The $300,000 Fight-A-Thon! [Round One: Storage Park!]

[eberron]

go child. go and bring me more canvases. the world.. no... the multiverse shall become my art.

Ironjaw sat up with a jolt and instantly regretted it as a jabbing pain coursed down the side of his head. "Ahhh, blimey, what the hell happened?" he muttered as he pressed a hand against his temple. Suddenly remembering what he had just seen, Ironjaw looked around. The first thing he saw was that his clothing, for being just an orange slave jumper suit, was still on his body. The second thing was his rifle laying on a crate next to him, along with a packet of jerky and a note. "Seems someone here isn't out to kill me yet." Ironjaw thought as he opened up the note.

"Um.. hello there. My name is Dr. Franz von Schuster. Thank you for helping me earlier. If your reading this you no doubt are wondering what happened. Well, erm, as I was pulling you up from the side of that hole, one of those rocket sharks managed to stay intact long enough to explode right below us. You took a rather hard crack against the floor and blacked out. I know I could have just shot you then and there but... well... I could use an ally to help kill some of the others. That dragon looks like she'd be tough to kill by myself. If I'm not around then I'm out gathering some kind of food. I figured I'd leave the jerky for you to show you I mean no harm."

"Hmm, someone to help me with that damn dragon and an easy kill for later. Sounds like the perfect ally." Ironjaw mused to himself as he idlely ripped a piece of jerky and swallowed it whole. Just then, he caught sight of someone moving his way. Just as he was about to fire a warning shot, he relized that it was Franz returning with what looked like more bags of jerky. "So the good doctor returns." Ironjaw called out with a slight smirk, not wanting to seem hostile towards a potential ally.

Franz returned the small smile. "Glad to see your awake. You were doing alot of tossing and turning while you were out. Must have been some bad nightmares." As he sat down, Franz noticed Ironjaw's grey skin start to go paler. "Seems like theres more to it then a simple nightmare. If you don't mind me asking, what did you see?"

As Ironjaw recalled what he saw, Franz felt himself grow just as pale as the shark. "I see. This may not bode well if what you saw is true and not just a dream. You must have tapped into the mind of whatever this entity that captured Thize is. We might all be in more danger then we are just by being in this game." Franz sighed. Not only was he in a fight for his life against seven other beings, now there was an unknown person that could appear out of nowhere and turn him into something out of his own nightmares.

"Warden!" Ironjaw suddenly cried out, causing Franz to jump. "What do you mean? What can that clock do?""He might consider this.. Artise.. person a bigger sinner then me or you and try to go after him." Ironjaw thought for a moment. "Warden isn't made of flesh so maybe it'll make it harder for the Artise to do anything to him." "Besides," he thought to himself "It could also end up killing Warden and saving me the effort of having to do it." Ironjaw stood up and shouldered his rifle. "If we're going to deal with this threat I'd suggest we find Warden. I'd rather not have him trying to kill us if and when this Artise freak shows up."

Franz nodded and stood up, though in his heart he had hoped to avoid Warden as much as he could. "I hope that clock has fixed himself. Can't bare going back into that slaughter house looking for gears again." he thought as he walked over to Ironjaw. "Well then, lead the way."

High above, a lone figure watched as the human and shark headed off deeper into the building with his one good eye. What was once a handsome fish-human was now nothing more then a mass of scabs, out of place limbs and a face half covered in a massive scar, his left eye missing completely. "Soon master," Thize muttered "I will bring you more to paint with. I shall make master happy."

[SeventeenthSquid]

Eriz wiped off her upper arm with a towel she had found amongst the myriad crates and boxes of the storehouse. The sheet of mucus parted slowly under a firm scrubbing from her aux-arm. She felt like retching just knowing that Guillemet's foul excretions were sullying her father's beautiful work. She scrubbed harder. Guillemet sat on her haunches a few meters away, still daubing at the streams of goopy tears and snot that ran down her face.

“THEY'RE SO YOUNG. TOO YOUNG FOR WAR, ERIZ! TOO YOUNG TO DIE!”

Eriz didn't reply, having realized by now that Guillemet was much more interested in the sound of her own voice than anything she had to say. Finally managing to scrape off the last of the gunk that was obscuring her illustrious family history, she threw the sodden towel on the ground and started to incinerate it with her laser.

Guillemet heard the laser powering up and instantly stopped blubbering, snapping her face up to stare at it intently. She watched with intense concentration as Eriz burned the towel to a crisp and ground the ashes into the ground with her hydraulic foot. She never could resist a good laser! All maudlin ravings forgotten, she sprang to her feet and bounded over to Eriz, grabbing the laser arm with both hands and pulling it closer to her face.

“WOW THAT THING IS PRETTY NEAT! NEAT IN THE WAY THAT KID'S TOYS ARE NEAT. IT'S PRETTY PATHETIC. WHAT'S THE POWER SUPPLY ON THIS THING? METAL-ION BATTERY? LOOKS PRETTY WEAK. I COULD DO BETTER!”

She let go of the emitter and sprang back, not even noticing Eriz had cocked a metallic fist back in preparation to punch her in the throat. She dove into the drifts of “useful” scrap she had accrued from the warehouse in her orgy of trap-building, throwing pieces of detritus into the air in a maelstrom of creative enterprise.

Eriz gingerly sat on a stout metal crate and watched the mad beast work. She appeared to be trying to build a power supply from six toasters, an aquarium, a jar of unknown fluid and a can of old coins. Eriz sighed to herself.

“Milady,” came Telt's voice. “I do not mean to sound rude but I wish to broach the subject of your death.”

Eriz was mildly startled by this before remembering that she had, in fact, already died once today. Telt hadn't mentioned it, but it was, after all, programmed to be unobtrusive. She had been rather busy trying to assemble an assortment of traps without dying, a feat to write home about given Guillemet's take on explosives handling. She still wasn't really sure if she wanted to talk about it.

“Right, um...” she began. “Look, I think we can both agree that there are things going on here far beyond what we are capable of understanding.”

“Now milady, that's no way for a Sauthai to talk. Everything can be explained,” it replied. That was the way it was programmed to talk, she thought. Everything can be explained? She had just drowned in blood, experienced what she could only describe as literally the afterlife and then come back to life. There was no room in the Sauthai world-view for events like this.

“No, Telt. Where we're from, everything can be explained. We come from a place with natural laws, where if you drop a stone, it falls to the ground. Where if you die, you stay dead. Telt, I died today. I have no doubt of that. I died so that whatever that horrid thing was, it could talk to me. And then I came back, spitting up blood. Do you really mean to tell me that you can explain that?”

She felt anger rising in her, anger at Telt for not being able to comprehend the situation she found herself in. But, she thought, it was only doing what it was programmed to do. It didn't know any better. It wasn't actually alive, she had to remind herself. Just because you can talk to it, doesn't mean it can think.

“Milady, perhaps recent events have lead you to act rashly. If you think calm down and apply logical processes to these events-”

“Telt,” she interrupted, “revert to passive mode. Deactivate personality routines.”

“Passive mode engaged.”

She sighed again and idly kicked at the scraps of material littering the ground. Telt was a good construct, but nothing more. It was horribly out of its depth here. Its programmers had made no allowances for situations like this. She had no use for it now.

“ERIZ!” came a bellow that demolished the air of quiet contemplation Eriz had managed to obtain. “ERIZ LOOK AT WHAT I BUILT!” Guillemet shouted, jumping up and down again, holding a contraption over her head. Its outer shell seemed to be cobbled together from the chassis of two toasters, joined at their base. Small gurgling tanks of fluid covered its sides, coils of wire looping around and through them. She bounded over and held it out to Eriz.

“YOU SHOULD STRAP THIS TO YOUR BACK AND PLUG IT INTO THE LASER. IT'LL GIVE IT A LOT MORE ZAP! AND A LASER WITHOUT ZAP IS LIKE...” She paused, tapping her chin with one hand. She stuck her tongue out and looked back and forth, deep in thought. The device slipped from her hand.

Eriz caught it before it could hit the ground. Guillemet looked down in surprise.

“NICE CATCH!” she shouted before snatching it back and running around behind Eriz, already pulling out an assortment of welding and joining tools to attach it to the back of Eriz's sauthorn. Eriz turned with her, standing up from the crate and trying to keep her front facing Guillemet as she ran around, surprisingly nimble given her bulk.

“No!” Eriz shouted. “Put those down, you crazy beast!”

Guillemet continued to try to place the device on Eriz's back as she rotated, the two madly circling one another for several moments while Guillemet screamed about “AMPERAGE AUGMENTATION” and “PRODIGIOUS ZAPPING POTENTIAL.” Eriz finally stopped turning and stuck out one arm. Guillemet slammed into it with the force of a runaway train (full to the brim with SCIENCE) and brought the two crashing to the ground in a heap. The device skittered across the floor to land in a pile of aborted mines.

“FUCKING GOD DAMN BLOODY SHIT YOU FUCKING GOD DAMN CYBORG BARBARIAN I SWEAR TO WHATEVER FOUL GODS YOU WERE RAISED ON I'M FUCKING TIRED OF BEING PUNCHED, BURNED, SHOT AND OTHERWISE INJURED.”

“Well,” Eriz replied, pulling herself up from the ground and inspecting her arm. It was now splattered with a small layer of dragon blood. “Maybe you should stop being such an overbearing ass and ask me before you try to tamper with my armor.”

“WOW.” Guillemet said as she stood up. “WOW. I WASN'T AWARE YOU WERE SUCH A SUPERCILIOUS CUNT. I THOUGHT YOU APPRECIATED ME. WE HAD SO MANY CHILDREN TOGETHER, ERIZ. SO MANY BEAUTIFUL, INJURIOUS CHILDREN.” As she said the last sentence, tears started to form at the edges of her eyes, running down her face to mingle with the blood that streamed from her broken nose.

Oh no, thought Eriz. Just what I needed.

Guillemet burst into another squall of wailing and crying, tears, blood and mucus ejecting themselves from her face at a frightening rate as she enveloped Eriz in a reptilian embrace.

“WE HAD SUCH A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP! WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LOVE!”

Guillemet, absorbed by her sorrow, failed to notice Eriz's lack of retaliation as she embraced her armored body.

Eriz was, once again, completely and totally dead. Thousands of metal spines had pierced her heart from the inside, exploding through her body in an instant of total, explosive mayhem, stopping just short of the inner skin of her suit.

---

Oh no, Eriz thought. Oh no. But even as she floated in the crimson void, she felt strangely different from the first time she had visited it. The total, abject terror that had consumed her before was gone. Now she just felt... something she could not easily describe. Annoyance? Frustration? But tinged with a desire to understand what was happening to her.

Still though, once was enough for a day, she thought. Can't a girl catch a break?

no

The voice was exactly as it had been before, totally flat and devoid of any emotion or emphasis. But... had it actually repsonded to her thoughts?

Can you understand me?

no

But... you can hear me?

i can no more understand you metal girl than you can understand an ant that crawls across your path

schiing, the intake of metal-sharpening breath.

and that is why i am so utterly fascinated yes enraptured yes even one could say in love

What! She screamed in her head. In LOVE?

your kind cling to biological imperatives yes the drives to eat reproduce sleep excrete

schiiing

you see love only as the connection formed by your desire to breed

schiiing

i am flattered oh so flattered but you read me wrong

schiiing

like a book that has lost its pages to an inferno but the book was written in another language

schiiing

and written on a paper that you cannot see and suspended in a place you cannot exist

Your metaphors leave something to be desired.

metal girl if i thought in your style i would find humor in your comments

Enough stupid games, she thought. The thing was obviously in a talkative mood. Maybe she could get some answers.

Why did you bring me here again? Why bring me here at all?

the one you called the coach is an interesting artist who is working in an interesting medium

schiiing

one i have worked with myself before although in different ways

You mean the battle? It's not art. He's doing it because he needs money. We're some kind of sick entertainment for... I don't even know what. Whatever watches this sort of thing.

the blind worm that writhes in the muck makes art without knowing it does so

schiiing

metal girl you think in such a literal linear fashion it fascinates me to no end

schiiing

you will find that often the world will not conform to the rules and edges you impose upon it

schiiing

and often you will be forced to let things be

The noise she had heard so many times earlier returned as the thing struggled to express its emotion-roughly-anologous-with-amusement. It faded away quickly, though, before getting very loud.

You're getting off track. You never told me why you brought me here.

just the sort of thing i would expect the metal girl to say yes just the sort of thing that makes me love you

schiiing

you are too perfect yes i could not have asked for one better than you for my piece

ANSWER ME.

The laugh-analog returned.

metal girl metal girl metal girl metal girl metal girl metal girl metal girl metal girl metal girl

schiiing

i am often misunderstood by your type they think of me as some rude sculptor

schiiing

one who takes the shells of what once was and makes silly mockeries of life

schiiing

maybe at some point in the past i thought such things were art but no more no more no more

schiiing

the child reacted very poorly to my presence yes it interpreted it all wrong so wrong

The child? Who is the child?

you likely gave it some name but names are meaningless yes totally meaningless

schiiing

your kind loves names so much but what have names ever done for them nothing

schiiing

he was slight and pink and webbed and it disgusts me to speak in such a literal manner

schiiing

but your kind is incapable of any subtlety any at all and that is why i love you

Thize. His name is Thize. What did you do to him?

i sought to show him the true beauty within his form but he reacted very poorly as your kind are wont to do

My kind? Thize is nothing like me.

silly metal girl still oh so literal thinks her kind means her species her genetics

schiiing

an amusing throwback to the tribes of the dusty plains where passing genes was all that mattered

What did you do to him?!

i showed him true beauty and told him to give me material for my art

What, bodies? You told him to go out and kill for you? That's disgusting!

metal girl metal girl metal girl when will you learn

schiiing

if it was meat i wanted i would take it just as i have taken you

schiiing

so literal so metal yes you are the perfect little metal girl the paragon child

schiiing

except you hid from your sun your one shame so sad so awful you knew you had failed

You don't know what you're talking about! You said yourself you can't understand me! What did you DO TO HIM!? WHAT DID YOU WANT HIM TO FIND!?

always seeking answers i suppose it is your way the metal way the way you were taught

schiiing

metal girl so often i am seen as a creature of meat not meat like you are meat but

schiiing

obsessed with flesh with blood with death with that which i lack completely and do not understand

schiiing

metal girl i love you so much because i am a metal being as well

schiiing

a voice like a blade a mind like a block of metal dense dense dense and very inorganic

schiiing

you understand so very little and yet we share so much

schiiing

many think i am little more than a butcher an artful shaper of meat

schiiing

in the past perhaps i found joy in such things but time is vast and i am vast and the void is vast

schiiing

i told the child to bring me canvases with which to work my art

schiiing

i told him everything would become my art

schiiing

i work on large scales

Eriz felt herself falling. She couldn't move. She did not feel the wind across her naked body but her inner ear told her she was falling, faster and faster, dropping through the infinite crimson void.

Suddenly her muscles spasmed and she could move. She flailed for a moment, wheeling through space, turning head over heels, still feeling no breeze but knowing she was dropping incredibly fast, unhindered by air resistance, still accelerating. She spun and spun, trying to arrest her movement but finding no purchase in the empty void.

As she spun she caught a glimpse of something far below her, so far away that despite her rapidly increasing speed she couldn't discern it coming any closer. She caught glimmers of light in the edges of her vision. Light off metal. Huge blades floating in a vast expanse of nothingness, constantly scything over one another, shearing, casting huge purple sparks, disappearing and reappearing and disappearing again in a mad cycle of whirling light. It extended down as far as she could see, a massive pyramid of whirling deadliness.

She had no reason to believe it did not extend downward forever.

What are you? she thought as intensely as she could. What is your name? Where did you come from? WHAT DO YOU WANT?

WHY ME?!

i am not one for names but there are those who call me the Artiste

schiiing

a crude and pedantic title given out of necessity

schiiing

i am like you and unlike you

schiiing

the sun is rising

Eriz fell into the mass of blades and was cut into an infinite number of pieces.

---

Eriz awoke to a stabbing pain in her ribs that winked away almost before she could realize it was there. She gasped and spluttered. I guess coming back to life is something I'll never get used to, she thought. Guillemet loomed over her.

“ALIVE AGAIN, HUH? WELL, THIS TIME I KNOW FOR SURE YOU WERE DEFINITELY DEAD.”

She held up what appeared to be a stethoscope, albeit a stethoscope a good decimeter across and studded in metallic nodules.

“I GOT THIS LITTLE TRINKET A WHILE BACK. IT'S AN INDUSTRIAL-GRADE HEARTBEAT MONITOR! COMES IN HANDY SOMETIMES WHEN YOU NEED TO MEASURE A REALLY BIG HEARTBEAT! OR ONE BEHIND A FOOT OR SO OF METAL PLATING.”

She grinned, a truly horrifying sight on her mucus-and-blood smeared face with a smashed nose.

“SO I KNOW YOUR LITTLE SECRET, GIRLY. SNEAKING LITTLE DEATH-NAPS ON ME, HUH? THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THAT?”

Eriz sat up in one quick motion, pulling herself to her feet. As Guillemet opened her mouth to continue, Eriz spoke, cutting her off.

“Guillemet. We're in tremendous danger. Thize. He's coming.”

Guillemet cocked her head to one side quizzically for a moment, and then burst out laughing.

“THIZE! HAHAHAHA! THAT LITTLE PIMEPHALES NOTATUS DOESN'T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST OUR MYRIAD DEADLY CHILDREN!”

“No, Guillemet, look. The reason I keep dying is something is talking to me. Something that can literally kill me and bring me back to life whenever it wants. Something incredibly powerful. And whatever it is, it did something to Thize. I don't know what but I'm sure it's nasty. He won't be like when we last saw him. He's been changed.”

“CHANGED? LIKE... LIKE MUTATED? THAT'S LIKE A META-MUTANT! WOW! I'VE BARELY EVEN CONSIDERED THE POSSIBLITIES OF META-MUTANTS BEFORE JUST THINK OF-”

Her rant was cut off by an explosion from the outer mine perimeter. The two immediately spun to face it, but whatever had set off the explosive was gone. Most of it, anyways.

A long, pink fleshy arm writhed on the ground. Its skin tone was unmistakeably that of Thize. As the two watched, it flailed back and forth for a few moments, spewing blood, before flipping onto its hand and scuttling away, growing multitudinous faceted eyes as it did so.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT IN ALL OF UNHOLY FUCK WAS THAT.”

Eriz could only stare at the scorched splatter of blood. She knew what the Artiste wanted. It wanted chaos. Bloodshed. Fighting. Utter unpredictability and the fear of death. The essence of mortality. So it had given Thize the tools he needed, lacking competent combat skills of its own, to give it what it wanted.

---

Several minutes earlier, a man watched them from a safe distance behind a crate, whispering quietly into a phone that he held over the stump of his neck. A dial tone sounded for a tense few second before someone picked up the phone.

“Yves. What the hell do you want.”

A chorus of feminine giggles tittered in the background. The man on the other end of the found tried to stifle a laugh and failed. Yves heard him cover the speaker with his hand, obscuring the sounds with static. A few second later, the other speaker returned.

“I'm busy. Make it fast.”

“Dali I'm so sorry to bother you but some people have broken into the Master's warehouse!”

There was a rapid clattering on the other end of the phone, more female laughing and the sound of running footsteps. Dali was with the female members of the cabal again. They never paid any attention to Yves. He blamed Dali for giving him such a shitty name. Yves. He wasn't sure if Dali was even pronouncing it right, but then again, who would possibly correct him? Of course Dali took the best name for himself. He was the head honcho, after all, and he was in charge of dealing with all the minions. The Master never cared even slightly about them past their usefulness to it. Didn't even bother giving them names or identities after it wiped their minds. Left all that shit up to Dali, that egomaniacal fuck.

“WHO!? WHO WOULD DARE?!”

“Please sir I don't know I just-”

“WELL FIND OUT YOU USELESS BLUBBERING OAF OR THE MASTER WILL TAKE MORE THAN JUST YOUR GOD DAMN HEAD!”

“Yesyesyesyes Dali I'll get right on it but please sir they've got so many guns and hammers and there are bombs everywhere if I try to get any closer they'll blast-”

“Yves. Let me put this in the simplest possible terms. If you don't stop those fucks from messing with the Master's storage, you will face a more horrific possible fate that anything could imagine. The Master's been killing people for a long, loooooooooong time in a hell of a lot of ways.”

“Yes sir I understand I'll get right on it sir.”

“GOOD! Call me back when you've found out more.”

Dali hung up. Ungrateful ass. He asked so much of poor Yves. He just wanted to go home and put a plastic bag over his neck stump and look at Ithelli's ass. It was such a nice ass.

Sigh.

He crept around the edge of the crate and ran quickly to another just as he heard an explosion in the distance. Shit, he thought. Shit, shit, shit. Now I'm screwed. The bombs are going off. This is how it ends.

He thought of Ithelli's ass and awaited the end.

It did not come, and the two strange beings in the central safe-zone of the minefield seemed distracted. Now was the perfect time to snap a few shots with his phone!

He pulled it from his pocket and started taking pictures.

[Flummox]

Reserve

[Hobbesy]

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It has been thirteen days, Flummox. Do you care if someone else reserves?

[Flummox]

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Alright, sure. It's been finals week and I haven't made much headway on this post. Pretty dumb of me.

[Hobbesy]

Ironjaw picked himself up, a twinge of pain running through his body as it protested the action. In retrospect it wasn't much compared to the pains he'd known before, but the situation in which this pain existed worked upon his senses. Nevertheless, this shark wasn't one to let such things keep him down. His mouth broke into a toothy grin as he stood up, showing that he was still as cocky as ever.

“Right mate, you have any idea which way to go then? There’s no telling what that clock is trying to crucify now. We’re only stuck in a warehouse full of sinners for him to work his magic on.”

On the last sentence Ironjaw’s mouth curled from a simple grin into a snarly smile, a glint forming in his beady eyes. This caused the doctor’s skin to crawl. He was hardly used to communicating with the xenos scum surrounding them, much less exotic experiments. Still, to his questions Schuster honestly had no real answer. He hadn’t considered sticking with the terrible demon known as The Warden, his sense of flight winning over his admittedly smaller sense of fight. His only response was to place one hand on his chin, a signal that there was much to ponder on the whereabouts of Ironjaw's prey. He hadn't long to think on the subject before his thoughts were cut off by an explosion in the distance. It didn't take long for the hybrid to voice his opinion.

“Hmm, looks like some poor bastard decided to give us our answer. Why don’t we go pay those trouble makers a visit, and ask if they’ve seen our nasty little friend?”

While Schuster couldn’t exactly say he was excited about going towards any action, there was a comforting strength to be found in going there with his new found ally, even if he wasn't exactly his first choice for a friend. Pulling his revolver out of its holster Schuster flicked open the cylinder. Giving a brief check of how many rounds had to be fired, he snapped the cylinder back into place only after giving it a satisfying spin.

“Of course, my shark comrade. I am not sure this is the wisest choice, but I have a feeling you will know what you are doing." The last sentence caught Ironjaw's attention. A weak smiled appeared on Schuster's face, and he continued after a slight awkward pause. "It is certainly much better than waiting for death to find us here, no?”

Ironjaw nodded to Schuster's question, and was the first to move, though starting with a slight limp. He quickly steadied himself, however, and motioned for the doctor to follow. Giving a slight look of worry, Schuster nevertheless went along. It would seem the path towards the direction of the blast was clear, though one could never tell what may happen in circumstances such as these, nor what traps could be waiting in the dark for their chance to be sprung.

--

Thize gave a snarl, his face twisting with a combination of agony and sheer disgust.

"What utterly pathetic creatures, to think their toys could hold back the grand plans of the master."

The thought alone that they would attempt to sculpt his body the same way the Artiste had, blowing off limbs, shredding his torso with shrapnel. It was an absolute disgrace to the work of the Master, and an affront to Thize's very existence. He would have to show them the ropes, teach them that there was no way anything they could even aspire to be be as brilliant. The only question was, how? It could easily be said that Thize was a genius, as well as the most beautiful work to grace the multiverse, but could he truly spread the gospel of the Artiste in such a fashion that plebeians such as Eriz and Gullimet would understand?

A simple disembowelment would not work. He could not expect his new pupils to understand such magnificence by merely seeing an example. He would have to bring others to them, so that they could partake in the creation of art themselves before graduating to the side of his master. It would be the only way to let them experience just how inexperienced they were compared to him, how ungraceful their touch could be compared to his own. Yes, this would be an excellent plan, a grand scheme the Artiste would be proud of.

Thize's mind raced, what subjects would be the best for his students to experiment on? What was near enough that his lesson could be made quickly? The answer came to him suddenly, clear as sunlight on a warm Summer day. The shark hybrid and the human. Yes, it was genius! The dragon and the robot would surely know what to do with such simple forms, the Artiste would be pleased by his creation's wit. Thize's limbs suddenly began to regrow, bone extending from the shattered stumps left by the explosion. Ligaments and tendons snaked over them quickly, followed by a padding of muscle and heavily scabbed skin. His new limbs were limber and long, perfect for scampering about and scouting for Schuster and Ironjaw.

Grasping the metal skeleton of a stacking rack Thize began to climb. His thoughts were awash with dreams of chronic cruelty, of blood and gore. It didn't take long to spot the approaching silhouettes of a two humanoids. Thize's mouth twisted into a sickening grin, a row of needle like teeth shimmering from the lamps above him. He would have to stop the two fools before they found themselves in Eriz's minefield.

[Lord Paradise]

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So how are we thinking about the prospect of wrapping this round up soon?

It looks like we're going to be double-eliminating Linkzeldi and ThunderJolt, unless one of them shows up pretty fast or one of the rest of y'all manages to sway me with another proposition as to how this should go down. Y'all've done great work with the Storage Park, by the way.

[SeventeenthSquid]

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I'd definitely like to finish this round up. I think a new setting would definitely liven things up. If Linkzeldi/ThunderJolt get eliminated who gets to write the death post(s)?

[eberron]

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I'm set for a new round. As for who to kill, I know Linkzeldi is 99% likely to go but I'm not too sure if Thunder should go too. I'd almost be tempted to keep him as an NPC type to kill in round 2 so we have the full set of rounds to build the story. Just my two pennies.

[~ATH]

The Most Gruesome and Magnificent Warden of the Sixth Ring of Inferno was feeling very out of place at the moment. There was the literal feeling of loss he felt at no longer being in his appointed position, then there was this battle. The nature of this battle's existence was simply excruciating. He had seen more chaos occur in this warehouse than ever during his near-infinite lifetime of order. And it made him furious. He had to regain control, somehow.

So, the first thing he did was abandon his foolish idealistic quest of allying with Eriz and Franz. His damaged arm dropped to the ground, and another arm started glowing a dark reddish, greyish, something, aura. The aura flowed smoothly, meticuously, towards the box of gears he still carried. The gears rose up, and started whirring, to Warden's one-second-per-second beat. They collided together, forming no sounds other than a perfect clinking of gears coming together. His discarded arm broke apart, and the salvagable parts joined the new arm. And, lo, his arm was complete. Finally. It was terribly inefficient, dragging that thing around, but he had continued to believe that it would serve him good in the long run.

Franz von Schuster would not be swayed, he could see that. He could hear every frantic whisper Franz made towards Eriz, despite lacking ears. He could see whenever he shook his head behind his back, but more than that, he could feel that he would never ally with him. The ripple at the end of his timeline became just a little bit clearer, as he learned that he has had experience with demons or otherworldly folk, and he would never trust them. Yes, he was a lost case. Yet, Warden had persisted in trying to ally up with him. Why?

Eriz Col-Myel was more frail than her armor would seem to imply. She was a warrior, yes, but perhaps not much of one. The Warden had thought she would be a bit more malleable than Franz, but this wavering weakness was her undoing. She seemed more trusting, yes, but at the same time, less. More importantly, she was scared, even if she didn't show it or know of it. He could see that now. And his visage, designed by the one and only Prince of Darkness to be terrifying, did not help matters much. She was also a lost cause. What error in judgment caused him to pursue this alliance? Why did he not simply ignore them?

He blamed it on the chaos and moved on.

The one in front of him, prancing about with his head so insufferably high, the impossibly clean godcat, was the anomaly here. It was much more of a pressing concern to him, the concept of a God. This one did not feel like the divine power he had very rarely glimpsed from afar, but did it have to? Was it possible that this cat was God's true form? And if so, why was he not prostrating himself before Felus at this very minute? The reason was simple. Felus was not God, nor was he a god. He could feel it. Simply the fact that he had a visible file immediately denied his godly status, as gods were not below him, yet the cat was undeniably more than just a cat. He was most likely something demidivine, an offspring of a god, or perhaps a former god itself. As he dismissed its godly status, its power seemed to dim a little. How peculiar. He would look into this further, but for now, he was satisfied that his analysis was correct. He mentally filed away information on the cat. It fluttered (in a manner of speaking) into a mental cabinet of "The $300,000 Fight-A-Thon!", as infuriating as that title was.

There were 4 other folders. Two were branded as sinners, and the other two were enigmas. He would have to find more information on them.

"Felus. We need to find the one called Guillemet, and the one called Thize."

"Ugh, not Guillement. She's a pain in the ass. I don't know about the other one, though. Is he a contestant?"

"My information on those two is lacking, and this troubles me."

"Yeah, I guess we can find them along the way..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Look! There it is!"

Indeed, the demonic clock was busily floating between warehouses. It seemed to be looking for something, while following a cat. Ironjaw was actually a little bit nervous, a feeling very unbefitting of him. I mean, come on, he was a shark. He had to look intimidating, especially in a battle like this. He shook off this alien feeling, and made to approach him. Ironjaw slinked closer, in a manner once again unbefitting of a shark. Then, it was close enough, but Warden seemed to be very distracted. Eventually, he just called for him.

"Yo, clocky guy!"

"...Ironjaw."

"I don't know if you've heard, but there's this other demonic thing... calls herself the Artiste... and, well, she's a sinner! One of the worst I've seen!"

"You are a sinner, and sinners lie."

"Uh... no, really! She kills people and puts them back together, all for the sake of art!"

"She is capable of reviving the dead? If you are correct... Such a thing is unheard of! Why, this sin truly is the greatest sin of all! It is... heretic!"

"Yeah, so could you maybe take care of her?"

Warden zoomed towards the warehouse with the undeniably demonic presence, leaving Felus behind. He had approved of the corpse-tree structure, but now that he knew it interfered with life itself, he knew that the Artiste needed to go down. Once in the warehouse, he could feel that this presence was unmistakably stronger than before. Perhaps this was due to the fact that they had now trespassed into his property. Suddenly, the demonic presence started wrapping itself around his mechanical body - a fact he was only aware of as a mild observation. Two demonic forces clashed briefly, and nothing at all happened. A guttural moan echoed through the warehouse, and Warden could not make out what it said. Warden was annoyed he couldn't see the Artiste. He could feel its presence, he could even hear it, but he couldn't properly analyze it.

"Artiste, please present yourself."

A shrieking, more demonic energies.

"Further noncompliance will only brand you as a sinner. Make no mistake, I will have a way to find you."

The groans turned to laughing, and gave an air of absolute smugness.

"Very well."

Warden brought up a fist, aimed for the gruesome body tree he saw earlier, and let his arm loose. It hit the base, and the sculpture wobbled dangerously.

The guttural voice gave way, to an odd, somewhat snobbish voice.

what are you doing have you no appreciation for the arts

Warden's perceptions were suddenly transformed, and he saw everything the Artiste saw. He saw corpses everywhere. Horrifyingly mangled corpses, fitted in a strange unexplainable way. Only a handful could even be recognized as human, the rest were nothing but mutilated flesh. One, fitted with diamond eyes, stared right at Warden.

look at these beauties

"Where is this?! Where did you take me?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

this is my gallery

"Unacceptable! You will take me back!"

you poor metal thing without a soul you have no appreciation of art so let me teach you

"Show yourselves! I demand it!"

A corpse of a human with legs more than 10 times the normal length floated up and batted playfully at Warden's face. He struggled to get his gears moving again, and he panicked when he didn't budge one bit. He could be losing valuable nanoseconds at this point. He cursed the Artiste, and placed him even higher than the Coach on the Sinner's List.

"Everything you do will be reflected in how much I torture you in the end. Give up now."

what is art to you soulless demon

"Art is frivolous, and your art is forbidden. You will be taken into the deepest bowels of my ring, for the sin of heresy."

heresy is a meaningless term when there is no god

do you see a god here no there is no god only me

and i am beyond godliness

"Enough! You have just now confessed to the sin of Greater Heresy, your words are meaningless."

you just dont understand

whatever happened to that old body of yours anyways

do you remember your old self no you dont

The Artiste laughed again, and its presence departed Warden's body. Warden awoke on the ground, his gears now furiously grinding. The minute he realized he was back to reality, he finally thought to slow down, and evaluate his time span. He found that no time had passed at all during the conversation. He calmed down and took this time to contemplate. The amount of sinners kept rising, and he felt powerless to stop them. He felt out of control. Truly, he needed help. He needed his minions. He needed his life back in control.

Ironjaw took in this whole interaction with a stoicity that was perhaps just a little bit forced. He was not willing to come any closer than the boundaries between warehouses. He was confident this would cause him to be outside of the Artiste's range. It took him by surprise when the Warden suddenly stopped turning and fell to the ground. He was about to turn away, declaring a victory, but the sound of gears immediately stopped him. And the guttural pseudolaugh of the Artiste made him turn right the fuck back around.

As soon as the Artise stopped laughing, a chunk of the roof broke off and fell on him. He felt the painful sting of death, and he was in the void once more. No voice came this time, and he was left floating, wondering just what the hell did the Artiste think she was doing anyways.

see i can kill your allies at any time

Ironjaw was taken by surprise, and he wondered what the Artiste was talking about. He turned around, and saw a frozen conglomeration of gears. He then realized the horrifying fact that the Artiste wasn't talking to him. He was simply being used as a demonstration. This struck him deep to the core. He was fucking tired of being pushed around by everybody, of nobody caring about him. He tried to scream out in rage, but when he couldn't, he only collapsed in a fetal position. Warden's voice rang out, only further reminding him of his inability to call out.

"He is not an ally of mine, he is a subject of my torment. You will cease the killing of my subjects."

death is my toy death is the canvas which i use to express the greatest of lifes mysteries

The bloody mess that surrounded him cleared a little, showing a view of Warden's deactivated body and the goopy mess that used to be Ironjaw. Then, ex-Ironjaw oozed around and reformed itself into a complete Ironjaw. Warden watched this transpire with a watchful eye socket, and he saw. The Artiste certainly worked in unusual ways. Ironjaw stood, utterly bewildered, looking at his own body, and it was as if he never died. Warden saw this in the shark hybrid's timeline as well. Yet... Ironjaw's death was fresh in his memory. This was impossible. This was... incalculable. So, his mechanical brain simply deleted this from his database, as such an event would have caused a catastrophic error in his programming. He didn't even recognize his own body, or rather, his programming refused to allow him to. Lucifer certainly equipped him well. As it were, Warden only saw that the Artiste prevented Ironjaw's death, and he saw an opportunity.

"This sinner, the one called Ironjaw, has been taken under my custody for torturing. He must be punished for a lifetime of murder, and heresy against his superiors. Eternal torment, it seems, is possible under your powers."

yes most wonderful it seems you are starting to understand

"If you are capable of bringing them the punishment they deserve, I will allow you to do so. You are something beyond death, like me. That is clear. I will make you my minion, and you will do my bidding."

foolish warden you are like an ant to me and i think you are one lovely ant

you are metal like me yes you will be a great one

do you understand art now do you wish to work with me

we can make such great things together soulless one

"I... will help you if you help me. Allow me to bring you the sinners."

The world collapsed, and Warden woke up, surprised to find his gears completely intact and already whirring at a second-by-second rate. Warden knew what he had to do. Warden made his way onwards, totally ignoring Ironjaw.

[Lord Paradise]

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So it looks like we might be getting a replacement writer in with a new character. That means both Axys and Thize are going down this round, and we'll still have a full complement of rounds.

Let me know if you still want to get a post end before round-end, and anybody who wants it can claim the deathpost. Good work, everybody!

[SeventeenthSquid]

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I would definitely like to write the deathpost for Thize, given how he's pretty closely tied to the Artiste now. I haven't had much to do with Axys though, so it would make sense to have someone else write that.

[forkinyoureye]

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So it looks like we might be getting a replacement writer in with a new character. That means both Axys and Thize are going down this round, and we'll still have a full complement of rounds.

show spoiler

hide spoiler

For those who don't already know, that replacement is me. Hi.

And yes, I do have my character more or less completed. I just need to type it up somewhere.

[eberron]

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If you still need someone for a deathpost for Axys I think I can come up with something. Hmmm, maybe me and squid can come up with a two part post that would kill Axys and Thize off at the same time. Up to Squid if he'd want to of course

[SeventeenthSquid]

Reserve.

[SeventeenthSquid]

Ironjaw watched the Warden leave with an audible sigh of relief. He had thought that the construct would be able to help him with the problem of the Artiste. Unfortunately, their brief conversation had proven to be only excruciatingly painful and accomplished neither of his two goals: namely, removing either the Warden or the Artiste. Instead they seemed to be working together. As if he didn't have enough fucking problems already.

He sighed and pulled himself up off the floor where he had been laying crumpled in a small ball. Despite the terrifying transformations that had wracked his body only minutes earlier, he felt no lingering pain. If anything, he felt refreshed, ready to go, ready kick some ass! Not that any ass really needed to be kicked right this moment. He looked around for a moment wondering where that little human had gone. Frank, or... Fonz or whatever. As he wondered this, the human's head poked over a crate, his eyes wild and startled.

“Ironjaw!” he shouted. “What the fuck was that!”

Ironjaw stood from where he was sitting and dusted himself off, looking around for a moment for the plasma rifle which he had dropped when the ceiling had fallen on him. It was a little banged up but still looked fully functional.

“God damn Artiste thing. She dropped the ceiling on me.”

Schuster stepped out from behind the crate and eyed the chunk of fallen concrete. It was extremely large and could clearly have easily crushed even Ironjaw's powerful physique.

“Damn comrade you are tougher than I had thought,” he said, tapping a finger against his chin. Ironjaw just grinned at him, despite how uneasy he felt inside, and shouldered the rifle.

“Look, lets just get the fuck out of here. I don't want to be around this awful place anymore. That damn tree gives me the creeps.” He indicated the huge dripping sculpture with a thumb over his shoulder, unwilling to even look at it. Schuster nodded in fervent agreement and the two turned away to head back the way they had come, into the Coach's warehouse.

“Looks like your plan did not work, comrade,” Schuster began as they walked.

“God damn clocky bastard. So inconsistent. Gets all up my ass about 'sinning' and then lets the biggest fucking sinner there ever was off scot-free. I'll tell you mate, the sooner that spinning lump of shit spins his last the happier I'll be.”

“Warden gives me the creeps as well,” Schuster replied with a shudder. “Reminds me of many things I saw between dimensions.”

Ironjaw looked at the man and raised an eyebrow. “Between dimensions? You're a little more well-traveled than I thought.”

Schuster shrugged. “It is a long story. Perhaps later I will tell it to you. For now, we have other-”

He stopped and spun. “Comrade, did you hear that?” he asked in a strained whisper. Ironjaw, who had not, in fact, heard that, looked around and saw nothing but stacks of crates.

“No,” he replied. He hefted the plasma rifle cautiously in his huge arms. “What did you hear?”

“Something moving. On top of the stack,” he said, indicating a nearby stack of crates. Ironjaw stared at it but failed to see anything out of the ordinary. Just another pile of moldering crates and boxes. He didn't hear anything, either.

“Comrade, have you been drinking?”

Schuster shot Ironjaw a look of annoyance and cautiously edged around the stack, revolver in hand. He sliced the pie, checking carefully around the side of the pile. There was nothing to be found there but more crates and debris. Sighing and wiping the sweat from his brow, he holstered the pistol and rejoined a rather smug-looking Ironjaw.

“I told you, mate. Nobody there.” A big toothy grin covered his face. Schuster just looked pissed off and edgy.

“I swear I heard something. This place, this place is making me fucking crazy. I am jumping at anything.”

“Hey, better cautious than dead, eh?” Ironjaw laughed. Schuster smiled weakly, his face still pale and sweating.

“True, true. I suppose it is better to think one hears noises and find nothing, than to hear a noise and find its source.”

“Right. Now, let's get a move on. We've got to...” his voiced petered out as he realized he actually had no idea what exactly they should be doing right now. “Get to safety,” he finished lamely. “We need a good spot to hole up. Make sure nobody can sneak up on us.” Schuster nodded in agreement.

As the two walked on, Schuster felt a twinge creeping up his back. Survival instincts grown during his stay in the place-between-dimensions were alerting him that something was very wrong here. He felt watched and vulnerable. Stalked. As they wandered the warehouse, the feeling grew and grew though he could never find any concrete evidence of anything following him no matter how many anxious glances he threw over his shoulder.

“Ah!” bellowed Ironjaw. “This looks like a pretty good spot to set up shop!”

They had come to a small clearing in the forest of shelves. A large metal container, likely at one point used for shipping but now fallen into rusted disrepair and filled with drifts of moldering paper and assorted random objects sat in the center of the space. Schuster estimated that the clearing was about fifteen meters across: small, but pretty much the most open space they'd found in their wanderings. The open space meant less of a chance of being caught by surprise. More time to spot anything approaching.

“Yes comrade, I would agree. If we clear out this container we could probably fortify it for defense with little trouble. Construction materials are plentiful here,” he said as he indicated the many stacks around them. Ironjaw nodded and walked up to the container, peering inside.

“It's full to the brim with shit, of course. But we could get that out pretty easy.”

Schuster suddenly felt the feelings of unease strike with renewed vigor. He frantically searched around him for any sign of the malevolent presence he sensed but found nothing. It was impossible to ignore, though. He slid the revolver from its holster and held it ready in both hands. Ironjaw looked back from clearing out the container to eye him with confusion.

“What's the matter, mate?”

“Something is following us...” Schuster whispered back. “I know it is here.”

Ironjaw slowly reached for his rifle, making as little noise as he could.

“Where's the fucker at?” he whispered after he retrieved it and slunk towards Schuster, who was still looking in every direction.

“I do not know... it is there, though, I know it is.”

The shark-man shouldered the rifle, annoyance and anger apparent on his broad face.

“Look, you crazy bastard, there's nothing there. Again. Now quit dicking around and help me clear this box out.”

Schuster stared into his beady eyes. “No,” he said. “There is something here. It will kill us if we are not careful.”

Ironjaw laughed. “Really? REALLY? Then SHOW YOURSELF YOU BIG SCARY BASTARD!” he yelled, throwing both arms into the air and spinning around. Panic crossed Schuster's face and he ran to get the rusting hulk of the container between him and Ironjaw, who continued to laugh at his unease.

“Look, there's nothing here!” he shouted to Schuster. Schuster did not come out from behind the crate. Ironjaw stood in the open for a moment, arms still raised. He began to feel rather foolish and sheepishly put his arms down. “Schuster!” he called. “Come out! It's safe!”

Schuster did not come out.

Ironjaw walked back towards the container, pounding a meaty fist on its side. It rang with a metallic emptiness. “Schuster, come on. Quit fuckin' around.” He began to feel uneasy.

He rounded the side of the container, rifle in hands, to see nothing there. The uneasiness built to a feeling of cold dread in the pit of his stomach.

“Schuster?” he called quietly. He did not really expect a reply.

“He's up here,” came the unexpected reply. The voice was slimy, grotesque and muffled. Like a human whose throat was full of the stuff at the bottom of a lake. Still, though, he recognized it.

“Thize.”

He looked up.

Thize was perched on top of the container. At least, Ironjaw assumed it was Thize. The thing held a struggling Schuster in a multi-limbed grip, scabrous fingers wrapped tightly around his limbs and face. Ironjaw couldn't tell at a glance how many limbs the thing-that-was-once-Thize had, tangled as they were in a mass of protruding bone and oozing scabs.

“Aren't I beautiful?” the thing crooned as it straightened up on a half-dozen legs. Standing on the crate, it loomed over Ironjaw, a horrific apparition of spidery limbs with the squirming Schuster clasped at its core. At the top of this mess of nightmare biology was Thize's face, its once-handsome features smashed, cut and shredded into a mess of scars, scabs and uneven ridges. A single human-looking eye peered from a mass of scar tissue. A clutch of glimmering orange lenses watched unblinking from where his other eye had been, appearing to have just blossomed from huge welts on his face. Ropy strands of pink and crimson fluid ran down his face and swung below his head, some dripping into Schuster's hair.

Ironjaw immediately fired a blast from the plasma rifle and flung himself back. The shot, poorly aimed in Ironjaw's haste to get away, blasted one of Thize's countless arms off. The shattered limb spewed black and pink ichor through the air.

“Is that all you can do?” Thize laughed, his voice burbling and breaking.

“What the fuck did she do to you?!” Ironjaw replied from behind a stack of crates.

“Made me beautiful. Made me understand what it means to be alive. Please...” His voice dissolved into sobs and wretching. Ironjaw carefully peeked around from behind the crate to see the misshapen creature crumpled atop the cargo crate. Schuster lay unmoving, wrapped in disembodied arms beside him. Thize wept into a few hands.

Leveling the gun, Ironjaw swept around the stack and shouted to Thize. “What the fuck are you trying? Think I'm going to fall for this shit?” The horrifying shape lifted its swaying head and locked its dozens of eyes with Ironjaw's.

“I saw what it means. What everything means,” he choked out. Finishing that sentence, he collapsed into another fit of sobs.

“Shut up!” Ironjaw bellowed, now thoroughly infuriated. The thing that had been stalking them for so long, that captured his comrade, was acting like a fragile little girl. If there was anything Ironjaw hated, it was weakness.

“Quit your BLUBBERING!” he screamed as he advanced. He grabbed a low-hanging arm and pulled Thize from the crate, slamming his head into the concrete floor. Ironjaw lifted a booted foot and brought it crashing down into his skull with a savagely satisfying stomp.

Thize spat blood and teeth across the floor, head still pinned under Ironjaw's tread. “Please...” he started before dissolving into spluttering tears. Ironjaw growled under his breath and stomped again, this time on Thize's chest. More detritus spewed from his mouth.

“What the FUCK have you done with Schuster?!” he began, punctuated with another stomp on an extraneous arm, snapping it clean in half. Thize howled and squealed. The wound sprayed ichor over Ironjaw's arm and face.

“I... I need to take you and him to her... to show her the truth... PLEASE.” Thize's voice was strained to the point of rising several octaves, breaking far past a normal human limit. It sounded truly horrific and served only to infuriate the raging Ironjaw further. He raised Thize up off the ground to bring their faces level.

“You're not taking me anywhere, you PIECE OF SHIT!” he screamed, slamming Thize onto the ground. Bellowing madly, he grabbed a limb with both arms and swung Thize like a human flail, smashing his ungainly body into the container. He heard countless frail bones shattering as the misshapen thing slammed into the metal.

Ironjaw attacked unrelentingly. He pounced directly into the central mass of Thize's limbs, punching through their shattered remains to slam blow after blow into the twitching fish-thing's body and face. Each hit threw up another puff of blood as Thize was literally torn apart under Ironjaw's huge fists.

When at last the hulking shark-man stood up, Thize was dead. His body lay absolutely demolished against the container and splattered out across the floor. Ironjaw breathed heavily under a fume of blood. It dripped from his fists. It soaked his clothes. It ran down his broad face into his mouth.

He bellowed in wordless rage, the scent of iron so deep in his mind he could think of nothing else.

There was no reply. He sank to his knees and sat for a moment, wiping blood from his eyes. It was at this point that something occurred to him.

In his blind rage, he had forgotten entirely the entire reason he was here. To kill another contestant. To move to the next round. And Thize, he was a contestant. And Thize is dead.

Sharp pain spiked through his right shoulder. He grunted and tried to turn but something pinned him from the left, then pulled him back down hard. The back of his head slammed into the floor, stunning him for a moment.

As his vision swam back he saw the face of Thize staring down at him, again radically reorganized. A single eye blinked from the center of his face. Three smaller eyes were arrayed across his forehead. His mouth lolled hugely wide, tongue hanging down past a massive protrusion of razor teeth. He held Ironjaw down with multiple spidery limbs to each of Ironjaw's own.

“Didn't think I'd go down that quickly do you?” he said as neon saliva dribbled from his tongue to land on Ironjaw's chest. His voice was strangely smooth compared to its previous choked quality. It took Ironjaw a moment to realize there was a small mouth, its lips perfect blue and unmarred, nestled at the back of his hugely gaping maw. Thize cocked his head to the side, awaiting a reply. Ironjaw groaned and tried to fight free but Thize's countless arms held him in place.

“That would be insulting. But I don't care. I don't mind being insulted anymore, you see. This isn't about me anymore.”

“You crazy bitch,” Ironjaw coughed out. “I hope your master chains you up in the darkest hell.”

“Hell? HELL? What do you think this is, a joke? I'm not joking around, Ironjaw. Not anymore. No more stupid games. I've decided you and the Russian aren't worth my time. I'll teach the girl myself.”

Hearing this, Ironjaw struggled again but to no avail. Thize's arms possessed a wiry strength that had been entirely absent previously.

“Please,” Ironjaw growled contemptuously past rows of gritted teeth. “I ate you alive. I'll do it again.” With that, he kicked out with both legs, arching his back and powerfully bucking at Thize's grip. Some of the arms lost their lock and Ironjaw rolled hard to the left, breaking dozens of fingers and springing free.

Thize's mouth stretched even wider as he screeched, a horrific sound halfway between a ramjet and a dying cat. He leapt backwards and gathered his arms together for another lunge. Ironjaw charged headlong, rushing straight towards him. Thize sprang high into the air, passing over Ironjaw's head and latching countless limbs onto his arms, legs and back. As he arced towards the ground, he pulled hard, hurling Ironjaw to the floor.

His grip now was like iron. There was no escaping the grasping limbs. Ironjaw thrashed and bit but could not avoid being hoisted into the air. Suddenly he jerked forward and felt himself soaring through the air, flailing his arms for balance.

He managed to fall somewhat upright in a stack of cardboard boxes. Their contents seemed relatively soft. A strange blessing, he thought. What good luck. He saw the twisting mass of Thize hurtling towards him and rolled to the side, falling down the stack to the floor.

Thize perched atop the stack and looked down at him.

“You are tough.”

“You are weak,” Ironjaw spat in reply.

Thize's huge mouth curled into something like a beatific grin.

“I was. No longer.” With that, he catapulted suddenly into the air, high above Ironjaw's head, nearly touching the ceiling of the storehouse. He arrowed down towards Ironjaw, limbs forming a point in front of him. Ironjaw, seeing this coming for several whole seconds, casually stepped to the side and allowed Thize to slam into the concrete in a bloody jumble of splintered limbs.

“Nice jump. Pretty high.” He kicked a mangled section of arm back at the barely twitching Thize. His neck was clearly broken in countless places. His skull was shattered, exposing his brain. Ironjaw doubted this would slow him down for long, so immediately ran off through the crate maze.

---

Eriz and Guillemet crouched in the center of the trap-field. Around them was a small safe-zone of crates full of odd parts and machines. Beyond that was the standard storage-building crate stacks, but filled with deadly traps. In the boxes, under the shelves, overhanging the walkways, countless deadly bombs, blades and spikes lurked.

“Do you think he's coming back?” Eriz nervously asked her companion.

“OF COURSE HE IS. HE'S GOING TO TRY TO KILL US, RIGHT? THAT'S WHAT YOU SAID.”

Eriz did not immediately reply. She had had little time to think about the insane episode she had recently experienced in the domain of the thing that called itself the Artiste. It had told her little but terrified her greatly.

“Well...” she started, her voice wavering. “I think so. It wasn't entirely clear.”

“NOT ENTIRELY CLEAR?”

Eriz filled Guillemet in on her current relationship with the Artiste, sparing only the details about how terrified and helpless she had felt during most of their conversations. Guillemet listened with rapt attention until she finished her story.

“IN YOUR ATTEMPT TO ELUCIDATE THIS MATTER YOU HAVE ONLY MANAGED TO CONFUSE ME FURTHER. YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT YOU'VE MANAGED TO WIN THE HEART OF A BEING FROM ANOTHER UNIVERSE, WITH POWERS FAR BEYOND OUR OWN?”

“I guess... that's one way you could put it.”

“DAMN GIRL I DIDN'T THINK YOU HAD IT IN YOU,” she said with a huge toothy grin.

Eriz let out a static-edged sigh and went back to surveying the perimeter. She knew that the first sign of an approaching being would be traps going off, but she couldn't stop herself from trying to spot Thize's return.

A blood-curdling bellow suddenly sounded through the warehouse. She immediately rose to her full height, hammer at the ready, laser arm poised high over her head as she scanned around her. Her suit showed no movement, though, and none of the traps had been set off as far as she could tell.

“THE FUCK WAS THAT?” Guillemet growled nervously next to her.

“Sounded male. Probably Thize. But possibly the shark-man.”

The two stood warily for perhaps a minute, slowly turning back-to-back to watch every inch of the perimeter. Their concentration was interrupted by a huge crash in the near distance.

“Getting closer,” Eriz muttered under her breath.

Moments later they saw a strange spidery figure spring into the air near the source of the sound. It flew up, almost scraping the ceiling with its numerous flailing limbs before pulling together into a tight point and speeding down towards the floor. It vanished behind the numerous stacks of crates but a loud thud echoed through the warehouse.

“By the Ship,” Eriz whispered, “was that Thize?”

“HAD TO BE. IRONJAW IS A LITTLE PORTLY FOR JUMPS LIKE THAT. ALSO SHORT A FEW EXTREMITIES.”

Suddenly an explosion boomed through the warehouse. Crates flew into the air in a burst of light and smoke on the outer edge of the trap perimeter, accompanied by a loud bellow like the one they had heard before. As the yelling came closer, it gradually started to form audible words.

“LET ME THROUGH THE PERIMETER, HE'S RIGHT BEHIND ME!” the voice, clearly Ironjaw's, shouted.

“Um...” Eriz looked at Guillemet.

“DON'T LOOK AT ME. I GUESS SOME WAY TO TURN OFF THE TRAPS MIGHT HAVE BEEN A PRETTY GOOD IDEA.”


Eriz upped the amplification on her speakers and shouted to Ironjaw.

“There's no way we can turn off the traps! Stay back!”

“Damn it, girl! If I stay here, I'm royally fucked!”

Eriz thought about what Ironjaw was saying. If Thize killed him, the round would end. No matter what happened here, someone was going to die. She did not particularly dislike Ironjaw but... better him than her.

“Sorry, there's nothing we can do!” she shouted back. Guillemet arched her long neck to look her in the face.

“DAMN THAT'S COLD.”

“It's just the truth,” she replied glumly.

Guillemet seemed about to reply when a second explosion sounded, very close to the first. Both immediately turned to see Thize's spidery figure launched into the air, trailing bits of limbs, molten skin and flame as he arced up and back down. A third explosion followed shortly. Then a fourth. Then a fifth. Getting closer.

“Oh no,” Eriz said softly, shocked. “He's coming through the field.”

“JESUS CHRIST. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. WE ARE SO FUCKED RIGHT NOW, I THINK HE'S LITERALLY INSUPERABLE,” Guillemet replied. Suddenly a realization crossed her face. Hope rose in Eriz's heart; could Guillemet's mad genius pull through? A grin bisected the dragon's face.

“I JUST REMEMBERED I CAN FLY!” she shouted as she leapt into the air. “SORRY ERIZ. NO HARD FEELINGS BUT YOU'RE A LITTLE HEAVY. GOOD LUCK! I REALLY HOPE YOU DON'T DIE!” With that, she flew up near the ceiling and then away from Eriz, towards a far corner of the warehouse.

Watching her last hope flee, Eriz stood still in the center of the minefield. Explosions like the footfalls of giants grew closer and closer, until debris were pattering off her armor like rain. Twenty meters. Fifteen meters. Ten meters.

Thize flew over the last row of crates, propelled by an exploding mine. He was blackened and charred, missing huge pieces of flesh and trailing boiling blood, smoke and fire. His huge mouth, like that of a deep-sea fish, was gaping monstrously. He had far too many eyes.

A Sauthai fights, the battle-master in the back of her head screamed. Fight or die, it's the Sauthai way!

When I fought, I failed, she thought. Memories of beatings, staffs and swords and fists and knives and clubs and blood, mostly her own. A huge metal hand ramming into her sternum, feeling it even through so much metal, lifting her off the floor and slamming her onto her back. Memories of a war-host assembled under Nalahai's huge central dome.

Why do we fight? the commander bellowed to his troops. TO LIVE! they answered as a single being.

Why do we live? he raised a massive sword over his head. TO FIGHT! the host roared. Light flashed off countless face-domes.

Thize arced through the air towards her, creeping slowly along his trajectory. Flames rippled languidly behind him. His mouth stretched even wider.

We fight because we must, her father told her. Your mother died fighting so that we could live.

She fell heavily to her knees. Her hammer lay forgotten next to her. The laser arm drooped by her side. Thize's outstretched hands were a meter from her, reaching with huge claws.

I am no Sauthai, she thought as his claws scraped at her face-dome with impossible slowness. Warrior. It means warrior. I am no warrior. I am a coward.

Moments before he crashed into her, both figures vanished. The only evidence they had ever existed at all was a brief woosh of air rushing to fill the vacuum left by their departure.

A headless figure stepped out from behind a crate at the edge of the safe zone. He held a camera phone, forgotten, by his side.

“Holy shit,” he whispered in awe.

---

you did not really think i would just let you give up and die did you metal girl

schiiing

to go through all that trouble just to see you throw your life away would be such a waste such a waste of a perfect metal girl

Eriz found herself laying on her back, still encased in her sauthorn. Crimson space, warmly and evenly lit by something she could not see, filled her vision. She sat up slowly, warily looking around her. She was in the center of a large disk of glimmering silver metal, maybe thirty meters in diameter. At its edges was merely more red void.

She suddenly heard a clattering noise from the edge of the disk. She sprang to her feet, grabbing her hammer from where it lay beside her.

A hand reached over the edge of the disk. And then another. And another. And still another, and more, until a dozen hands held the edge of the disk. Suddenly a shape swung itself up from below, landing on countless splayed limbs. Thize.

“Are you here to finish me off?” Eriz asked, voice trembling but feeling strangely courageous.

“No,” he replied. His voice seemed totally normal despite the riotous changes that had overtaken his body. The gaping fish-maw she had seen earlier was gone, replaced with a vertical row of four human-looking mouths. Only the topmost spoke. “I'm here to fight you. Like we were always meant to. Two come in but only one can leave, the Master told me. Me or you.”

Of course. That monstrosity wouldn't really have been trying to save her. For all its talk of love and admiration it seemed hell-bent on inflicting as much misery as it could conjure up on her. She gripped her hammer with both hands and raised it to her shoulder, readying for the charge she was sure would come shortly.

“Get it over with,” she growled at him past gritted teeth.

“There's no rush,” he replied, folding his multitudinous limbs under himself and sitting down on the smooth metal of the platform. “Time doesn't pass in here unless it wishes it to. We will emerge from this space at precisely the moment the Master desires us to.”

Eriz, confused, kept a tight grip on her hammer and did not move from her combat-ready stance. Thize fixed his eyes (two now, thankfully) on her and raised a hand, gesturing for her to come towards him.

“Would you like to talk?”

The question came out of nowhere and confused Eriz even more. “A-about what?” she stammered, lowering the hammer slightly.

“Anything.”

“Why? Why are you suddenly so friendly? Don't we have to fight to the death?” she asked cautiously.

“Who says the two are mutually exclusive? I'd like to know more about you before we finish this.”

This is insane, Eriz thought. But then again, is it really any more insane than anything else that had happened to her in the last few hours? Not really.

Fuck it, she thought. She walked over and sat down near Thize, near the edge of the platform. She left a few meters distance between them, though. She certainly didn't trust him.

“It changed everything,” Thize said suddenly. “Meeting the Master, I mean. Everything. What did I care about before? It's almost hard to remember. Swimming? Bubbles? Style? Fish puns? Do any of those things even mean anything? How could I have cared so much about such trash? They just seem so trivial, so pointless...” his voice trailed off as tears welled up in his eyes. The lower part of his face fell off, taking with it his bottom three mouths. He eyed the fallen piece of face with a morose look as it evaporated into crimson steam. “None of it seems to matter anymore. I just want to be closer to the Master now. Nothing else has meaning.”

Eriz, incredibly confused by his sudden glut of words but realizing she should probably just roll with it, took a moment to reply. “What did it do to you?”

Thize looked into her eyes, the ragged flesh of his chin already smoothing over and bubbling into new forms. “It showed me everything,” he said. “Every person. Every planet. Every universe. Every physical law, every kind of truth, every flavor of beauty. And... and...” He broke into ragged sobs, fat glowing pink tears running down his face, which had morphed itself, she realized, back into its original fish-mutant state.

“And... what?” she answered.

“And now I can't remember it,” he choked. “And will I ever know it again? Was that one my one chance? Was it a test? Did I fail?” His voice was wavering, broken.

“It told me that you reacted poorly. I don't know what that means, though.”

“Poorly? Poorly? I just wanted to keep knowing, to never forget. Everything. Every single thing. It knows everything, you know.”

“Everything? I doubt that,” Eriz said. “It told me itself that there are always more unknowns.”

“To you, yes. To me, and you, and all the other blind worms. But not to the Master. Everything, metal girl. Every single thing. I knew it too, for a short time. So short.”

“And how do you know it was really everything?”

“Because I knew everything. I knew that I knew everything because I knew everything.”

“That's...” she pondered how forward she should be with such a clearly unstable creature. “That's pretty circular logic.”

“You would understand if you had known what I had known.” He sighed heavily. “And now everything just seems so meaningless, so pointless. I have seen true enlightenment, metal girl. Nothing else could ever come close.”

“You keep calling me that. Picked it up from the Artiste?”

“Yeah, it... well, it fits. Better than you know. The Master, it's got plans for you. Lots of plans. Me? I'm just another failed project. A stupid, stupid reject. Reacted poorly.” He seemed about to break into tears again but managed to recover. “It was never about the bodies, you know.”

“Its art?” she queried.

“Yes. The bodies, the sculptures, that's all secondary. Like pencil shavings brushed off a desk once the piece is finished.”

“Then what is it about?” she asked, dreading that she knew the response.

“The lives that used to be in the bodies. It works in lives. Sometimes just one, or two, maybe a little group. Sometimes a city, or a whole planet of lives. Sometimes more. The bodies are waste. Sometimes little diversions but never the focus of the show.”

“And right now, we're center stage.”

“Yes.”

“I feel ready to perform,” she said suddenly, startling even herself. Thize just calmly nodded and rose on his many limbs.

“You changed your mind. I am glad. You are no coward. Your father would be proud.”

“How...” she started before trailing off, remembering what Thize had told her. He looked at her with anticipation. “Give me a minute,” she said, walking across the platform.

“Of course. Take your time.”

Eriz stopped at the opposite edge from Thize. She held her hammer out in front of her and began to sing.

One must understand a few facts about the Sauthai. To a Sauthai, combat is everything. They are literally bred for battle. A program of eugenics and genetic modification centuries in the past has adapted them for their specific brand of combat. For a Sauthai, bulky musculature and intense physical fitness are pointless or even detrimental. All that matters is grace and reaction time.

Her ancestors inserted special glands into their bodies. These produced huge quantities of adrenaline and other chemicals, allowing the people who would become the Sauthai to reach superhuman speed and agility in combat. In the southern countries the kyelz speak of Sauthai catching bullets in the hands, dodging shells and fighting in close quarters with a horrifying ease that escapes description. And all the while, over the clamor of the battlefield, they sing.

Suitsong, it is called. She learned to sing it even before she could speak. Suitsong has no words and no meaning. It is the catalyst used to trigger the deadly trance all Sauthai enter during combat. It is a song of war and only war.

As she sang, her voice shifting high and low, following a strange cadence, she stamped a foot. Then the other. Slowly the rhythm became faster and faster, the song higher and more frenetic. Her singing voice was not beautiful, but the haunting, warping tones of the suitsong had a strange quality that many found entrancing.

Eriz could almost feel the chemicals pumping through her bloodstream. The red glow of the void grew brighter as her pupils dilated. Her heart beat faster and faster, following the rising tempo of the song. Everything seemed to slow down.

She raised her hammer in one hand, still singing. She pointed it at Thize and retracted her aux-arms, the traditional sign of the challenge. He nodded.

She charged.

The sky around the platform suddenly filled with a dense cloud of windmilling blades. Fat bolts of purple lightning flickered between them and shone off their mirror-bright surfaces. Thize ran at her, glints of purple glimmering off his eyes and glossy skin.

They met in the middle of the platform under the churning maelstrom. He reached out with several arms, grabbing for her arms and weapon, but her momentum was simply too great. She crashed into him shoulder-first, then brought the hammer up from below in a devastating sweep. She felt ribs shatter under the impact as he flew back and slid across the platform.

Never let up, the battle-master screamed, push your attack until there is nothing left to push!

She came bearing down on him with all the force of a crashing meteor, raising her hammer high over her head and singing at the top of her lungs, the song almost a feral scream. As she brought it down, Thize rolled to the side. She swept it after him but he sprang over it with lethal agility, latching onto the haft of the weapon with several arms while others grabbed at her arms and shoulders.

Eriz felt herself dangerously destabilizing as Thize tried to pull her to the side, straining to move her massive form. The song wavered, her voice tremulous as she struggled to keep her balance. He jerked all his limbs suddenly, and she stumbled. Three legs wrapped around one of her own, tripping her, and she fell with a tremendous metallic crash to the ground.

Her leg twisted badly as she fell, her knee wrapped in arms. Her own mass worked against her, wrenching the joint.

“Motor six-two-four, code seven,” the suit's voice intoned. Critical loss of function, she knew instantly. Motor six-two-four. Secondary motor, right knee.

Thize sprang back. As she pulled herself to her feet a new limb sprouted from his chest like a fleshy vine. Rapidly it grew to a length twice that of his other extremities, and at its tip a huge glimmering blade reflected the sporadic purple light of the chaos surrounding them.

Thize regarded this new addition to his body with an awe bordering on religious fascination, holding its gleaming edge near to his face and stroking it with a finger. The finger fell to ground, sliced in half. He grinned.

The suitsong rose rapidly in pitch and tempo as Eriz charged again, thundering down on Thize with her hammer cocked to the side for a sweeping blow. The charge was slowed by her damaged knee, though, and the attack was obvious. Thize ducked smoothly under it and lashed out with the new blade, slashing across her chest. It scored deep in the ornamented metal, cutting a long groove diagonally across her chest but failing to fully pierce through the thick layers of armor.

She spun, trying to keep Thize in front of her, but he moved with a smooth liquid grace on his many limbs. Every time she swung her heavy weapon he dodged it and counterattacked, adding more deep gashes and scratches in her sauthorn. Luckily none had yet pierced through its many layers, but she was sure that soon his blade would find a thin point and break through. The suitsong became more frantic.

You can't always win by being the strongest, the battle-master shouted. Sometimes one must rely on the drive for victory alone to finish a fight! To a Sauthai, failure is not an option!

She swung again, a low sweep this time, aiming to shatter some of his legs. Thize nimbly sprang over it as he had so effortlessly before, slashing the blade down at her shoulder. It glanced off the articulated plates, shearing off a few slivers of metal. Eriz found herself dangerously out of position, her hammer far to the side, exposing her body.

Thize, seeing this opening, landed his evasive dodge and followed with a tackle straight at Eriz's chest. His body collided with hers, his limbs already latching onto every hold they could get. The impact nearly knocked Eriz to the ground but she managed to stay upright, song building in intensity.

Thize leveled the blade with her belly, its point seeking the small gap between overlapping motive plates and angling upwards towards her heart.

With a sudden shrieking chorus Eriz dropped her hammer and enfolded Thize in a crushing bear-hug, feeling bones snapping like twigs under her hydraulic grip. Pumping adrenaline obscured everything but Thize's face, flawless, just as it had been before his transformation, in front of her.

She stepped forwards, holding Thize against her chest.

“Motors four-nine-nine, four-nine-eight, four-nine-five, code seven.” Abdominal motion systems. His blade had made it through the outer plating.

She fell forwards, the bright metal of the platform rushing towards her. The suitsong reached a screaming climax.

773.24 kilograms of metal, carbon composites and meat can fall with a lot of kinetic energy. Thize's head shattered like an eggshell as it was crushed between the jutting sternum of her armor and the unyielding metallic floor. His chest folded in on itself with a sickening crack. Blood and brain splattered across the floor. The song ended.

beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful

The blades overhead spun faster and the purple arcs flickered madly.

to think i even doubted you for a moment metal girl what a fool i was

Eriz pushed herself off Thize's smashed corpse with her arms, slowly levering herself off the smear of pulped fish-man and standing up. Her movements were stiff and cumbersome, hampered by her armor's damaged motors. They were in the center of the platform, she noticed with detached curiosity. The battle-trance chemicals were wearing off. Her mind felt slow and fuzzy. Thize's blade was still embedded in her abdomen, its long arm drooping to the floor where it met with his crushed chest.

Thize's limbs, splayed like those of a smashed spider, began to hiss and bubble, dissolving slowly into crimson mist that diffused into the redness of the space around them. As they boiled away, his pulped body slowly reformed itself, pooling together into a mass of reddish-pink skin, raw and new looking. His head was the last to reform, pieces of skull floating into the air and settling together like a macabre puzzle before skin grew over them.

Thize opened his eyes, looking up at Eriz from where he lay on the floor, naked and whole and mostly human again.

oh dear it looks like he is still breathing who would have thought that

schiiing

you will have to deal with that i suppose only one can leave alive only one

Eriz pulled the blade from her abdomen with both hands. As it wrenched free, a dribble of clear fluid ran down her armor, then a gush of bright arterial red . On the end of the blade, blood glimmered in the sporadic violet light. It clattered to the floor. She felt suddenly light-headed.

oh come now this is not the time for such things you have a duty to do metal girl

Thize smiled up at her from the floor. His face was utterly calm. Eriz stumbled, catching herself before she could fall. She found herself reaching unsteadily for her hammer. She could not see her injury but its cold numbness seemed to be spreading across her torso.

good good good beautiful now do it rise metal girl your sun awaits

Thize lay perfectly still below her, a beatific look fixed on his face. She felt suddenly disgusted, seeing him laying there unmoving when he had fought against her so hard. The hammer was in her hand now. She raised it to her shoulder.

do it

She waited, expecting Thize to leap up, to suddenly attack, transforming into some newer and even more horrific form. He did not move. Sweat ran down her face in streams, the interior limbs of her face-dome rapidly sponging it away.

waiting for something metal girl maybe for someone to take your picture

She took the hammer in both hands.

finish it

She raised it over her head.

rise

She brought the hammer down as hard as she could.

rise

---

I'm dead now, aren't I? For good?

yes

She actually had the guts to do it. I guess you were right in the end. No surprise there.

of course

Before I go...

you wish to remember

Yes.

remember

Thize remembered.

---

She awoke in darkness. Switching her dome's display confirmed she was in some kind of container, surrounded by musty cardboard and other random detritus. The Coach's warehouse, of course. Her body ached but the cold nerveless feeling that had clung to her abdomen was gone.

A minute later, she stood in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the huge building and looked at the ruin Thize had inflicted on her armor. Deep slashes crisscrossed her chest and arms. The abdominal plates were ruined, bent out of shape. The motors beneath were in even worse shape, not responding to any queries from her central processor. Her right knee bent stiffly and slowly. The damage would require mending. She could only hope that the injuries she had sustained were truly healed.

At her feet lay her hammer, pushed from the container along with a slough of debris as she had struggled out of its confinement. As she bent to pick it up, a strange glint caught her eye. She pulled it from the pile of junk where it lay half-buried and immediately noticed a bizarre addition.

One end of the hammer seemed to have been melted, oozing in irregular blobby patterns around an object that had evidently been forced into the molten metal before it was allowed to cool.

The unearthly edge Thize had impaled her with shone under the warehouse lights, jutting like the blade of a scythe from one side of her hammer. An object she had carried throughout all of her adult life, the symbol of her Sauthai warrior's pride, now perverted by the Artiste's strange whimsy.

She sighed a sigh of sheer exhaustion and sat heavily on the ground. At least, she observed, it was very sharp.

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Thanks for bearing with me, everyone. This post took far longer than it should have, mostly (entirely) due to my own laziness!

[Pharmacy]

I am goign to fucking start on this postand finish it as soon as possbile sorry for being a terrible writer

post start 3/28/13
post deadline finish IDONTKNOW BUT IWILL TRY