[ACRO] Crazy Ol Magtok's Battle Arena of Terror! (COMBAT! I)

[happyturtle]

Roxie uses a little pixie dust to try and heal Mime enough to hopefully get through to him, but not enough for the spectators or judges to catch on that she's interfering in the match. She doesn't want to lose her job... who would take care of Fluffy and the other contenders then? "Come on, Mime. Pretend you're dead. You can do it!"

[billtodamax]

Mime slowly stops rocking as his arm gets healed slightly, and most of his bruises disappear.

Whether from exhaustion or because the message from Roxie and Memzee finally got through, he's stopped moving.

They'll both probably be able to see that he's still crying, but probably not anyone else.

[happyturtle]

Roxie kisses Mime on the cheek. "I'll be right back. Don't move."

She *POP*'s into the air above the combatants, in a much flashier way this time, obvious to everyone. "Medical check!" she bellows, forcing a time out and fluttering down to make a show of checking Mime's vital signs. Hopefully he'll continue playing dead.

[UncleWolf]

The crowd cheers at the sound of the called check, normally meaning that one of the contestants is dead and they just aren't able to tell. The fight had been rather boring and unbloody to say the least, but a fight is a fight. "Settle down, folks, our dear Roxie has a job to do, let her concentrate." He smiles a bit to himself, it was obvious the fight wasn't over, but the crowd needed a new attraction.

[billtodamax]

Mime looks up a little as Roxie performs her medical check on him, but not a lot, and probably not so much that the crowd could spot it.

It'll be just noticable to Roxie, Memzee, and Dexter, however.

[Rebonack]

Memzee breaths a sigh of relief as she realizes that the Mime has finally managed to get some degree of sense knocked into him. He shouldn't have been here in the first place, let alone fighting anyone.

...better make as good of a show of this as she can manage...

Keep the crowd happy lest they request the Mime be smushed or something.

"That's the best you can give me?" Memzee bellows more for the bloodthirsty mob watching the fight than anything else. "Get this waste out of my sight and bring me a real opponent!"

Hopefully that was enough bravado to keep them pleased...

Once the battle is over she'll have to go find Mime and apologize to him for the mess...

[happyturtle]

"He's dead!" Roxie bellows. She lands on the "corpse", ready to *POP* him out as soon as Dexter calls the match.

[UncleWolf]

The crowd cheers and Dexter nods, actually a bit thankful for the fake call. "Very well, Memzee is the winner! And we heard her, clean the field for the next contestant!" He covers the mic and turns to the aid next to him. "Send a message to Roxie's room, tell her thanks."

[happyturtle]

*POP*

Roxie and Mime should teleport off the arena floor and into the hypogeum underneath. Mime should find himself in a clean, but plain room lit up with a lantern.

She starts sprinkling more healing pixie dust over him, enough to heal all of his wounds.

[billtodamax]

Mime sits there crying for a couple minutes after he heals before realising he's not in pain anymore.

He sits up slightly sheepishly and tries to hug Roxie again.

[happyturtle]

[Hypogeum]

Roxie hugs Mime back. "There you go. All better now? Do you want to come meet Fluffy?"

[Gnrlshrimp]

New Challenger Approaching!

Um...yeah...

Anyway, in the arena, a loud explosion announces the arrival of the latest challenger.

A figure clad in thick, red plate armour, with a blood red sword in his hand, the image of a skull still quite visible despite the overuse of red.

Ba'al is rather fond of the colour red.

He prefers black and white though...

Anyway, he's here, and he's looking for a fight.

[UncleWolf]

Dexter smiles. Now this fight showed promise. "Welcome to the Arena! You know the rules and have walked onto the field of Death! This fight will I hope be a fight to the death!"

The spotlights show on the center of the arena, a cage rising out of it. Inside is a large creature. "You opponent will be Carl! Our Carnifex! Fight well. And let blood spill!" Dexter smirks at Ba'al. "And don't worry, the cage is just for show."

[EleventhHour]

In fact, it's really just for show seeing as it bends apart and snaps open like a tissue paper or cheap handkerchief as the massive creature lumbers out of it, seeming like a massive armoured beetle, low to the ground and almost on all six. It's shell is a glossy dark purple, the individual, giant, plates lined by lighter mauve where the extending ridges are. Two larger-than life crab-like pincers slam into the ground, thier curled size bigger than a grown man, throwing up little shockwaves of dust like a pebble in a pond. It's head has a pair of swept back spikes, just above the six beady eyes, the colour of polished human bone. Those eyes are a inhuman yellow, no discernable pupil, and only the two most fore ones of any appreciable size. Below that is a jagged scar, something that it failed to regenerate somehow, a grevious wound in a deathmatch, prehaps. And then it's jaw. Big fails to tell you just how large this is, split along the bottom to open in three ways, that would be bottom-right, bottom-left and the top of the jaw, with teeth as long as a forearm and when it opens the mouth to scream, it's obviously more than large enough to swallow a person whole.

And then it gets up. Standing at a good twenty feet, dripping slimes and oozes, it unfolds a lower pair of arms, with little riddly hive-like protrusions, ribs thicker than building supports and little hanging spores the size of a head. And even as it takes a first lumbering step forward one falls off and begins an odd combination of rolling and squirming forward. The beastie, a fully grown mature Carnifex builds up another scream, it's already massive frame expanding before it lets the noise out with an earsplitting screech. Looks like "Carl" is ready to go.

[Gnrlshrimp]

"Heh, hello there, big fella." Lookit Ba'al down there, a mere six and a half feet tall. A dwarf before the behemoth, like David facing Goliath.

Except David won...

With a sling and a few stones.

Ba'al has access to considerably more powerful things than that.

But he enjoys a challenge, as always, and so he takes a rough guess at the strength of Carl, and lowers his own abilities to a rough match for it. "Come on then, big fella! Come and take a bite! You'd only need one bite by the looks of things..." Ba'al clicks his fingers, dismissing his armour, revealing his usual black and white outfit. That armour wasn't going to be of much use against this brute.

Speed will be far more useful. He adjusts his dark sunglasses and grins as he considers how to take the gargantuan creature down.

He shifts his sword slightly and runs forward at a relatively slow pace, hoping Carl would make the first move.

[EleventhHour]

Thump. Thump. "Carl" defenitly isn't a quick mover, but with legs as big as that even slow steps cover a lot of ground, but instead of leading off by closing straight into combat with the little man, the beast makes a chittering-click in gargantuan scale, and tilts it's head as if curious. The following hiss and then moving the claws out threateningly doesn't correspond with the pulsation of the triangular growths on it's smaller, lower, arms. With the sound of knives across cardboard dozens of finger sized squirming worms go whistling through the air at near-sonic speeds, plenty of them missing outright and squirming around on walls, glass and the ground for thier few seconds of life. Others seem to be right on target.

In the meantime, the first little be-tentacled ball continues to close on Ba'al...

[billtodamax]

[Hypogeum]

Roxie hugs Mime back. "There you go. All better now? Do you want to come meet Fluffy?"

Mime nods happily and springs to his feet, looking around wildly, despite the fact that to my knowledge there's nothing else in the room.

Wait for her to take you to him, Mime! you're so impatient.

[Gnrlshrimp]

Ooh, the beastie has projectiles...of some sort.

And they're supersonic projectiles, which makes it incredibly hard for Ba'al to dodge and-

Boom.

Oh yeah, he can teleport at will, leaving a nice cloud of smoke behind.

He reappears behind Carl and resumes his charge, hoping to get near enough to the beast to force it into melee.

Big things generally don't turn particularly quickly, but you never know...those little worm things were a rather unpleasant surprise. No doubt it has several more...

[EleventhHour]

Surprises, indeed! The giant isn't exactly happy about this whole teleportation business, and decides to react in the easiest manner possible as it begins to lumber into a turn. That is to say, lash around with it's wrecking-ball like tail full of spikes.

Meanwhile the lost little orb continues in the direction that Ba'al was, before floating in another random direction, and a new one drops off "Carl's" torso, bobbing it's way toward the man. God. Godling. ...Lunch.

[Gnrlshrimp]

Oh yeah. Tail. Probably should've thought about that before telesploding behind it.

Ba'al tries to jump over the tail, but misjudges it and gets clipped by it, sending him flying backwards...

He shakes his head and gets back up...then frowns as he realises his sunglasses are broken. Wonderful. He sighs and takes them off, revealing the two brilliant white pools of light he has for eyes. There's a reason why he always sunglasses, and exceptionally dark ones at that...he'd rather not blind people when he looks at them.

"Well, that hurt like hell." So...new plan! Telesplode onto Carl's back and stab him with the sword! And that's exactly what he tries to do!

[EleventhHour]

Shthuck! The carnifex can barely feel the swordpoint at this point, seeing as it's a bit like getting a thumbtack in the shoulder, but it's still a (semi)intelligent beast and not paticularly happy about this newest outcome of events, and it roars angrily, raising back up to it's full hieght and shaking from side to side to try and dislodge the rider.

Presumably Ba'al either stays on throughout, or he manages to stay on for a bit, which is more than long enough to see a rather freaky sight. Dilated pores in the massive shell slowly cracking open, and squeezing out another one of the be-tentacled pods, that proceeds to leave a trail of slime as it rolls down the carnifex's back toward the sword, and rider if Ba'al is still there. The other pods on the arena floor have no idea where the target has gotten off to, lacking eyes as it were, and float around aimlessly.

[Darius Midnite]

Darius lands on one of the spectator seats smashing it thoroughly. He looks around then sits down on a usable chair and enjoys the show.

[Gnrlshrimp]

Ba'al is shaken loose fairly quickly, pushing off the carnifex's back and floating in the air as soon as he sees the freaky little thing rolling down Carl's back. With a click of his fingers, the sword is in his hands once more. Ba'al now flies round in front of Carl's face...

"That all you got, big fella?" he asks, staring directly at Carl with those bright white pools of light...

Maybe he can blind the creature temporarily and make it do something stupid?

Hopefully the brightness will at least irritate it.

[EleventhHour]

That is quite bright to the carnifex, it's used to the occasional flash of blinding light and the like, but noone has, recently, pointed anything directly into it's eye for more than a split second or two. So it tries to move the light source away, blinking all of it's eyes rapidly, and then making a massively driven sweep at where presumably the fellow is, with it's claws, trying to close the razor edge on Ba'al and charging forward in an earthshaking lunge.

[Gnrlshrimp]

As the claws slice towards him and the beast lunges forwards, Ba'al darts towards him, nimbly twisting to the side to avoid the massive head, using his agility to steer clear of those nasty nasty teeth and claws.

As he moves past Carl's head, he lashes out with his sword, trying to strike the eyes and go for a more permanent sense of blindness. After that, he reaches out to grab one of Carl's spikes, intending to use it to swing round onto the beast's head. He might regret this afterwards...never a good idea to cut open your hand, really.

[EleventhHour]

Yowch! Deep green ichor sprays from the wound as Carl continues forward, building up a lumbering speed as it shakes it's head, trying to get the rider off of the thick block of bone it calls a neck, it's probably a rather awkward position for Ba'al, sitting between the armoured crest of it's head, and the heavy exoskeleton-carapace just behind it, but comfort wasn't the plan, probably.

Speaking of lack of comfort, the tendrils of the newest spore doesn't seem to be willing to give Ba'al any personal space at all, and still wet with ooze, it slides down the front of Carl's carapace and onto the demigod's shoulders, in a slick and slithering embrace. The carnifex, in the meantime, in a probably fairly obvious plan seems to be set to smash it's own head against the nearest arena wall, hopefully flattening the rider on impact.

[Gnrlshrimp]

Yeah, wow, all that bouncing about as the carnifex lumbers on is gonna give Ba'al some really painful bruises in the morning.

And then he gets a spore on his back...

Feeling rather uncomfortable he staggers to his feet, just barely keeping his balance on Carl's neck, bracing himself against the armoured carapace behind him.

"Get offa me, you bastard!" He shouts angrily, slowly, carefully bring his sword round, making sure he doesn't cut off his own ear. Once it's in position, he stabs forward. It's kind of a weak stab, since he's making sure he doesn't stab his own brain...but hopefully the spore isn't too tough. And of course, the sword is damn sharp, so that should help.

[EleventhHour]

Well. It feels like he didn't need that sword at all. Probably could've punched it and it'd have defla- BANG! Oh. Maybe it's supposed to do that. ...And explode. Well, that might hurt.

Carl crashes into the wall, making certain one way or another that with the bone-juddering halt. It roars, and tries to find where Ba'al has gone, if anywhere at all.

[Gnrlshrimp]

Yup, Ba'al isn't on Carl's back. Looks like the silly carnifex rammed itself into the wall for no reason! Silly beastie. Although, saying that, its armour is so thick that I'm guessing it wasn't really bothered by the collision. That won't make Ba'al happy at all.

Speaking of Ba'al, he's currently on the floor of the arena looking rather dazed. Explosions are...a poor choice in terms of ways of attacking him, but the blast did send him flying since he was so unprepared for it. He groans and gets up again, rubbing his head. The noise appears to have given him one hell of a headache. "Huh...well...if you're gonna do that, I guess I'll have to use one or two tricks of my own." A click of the fingers and his sword reappears in his hand, crackling fiercely now. No more Mr nice Lord of Destruction...

[EleventhHour]

Worse than not being effected, the side of the skull-like face that's towards Ba'al is the part that he cut through, including the burst eyes. Well, that is to say they were burst, because aside from a green-ish stain and an off-bone white line there's no sign of where the sword went through. It doesn't charge, instead it stomps it's feet, and then screeches into the air, building up sparkles of blue energy...

Before releasing it like a lightning bolt at Ba'al, and attracting the drifting spores toward the noise... And since Carl is on the edge of the arena, they're going to get rather closer to Ba'al before the Carnifex.