Metal Manly Mania

[Geez3r]

While the pair are keeping the crowd going, their competition arrives in the ring, this time only 3 people. The first wave of fighters were apparently first time fighters trying to make a name for themselves, but this group of fighters apparently has fought before as the announcer has something better to call them than "Dan" and "Adam". They are Lady Toxic, Firestarter and Ghost.

Lady Toxic, as her name implies, is the only female competitor thus far. She fills out a black unitard in all the right places, and wears gray thigh length boots, gray armguards and a matching gray cape with a hood, though the hood isn't being worn currently. She has lime green straight long hair and red eyes. There seems to be a green mist wafting off of her. The other 2 competitors seem to be keeping their distance from her.

Firestarter looks like he's already been in a fight tonight. He's probably 22 or 23, looks to be in good shape, and has short brown hair and a goatee. He's wearing normal street clothes that are ripped and torn, and he's got a few scrapes and scratches, though he doesn't seem to be bothered in the slightest as he immediately goes onto one of the turnbuckles, and waves his arms rythmically to get the crowd pumped. After a moment of that mess, he backflips off the turnbuckle and his feet leave a trail of fire hanging in the air for a moment.

And lastly there is Ghost. By far the least physically imposing of everyone present. For the few moments you can tear your eyes away from Lady Toxic's figure or Firestarter's antics, you get a decent image of Ghost in your mind. He's probably only 16 or so, pale as all get out and nothing but skin and bones. He's dressed all in rags that even a hobo wouldn't want. His eyes are just empty and hollow.

==================================

The Arena this time around. The hexagonal floor then splits into 6 trianles of equal size, and begin to seperate from one another. The floors form a sort of ring, and then a few of them raise in height and several lower their height, in this way, none of the platforms are the same elevation above the ground. Then, the platforms begin rotating around the edge of the ring, some clockwise and others counter clockwise, and one of them even turns upside down. To top it all off, at each point of the triangle a pole about 4 or 5 feet tall raises out of the platform, and electricity jumps from each corner to the next, essentially putting an electrified fence on each platform. The announcer then says that for this fight, any fighter cannot remain flying in the air for 10 seconds without being disqualified (mechanically speaking this means that if you are in the air at the end of your turn, your first action on your next turn must be to land on one of the platforms). Furthermore, you will be disqualified if you touch the ground for any reason.

Mechanics for moving platforms:

At the start of every round, except the first, the actions of the platforms will be determined at random. Anyone on those platforms will have to preform the necessary rolls immediately. The actions of the platform are determined as such:

Roll 1d6 for each platform in numerical order, the results of the roll determine the action as such:

1 or 2- No inherent hazards, no rolls necessary

3 - The platform raises or falls making everyone on the platform need to make a DC 10 Reflex save or Balance check to avoid falling prone.

4 or 5 - The platform passes underneath another platform making everyone on the platform need to make a DC 16 Reflex save.

6 - The platform turns upside down, the combatants need to make a DC 22 Reflex save.

Failing the Reflex saves on 4,5 or 6:

Failure by 4 or less: You lose your foot and slide into the electric fence, but manage to avoid falling. Those who get this result must make a DC 21 toughness save vs the fence, if they are stunned by this attack, they fall, see below.

Failure by 5 to 9: You are knocked off your platform entirely. Make the Toughness check as above. If you are still capable of action (ie: not stunned) make a Reflex save DC 10 to catch yourself and/or land on another platform. If you fail this check, you hit the ground are disqualified for this round. You are not succeptiable to that platform's check this round.

Failure by 10 or more: As above but the Reflex save to catch yourself becomes 15.

[quotemyname]

For once in his life, the Captain is completely and totally dumbfounded. Oh balls.

After just a few seconds of having his mouth gape open, Captain Knievel regains his composure.

Hey this isn't gonna be any problem at all! All we gotta do is knock 'em off! Turning to his friend he gets that look in his eye. The one where you know he is about to do something completely stupid... and look awesome in the process. With a devilish smile he says...

Alright, Malice, THROW ME!

[Geez3r]

Malice watches the arena change, and is very conflicted. On the one hand, he's really impressed at the technology involved, but on the other, it looks like it's going to really really hurt. And out of the conflict comes the Captain, with his brilliant idea.

"... You want me to throw you? As in hurl you bodily through the air - at moving targets? Targets which are both electrified and also have enemy combatants on them? The enemy combatants that have powers which we can only venture a guess at currently? Those same enemy combatants with the unknown powers, you know, the ones they have practiced using against people of a similar caliber to them, will use their powers to give you a very bad case of dead at their earliest convience? And your plan is to be willingly hurled into this situation? Yeah I'll get right on that. Just let me try my plan first. It's called "Shoot things until they stop screaming"

[quotemyname]

Well fine! Be that way! ...Party pooper. Well... Looks like shooting things it is....

The captain raises his right arm and takes aim at Firestarter.

Eat plasma, you flamer!...Adrenaline Cannon...FIRE!

[Geez3r]

As the Captain's attack hurtles towards Firestarter, flames erupt at his feet and he is lauched into the air easily avoiding the attack. "You can talk big, shame that's all you can do." Firestarter taunts back.

As the Captain's anger towards Firestarter builds, he is suddenly brought back to reality as sudden chill emenates from behind him. As he turns around to face the new threat, he sees Ghost rising out from the platform, with dark inky shadows billowing like smoke under him. As a sickly white arm strikes the Captain and a deep chill settles in his chest as his very warmth, his very life essense is drained away.

Seeing as how the Captain is occupied, and completely not worth his time, Firestarter leaps through the air straight at Malice, and flames erupt from Firestarter's arms and legs at he flies at Malice like a fiery whirlwind. Unfortunately, his acrobatics throw off his aim and he misses Malice entirely.

Unlike her compatriots, Lady Toxic is content to stay where she is. She does however, summon up a bright green ball of noxious make and hurls it right at Malice whos armor begins to hiss violently but he acts quickly and gets the rest off the junk off of him before it can do serious damage*.

After being assualted twice, Malice desides to vent his frustrations on the nearest target, in this case, Firestarter. In a surprise move, Malice goes for an arieal spin kick, but Firestarter easily evades the attack.

* Villain Point reroll results in auto sucess.

[Geez3r]

Lady Toxic's platform suddenly drops, but she remains stable easily.

Malice and Fire Starter's platform flips over, and the two make a mad scrammble to find land. Firestarter loses his balance and goes flying off the edge, but not before being zapped by the fence. He recovers however and blasts himself onto one of the nearby platforms.

Malice on the other hand takes advantage of the momentum genereted by his earlier kick and easily lands safely back on the platform.

The Captain and Ghost remain relatively unmolested.

[quotemyname]

Ha!Try and sneak up on me will you?! The Captain roars as he bats Ghost's hand away.

Ignoring Ghost for the moment, the Captain turns to Malice. the Captain puts on that grin of his. Malice! Let's take these low-life druggies out quick! You know what to do! And the Captain is truly inspiring.

[Geez3r]

While the Captain is busy shouting orders to Malice, Ghost takes the opprotunity to snake some shadows along the ground around the Captain, and then springs the shadows up to startle and confuse the Captain. But the real attack comes from below, but is a little off target. Even in the heat of battle, Ghost's expression has yet to change.

While that is going on, Firestarter leaps high into the air, hoping that Malice will lose track of where he is. The unorthodox manuevers pays off as Malice is thrown by the leap. Continuing his acrobatics, Firestarter unleashes several areial kicks, throwing flames at Malice as if they were soccer balls. But as Malice is driven on by the Captain, the attacks have little effect as Malice swats the flames away.

From the otherside of the arena Lady Toxic calls out to Malice as he is under assualt from Firestarter "Careful now, wouldn't want to getting hurt. But Malice is entirely too distracted to pay her words any attention. "Oh, you're no fun." she taunts as she hurls another ball of goop at Malice. It appear's Malice's armor doesn't like whatever acid that is as it hisses horribly again but Malice quickly rids himself off the acid as he did previously.

================

Throughly annoyed at his predicament, Malice vents his frustrations on Firestarter with his now signature minigun barrage. The absolute wall of bullets quickly take the smile right off Firestarter's face. In fact, the bullets are so punishing, that they push Firestarter back into the forcefield where he is infact being held aloft by the hail of bullets, pinned to the wall, with no sign of Malice letting up.

Lady Toxic looks as her companion goes flying back against the wall. With revenge in her heart, she turns to Malice with renewed hatred, but she finds a gun identical to the one holding Firestarter aloft pointed directly at her, this time on Malice's left arm. Even though it is unlikely that no one will hear over the gun fire, Malice takes the time to say "The first rule in making weapons, is to always make 2." before unloading on Lady Toxic just like he did on Firestarter. Although Malice's aim is a little worse with that attack the results are very much the same. After taking a moment to enjoy the idea that he is keeping two bodies in excess of 50 feet apart aloft with the power of gunfire alone, Malice lets up on his barrage and the bodies fall to the ground in a pathetic crumble. Malice, lowers the now heavily smoking barrells, and kicks some of the rather large amount of empty shells around him off the edge. He turns to the Captain and gives him the thumbs up uttering the greatest phrase off all time "BOOSH."

[Geez3r]

Malice's little victory celebration as the platform suddenly decides to flip over on him. Malice looses traction on all of the bullet casings lying around and goes for quite the spill. But passes through the electric feild completely without incident. A quick thruster burst later and Malice lands back on solid ground a little shaken, but no worse for wear.

The platform that the Captain and Ghost are fighting on, suddenly jolts upward. Ghost keeps his footing if you can call it that because he's not actually standing so much as in the ground.

[quotemyname]

The captain is the epitome of surefooted-ness, as the platform begins to rise, he does not budge.

I find it quite funny that my radiance just seems to repel all of your attempts to hurt me. Its almost as if i am so awesome that you just can't lay a hand on me.

The captain winds up to take a swing at ghost. I however can do whatever i like with scum like you. the captain sneers and takes a swing at ghost.

[Geez3r]

Ghost maintains his eriee calm despite the Captain's best taunts. Even more startling however is the fact that Ghost takes the hit very well without rolling with it at all.

Ghost leers back at the Captain "Is that all you can muster? Disapointing." With his hands fully enshrouded in shadow, Ghost again assaults the Captain but the Captain dodges the attack again.

==================

From his particular vantage point, Malice doesn't have that many options, except for one yet unused weapon, the Liberation Cannon. Several panels on Malice's shoulders spring up and a swarm of mini-sidewinder missles spews forth. The missles head straight for the bottom of the platform Ghost and Captain are standing on, as if Malice was aiming to destroy it. But at the last second the missles split into different groups and make radical 90 degree turns until they are attacking from every direction on the platform. The explosions are calculated enough that Ghost is hit, but the Captain is unharmed. Ghost is thrown by the assualt, but still very much on his feet.

[Geez3r]

Malice is taken by surprise as his platform passes dangerously close to the underside of another platform. Malice is sent flying through the electric fence but his armor protects him again as he passes through the current. Unfortunately, the electrical surge causes a temporary short in Malice's jet engines and he splats on the ground with a particularly loud *THUNK*. All Malice can do is look up to where the others are still fighting and facepalm at his own failure.

The Ghost and Captain are otherwise left well enough alone.

[quotemyname]

What the hell are you doin layin down on the job, Malice? The captain grins down at him. Looks like its up to me to fineish the job! Hear that, Ghost? The captain lays out his opponent Your done for! Missing his mark the first time, the captain decided to loop around and follow up with an uppercut to the underside of ghost's jaw. Hahaha EXCELLENT!

[Geez3r]

As the Captain's fist connects with Ghost, Ghost is thrown bodily from the ring, slamming into the forcefeild before plummeting to the ground to join the other 3 combatants already there. That leaves the Captain as the last man standing in the arena in all his glory on the highest platform with the crowd shouting his name with increasing ferocity.

[quotemyname]

...AIN CAPTAIN CAPTAIN over and over he shouted it, leading the crowd in a frenzied chant See malice? THAT'S how its done! The captain pointed down towards the bodies of the fallen fighters as the ring began to reset to what one could only assume was it's orignal shape.

Now get on up here and help me celebrate!

[Geez3r]

With a groan Malice sat up "Well, that sucked." He sat on the ground on a moment to try and regain his composure and calm himself down. Malice had lost before but rarely had his pride been wounded this badly before. He was more than a match for anyone else in the ring that night, and yet here he was sprawled out on the ground looking up. I guess fights really do come down to luck. Given the right circumstances, anyone can triumph. Even that idiot.

Malice then stood up, wiped himself off and then took flight to celbrate with the Captain. He was quite subdued though due to looking like an idiot in that round.

[quotemyname]

As the two egged the crowd on even more and waited for the announcer to start the next fight, the captain turned to his friend. Just over the roar of the crowd but low enough that no one else could hear him he turned to malice and said Relax man... You got screwed in that last fight. the captain laid a perfectly shaped arm on malice's shoulder. The truth of the matter is, i could not have done that without you. The captain smiled a knowing smile and said Appreciate this, 'cuz your probably not going to catch me being humble again any time soon.

The two friends went back to cheering and egging on the crowd.

[Geez3r]

As the duo continues their celebration (one of them a little more intently than the other) their competition arrives as the arena is prepped for the next round. This time there are two of them, though they look a little tougher than the previous opposition, they simply walk more confidently than their peers.

The first is the second female of the night. She is introduced as Blue Star. Her name is obviously a play off of her blue hair and matching bright blue eyes. She is very fair skinned and rather thin. She wears a white cloak with a hood than is drawn over her head. Under the cloak she wears a black unitard and finishes off the set with a pair of black boots. She steps quite softly, almost not touching the ground at all. She seems rather detached from the goings on of the arena, but gives a small wave to the crowd nonetheless.

Her partner on the other hand has probably seen the Matrix one too many times, as he’s doing his very best Neo impersonation. Black sunglasses, black trench coat, bad acting, everything. The only thing different from him and Neo is that his T-shirt (black as well) has a pattern on it making it look like there is a bunch of glass being shattered out from his chest. It’s probably got something to do with the fact that he’s introduced as Shard.

Arena Rules: To follow.

[Geez3r]

As the forcefields around the ring once again activate, several of the house droids pour into the arena. They look cheap and mass produced, but that doesn't mean that the weapons that they weild are any less deadly. They are lanky humanoids with a red and gold paint job emblazoned with the Circus Maximus logo.

But the Captain and Malice have more pressing concerns as both Shard and Blue Star spring into action. Shard takes a large dramatic step forward, planting his foot like he's going for a huge uppercut, but he's on the other side of the ring, he can't hit anyone can he? That's what was going through the Captain's mind, at least before the sound of shattering glass echoed throughout the arena and Shard has appeared right infront of the Captain. His previously telegraphed punch now becomes inescapable and deadly as it hits solidly under the Captain's chin.

Malice takes a step to go assist the Captain but as his eyes breifly connect with Blue Star's eyes, a wave of nausea washes over him. Malice quickly recovers from the assualt but it costs him a few seconds and leaves any chance he had of helping the Captain long gone.

[quotemyname]

For a second it seems as though the captain might have a glass jaw! but the fists of shard are no match for the captains perfectly formed chin, and he does his bestdoes his best to resist it.

Why you little! the captain recoils a little from the attack, but readies himself. I'm gonna make you wish you were never born! the captain roars, and whirls his arm around like a wind mill as he winds up for a sucker punch. but the obvious attack seems unlikely to hit.

[Geez3r]

Even as the Captain roars at Shard, all he does is smile back*. Furthermore, the Captain's windmill punch his nothing but air as the sound of shattering glass is heard again, and Shard is about 2 feet to the left of where he just was.

=====================================

After recovering from what felt like a sudden case of vertigo, Malice decides that it's time to get revenge on Blue Star, and not to mention taking out a droid or two in the process. Malice unloades a volley of missles at two droids and Blue Star. If it weren't for the unexpected angle, the attacks would have missed, but they hit home this time, a sloppy attack like this won't work twice. Blue Star's forcefield protects her from the worst of the blast, the droids however aren't so lucky and are quickly reduced to their component parts.

*Auto-success

[Geez3r]

After the smoke clears from Malice's attack, the droids spring into action. One of the droids lines up his sights on Malice. The attack hits a weak point in his armor.

Two more of the droids blast away at Blue Statr. One of the attacks is wide, but the other hits. But Blue Star's force field proves to be too strong to penetrate and she is left unharmed.

The last active droid takes a pot shot at Shard but the Matrix rip off remains as elusive as ever, as he easily sidesteps the attack without the use of his powers.

[Geez3r]

Things are looking bad for our "heroes" as more droids pour into the arena, and Shard and Blue Star go on the offensive again.

Shard dances in from of Captain for a moment before taunting "Sorry Captain, you're just no fun. It's a shame that you're all just talk." With that the now signature and highly aggrivating glass shattering sound echoes as Shard suddenly appears next to the teetering Malice and throws a back elbow at Malice without even looking. Shard's cockiness is his undoing however as his attack misses completely.

After witnessing her teammate's antics, Blue Star touches her temple as if she had just gotten a giant migrane. "You may be an idiot, but I know better than to underestimate even you." She calls to the Captain. She then pulls her legs off the ground and yet remains aloft. She cits cross legged, as if mediating, even going so far as closing her eyes. This is apparently not cockiness as visible blue psychic energy begins radiating off of her, and a spectral blue 3rd eye appears on her forehead. Then in front of her, a mote of blue energy appears and expands. It takes on the appearance of what could be easily mistake for a demonic eel and it shoots through the air straight at the Captain, sinking its fangs into the Captain's flesh. Even more distressing is that even though its attack was successful, the eel doesn't disappear, rather it circles the Captain looking for another chance to strike. This move appears to take all of Blue Star's concentration as she does nothing else than float there.

[quotemyname]

the captain does his best to fend off the snakes fangs. For a second it looks like the over-sized lizard will get the best of him, but just like that the captain resists the brunt of the attack.

What the hell is with all of these tricks? Fight me yourself damnit! The captain takes a running start, leaps off the python's head, and launches himself through the air at the hovering sorceress. After bringing his mighty fist to bear, the captain lands and readies himself for any other attacks.

[Geez3r]

Captain sails through the air and delivers a devestating punch to the temple of Blue Star as she is sent flying through the air. As she skids along the ground, and comes to a halt she slowly sits up and shockingly enough maintained her focus even after taking a shot like that.

In other news, Malice finally gets his composure back and shakes out the cobwebs, but he can't manage to do much else.

The droids on the other hand spring into action again. Two attack Malice, 2 attack Captain, one attacks Shard and the remaining 4 attack Blue Star.

The droids that attack Malice display marksmanship worthy of the Imperial Army and hit everything except the red white and blue target right in front of them.

The one's attacking the Captain apparetly recieved similar instruction and would have take out the front row if not for the forcefeilds.

The engineer who programmed the robots is probably looking for a second job as they still have no luck making contact against Shard.

Unfortunately for Blue Star the droids are apparenly expert marksmen when it comes to semi-conscious psychics laying on the floor a stone's throw away from them. Blue Star's force field is sadly not capable of dealing with 4 simultaneous shots to the back and after a last muffled scream, she goes limp and her eel disappers as well.