
In these depths of the armor, Varhas presses lightly against one of the gleaming-white layers above him. Light floods into the hallways of the machine and everything is bathed in a pale, clear light that is easy to the eyes.
While flooding the armor with light, Varhas also quickly calculates the percentage of Armor Bypassing Pattern Recognition and the number is at an alarming 21%, fluctuating up and down.
-
The score is four to zero. The two Contestants ahead have turned to blood, painted outwards from the epicenter of the Lanza explosion. The other Contestant has taken cover behind the pyramid's top, firing sniper rounds that connect twice in quick succession to Jorj's thigh and head.
The first bullet glances off. A trail of invisible light follows the projectile and it calculates itself back into to the weapon. The second bullet fired however is not Armor Bypassing. Its consistency is that of archaic Armor Piercing with a soft squashing head that carries an explosive load.
As the powerarmor's helmet absorbs the shock, Jorj loses cohesion for less than half a second. Two things then occur at the same instance. The first, is a new barrage of a machinegun to the side of Jorj. The enemy Contestant that has died twice is back and he is using the flatness of the pyramid as a firing stabilizer. The second event is felt in fragments. Microscopic shards of ceramic, machine logic itself, less than a centimeter in length have dislodged from the helmet's mask and these crystals have lodged themselves into his chin, nose and eyes.
With blood in his sight and the fresh scent of familiar filth, Jorj tightens, his body is instinctively led into the pathway of extreme violence.
To that end, the two Claimants within, leave the Contestant to the eager surrender of strategy. From now on, they know, begins frenzy and the violence escalates.
Jorj sprints with unexpected speed to his side, running directly towards the machinegun. As the bullets ricochet off him, their force finds wrathful stability that quickly approaches. The Orichalcum-clad Contestant slides with momentum and kicks the Gymnete-armored one.
When the decapitating kick connects, there is a loud roar from far into distance. The crowd yells and their voices boom for the true meaning of the Immaterial Contest quickly replacing strategical play. They yell, for violence and blood.
-
Whenever Fenrika moves, no matter the attention she has paid to complete silence, the avoidance of raven-blackness amidst the already colorless shadows, she leaves a small gust of wind, that swirls around her invisible movement.
Varhas is near the invader and in the well-lit hallways he is able to discern this flow of wind. The closest he is to Fenrika, the easier it is to discern the scraping noise that thoughts make within the neurons of her mind.
Even so, a professional of roguery, the foxy Claimant is already stalking her hunter. False illusions lure Varhas one way and she lunges behind him. The bright and bronze dagger of violet magical names and sigils, digs deep into the man's right trapezius, carving downwards towards his spine. The hit has weight, the injury is deep, but Varhas turns around, dislodging the knife by rotating along its downwards force.
His flesh remains gaping along with the cut fabric on his back and as soon as the two come face to face, his back begins to bleed profusely, sending streaks of crimson down into his waist.
The Claimant looks at the invader with a calm expression, as if this violent exchange means nothing. And yet, Fenrika is terrified by this silence. The man's eyes are bleak and lifeless, while the woman ahead has bright green eyes, emeralds in swirls of pale gray and her expression is balancing between happiness, mania and surprise.
With a raise of his hands, Varhas attempts to perform the spell, Horde of Skeletons. His right arm struggles to lift, but the fingers work and they form fists. The thumbs lock in their ninety degree angle, and the smallest fingers extend.
At the second the bones break through the ground and they come surging directly at Fenrika's position, she lunges again with a wild horizontal swing of her dagger.
Varhas loses four fingers in this attack. When his expression does not change, the woman becomes intimidated, focusing instead on running away, avoiding as best as she can, the many forms of skeletons becoming reanimated all around her.
Her rapid retreat is struck plenty of times. Bullets of bone, edges of rusty metal find her limbs and face, but she escapes. The many skeletons chase after her, commanded to shamble and run if possible, while one stays behind to support the injured Claimant.
-
Five to zero. All five Contestants are in full view of another. There is only one machinegun and sniper rifle at play using Armor Bypassing projectiles. Without any indication on the arena that new pickups may appear, the likes of which secured the victory at Tropicana, all Contestants focus to the violent struggle.
The Contestant armed with the sniper rifle takes cover behind the half-giant. The bullet phases through the large Gymnete-armored body but Jorj manages to swat it away with the back of his hand. Meanwhile, the blinding heat of the beam weapon connects to his neck and the back of his hand as he completes that swatting motion. The Contestant with the most deaths, has rearmed with a flak cannon and the heavy projectile flies true against Jorj. The last opponent, is sprinting close to Jorj, his machinegun firing rapidly and aiming to obstruct movement via the forces of glancing blows.
All such forces affect Jorj, who heaves his weight towards the greatest force and he lunges diagonally. The manoeuvre is fast. The exhausted aim misaligns for a moment and the flak cannon's projectile explodes behind him, creating a cloud that conceals his advance momentarily.
Three sniper rounds and forty one machinegun rounds connect, two of which penetrate one centimeter deep into the armor. However, due to Jorj's movement the force is reduced and he closes in to the half-giant and the covered sniper, despite the newly manifesting pain behind the armor. It appears to Jorj, that the places the bullets connect, the armor underneath struggles and actual bruising or cuts, shards of Orichalcum are becoming his body all that more often.
The Lanza fires and the straight line of energy misses between half-giant and sniper. The vacuum pulls both Contestants closer, flaying parts of their bodies and tearing them both, one to his right and the other to his left part of the body.
The half giant steps ahead and grabs Jorj's weapon, the second Lanza shot is fired out into the sky. Jorj then unclenches his weapon, letting himself be disarmed and with a downwards hammer fist, his hand connects to a large ear and he sends the half-giant to the ground. The opponent becomes unconscious but his hands still gasp around by instinct.
The Contestant with the rifle retreats while one more of his bullets connects to Jorj's head. The blow is strong but otherwise easy to the senses and as Jorj begins to run closer to that man, his right leg is instinctively grabbed by the semi-conscious half-giant. Before Jorj can sever the tightening hand with a downwards chop, a Contestant closes in fast from ahead and tackles him.
A shoulder slams against his ribs. The blow is insignificant, but it reinforces the throbbing pain deep within the armor. Jorj remains balanced, spun around, but otherwise standing with his two feet, one of which is held there.
-
The Gymnete armor has a lighter inverse dream of cybernetics and circuit vastness. Still however, relentless and desperate two Claimants enter to fight Anax. The close proximity of their circuits, beams a barrage of mental attacks that manifest as torrents of vitriol from one Claimant and from another, a blooming forest that becomes rooted in-between the brick rubble and gleaming fortress.
Anax is not intimidated by the attack. The commanding of the armor's gleaming form is enough to hold back the assault and his connection to the calculatory load of the machine, is spent evenly.
A newly healed Maras rises from the roots and he sends out thorns. Chilon beckons water that dissolves metal and Anax all throughout understands that slowly, the Contest reaches the final moments of desperation and fatigue, where great errors and outcomes manifest.
Thus, he performs one last spell to harden the Orichalcum and retreats deeper, seeking his ally.
Varhas is wounded. With severe bloodloss comes feeblemindedness and a loss of mental focus and he can only command the hunt against Fenrika, whom he believes to be equally fatigued.
At a turn of an alleyway, she is there, amidst piles of broken bones, worn down and in a frenzy. When both pairs of eyes cross each other, the skeletons stop their attack and Fenrika puts one bloodied hand on her sweaty forehead, combing the mess that is her short hair back with her fingertips, while all the while heaving great air into her lungs and addressing Varhas.
'Alas death-dealer. I've dealt my damage. All so without horrors.'
Neither Claimant let's logic dictate their speech, their focus is spent on the machine all around them and their screaming fantastical injuries.
'None from me either Fenrika'.
'I am glad. Before I slay you Varhas, were you tempted?'
'You know how it is'.
The sly Claimant uses the response to conceal her very rapid charge. The woman weaves around the idle bones, knife in hand and becoming gust against the distance in-between the two.
Varhas pierces his fatigue. He merely hints at the spell of Mind Burn and the celestial garrote manifests within Fenrika's thoughstream.
Successfully, the spell hits. The scraping intensifies within Fenrika's brain and a fantastical cord, severs the subliminal connection between current and neuron, thought and muscle. The woman stiffens in place and all of her body's function is flexed to its utmost, constricting stress as she falls to the floor.
-
The Contestant that tackled Jorj, turns for a wild haymaker. Jorj catches the blow by heaving his body closer to the attacker and he lifts the man over him, slamming him down into the half giant. The two opponents become a stack of flesh and Jorj begins anew the motion for a downwards chop.
A sniper round connects to his back, but the force does nothing. The gleaming hand comes down, and it passes through the two heaps of flesh with some difficulty. With enough force even a blunt hand slices through armor and ribcage and lodges itself deep into the half-giant's shoulder.
Jorj feels his lodged hand unnaturally warm. With the other hand, he grabs his mangled Lanza.
One more sniper round connects to Jorj as he frees his hand and his leg becomes unclenched, then, ten machinegun rounds connect to Jorj as he sprints to the sniper's last position. At the edge of the pyramid, Jorj heaves his Lanza and the blue vacuum passes by the opponent, the gravity flaying and swaying him to the side while the following shot completely annihilates the man.
The machinegun belches on Jorj's back, but the man is scouring the space around the pyramid's base instead, for the last respawning Contestant. With misaligned confidence, Jorj makes the error of ignoring the pummeling at his back and he sprints.
A rapid heat is slowly overwhelming the Orichalcum armor. Sudden and uncomfortable, Jorj feels the radiant glow lightly choke him, sweating becomes profuse and he begins to feel as if sun-sick, a dizzying ebb of light that looms over his senses.
The score is eight to zero.
-
The coolant pools underneath the armor are boiling. Fog rises over the abstracted dream that makes machine and mindflow a palpable fantasy.
Anax finds the space tightening and despite the now hostile space all around him, he tries to augur the earth under his feet.
Alarmed, the metal speaks of strain and the calculatory load has far exceeded the expected number. At a percentage of 91%, the pattern recognition of bypassing projectiles is almost complete. A few more bullets and then an instant bypass of explosive destruction will render all effort meaningless.
Anax understands that the wear of the match is making him do erratic decisions. It actually only takes a gaze above to see that the visible star-lit layers of armor are spazing in and out of synchronization. A great plex of celestial fabric is crumpled like paper and it moves in digital, glitching patterns.
From the coolant mist, an enemy Claimant manifests directly ahead of Anax. From his cupping hands a water elemental rushes against Anax and the composition of liquid has an additional toxic property.
The battle between the two begins inside of the crumbling space.
As both Claimants are closer to their respective element, liquid for Chilon and underground for Anax, their sorcery booms into a raw infusion of their will. Cyclopean walls manifest against the coolant-waves, hardness is sliced by pinpoint pressure and the overarching destruction seems to only play to the plans of the attacker.
-
The freshly spawned Contestant manifests on top top of the pyramid. Two opponents stand at its peak, one armed with the armor bypassing machinegun and the other, the one whom held the sniper rifle, armed now with an Arbiter pistol.
Drawn by bloodlust and dizzying fatigue, Jorj climbs on the top of the pyramid and charges ahead.
The Lanza fires against a spray of bullets and where ten of them would connect to Jorj, they are instead pulled off course by the Lanza's vacuum.
Two machinegun bullets connect, while the Arbiter misses and two blue spheres are fired by Jorj to cover his slight step to the side.
While the two opponents dodge away from the spheres expecting an implosion, Jorj closes into the man with the machinegun. The Lanza's muzzle connects to the man's neck and the full weight and speed is as such that the Lanza stabs through.
The opponent loses his bearing and the machinegun continues firing down at their feet. However, the man grabs the scalding Lanza to his painful end. When the blue manifests against him, the damage is minimal, a shattered light that seems to be unfocused, raw discharge passed through broken lenses. There is no implosion, but a violent chaotic press of various lights that shatters the man into unordered pieces.
Four Arbiter shots connect to Jorj. These bullets bypass far into the Orichalcum and the following explosions shatter the cuirass on his back, the plating on his thigh, right shoulder and knee, severely damaging muscles, bone and cartilage underneath.
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Varhas and Anax are worn to their last specks of life. No Claimant must pass this threshold and as such they exit. Once out, so fades away all their spell casting and Fenrika, Maras and Chilon become free and forced to leave by the widespread destruction in the immaterial realm of the Orichalcum.
All should be left to chance now, but to this small and celestial passage of fate, Varhas has fashioned a small bend of these odds, a final surprise planned on his exit.
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The final seconds of the match are as such, Claimant-free moments where man to man see eye to eye.
Jorj sprints. The Lanza misfires once and the blue light disperses against the opponent. The blinding light staggers the man ahead and the two arbiter shots miss.
The Lanza misfires again and the light coalesces on the ground, causing a long crack in the stone that also crudely amputates the opponents left leg. The next armor bypassing shots would normally connect to Jorj's shape, but in-between the moment between moments, the Orichalcum armor disassembles with an outward force, sending all of its pieces away from the Contestant's body. There, in one of these flying pieces, the arbiter shots become fused with the Orichalcum and their explosions occur ten to thirty centimeters away from Jorj, gravelly injuring the man, breaking muscle and bone, sending shrapnel that passes through flesh, but being just enough for a final action.
The third time that Jorj presses tightly on his Lanza, the blue glow manifests as widespread cracks in a cone of deep blue that is instantly crowned with gore.
To all spectators, it seems a Lanza-blue pattern of breaking, yet so familiar a shape, defined as the patterns within the golden-layered brain of the Contestant. It is as if his mind has taken the shape of the glow, the neurons within him, slashes in reality, dominating the opponent that is no longer there, by power of will alone, by power of one-way stream of unconscious thinking. And to that pattern, blotches of shadow amidst the blue light.
When the glow fades, there is only a man left there. A naked and injured being still drawing breath. Agonizing, pouring out life force in crimson and a rebel yell that resounds from his gullet. A dying King, held together by the vibrations of his howling voice.