Ocean Hate
Floating City of Pangloss (Abandoned)
Supremacy Space
The parakeet dipped its beak into the cup of tea.
The cup itself was clutched in the hands of its owner, an older gentleman with grey hair and blue eyes, standing on the edge of the rooftop. He wore a smart jet-black suit, with a white tie providing the only hint of colour on his person (apart from the white parakeet, of course). If not for the environment -- the citadel of Pangloss, long since brought to ruin and rubble -- one might have mistaken him for the prized butler of some wealthy family.
The man's exquisitely groomed mustache twitched as he took in a deep breath of sea air.
"Tis a shame, isn't it, Horatio?" he said to his parakeet. "We stand amid history, but can do nothing but fight in its shadow."
The parakeet chirped, and the man nodded sagely.
"Hm, you have a point, I suppose. This is the job we agreed upon -- a task we had the freedom to accept or deny, and so have brought the results upon ourselves. Alas. They say freedom is the cornerstone of this Supremacy, don't they, Horatio? But what measure is freedom when it gives you no choice but to fight?" He sighed, before glancing over his shoulder. "What do you think, young man?"
The young man who'd been addressed -- an eager warrior in tactical gear and a beanie -- stopped, having been spotted right in the middle of sneaking across the rooftop. He swallowed nervously. He had no reason to, really: for the first thirty minutes of the Inner Melee, no combat was permitted. This was purely positioning and preparation time.
Despite his obvious anxiety, the young man grinned. "Name's Char Braksnen. How about you?"
The old man smiled thinly. "King. It's not my name, but feel free to call me that. What can I do for you, Char Braksnen?"
Char tapped his finger next to his right eye. "I got this ability. Bloodbath. It lets me see how strong people are, just from looking at them."
"Oh!" King raised his grey eyebrows. "That sounds quite useful."
Char nodded. "Right? And looking at you, man… I can tell you're stupid strong. So, I'm thinking… how about you and me partner up, Mr. King? At least for the early parts. We can help each other out, huh?"
King smiled thinly once more, Horatio hopping onto his shoulder as he turned towards the young man. "That's quite the enterprising attitude," he said kindly. "It'll serve you well in life, I believe. But I think in this case you've perhaps bitten off more than you can chew."
"Huh?" Char frowned.
"If I'm indeed as ‘stupid strong’ as you say…" King stepped forward. "...then why do I need you?"
Despite the menace in King's tone, Char still grinned that youthfully arrogant grin. "I'm no weakling, old man," he insisted. "I can help you just as much as you help me. If we just work together, we can --"
"Look down."
Char looked down. There, being pressed up against his throat, was a sharp and silver kitchen knife. He did not swallow. He very deliberately did not swallow.
"You didn't even notice, did you?" King asked softly, holding the knife against Char's neck. "I think you've underestimated the difference in our experience, my good fellow."
Char's eyes were fixed on the kitchen knife, but -- admirably -- he was not shaking enough for it to draw blood. "You're not allowed to kill yet…" he whispered. "You kill me now, you get yourself disqualified. No point, man."
"Quite right," King replied, his eyes cold. "But what if I was a maniac, or some other kind of miscreant? Perhaps I'd cut your throat open for the fun of it, without thinking about the consequences. You didn't consider that, did you? You should never assume your enemy possesses the same sort of sanity as you."
Char slowly looked up from the knife to King's face. "That's…"
"Or, of course, I could simply remain in this position until the Inner Melee truly begins -- and execute you once it's safe to do so. There are no shortage of options available to me should I possess wicked intentions. Do you understand?"
The subtlest, slowest nod.
"Now," King said kindly. "This is what you're going to do. That bracelet you were given upon entry -- Caravan? You're going to push down on its face and tell it you wish to surrender."
"But --" A final, foolish spark of defiance. King brought the knife a centimeter closer and snuffed it out.
He spoke firmly. "This isn't an arena you're ready for, young man. If you refuse to surrender, then I'll just do as I said, and kill you myself. That would be a kinder death than some others would provide. I’ll ask only one more time. Do you understand?"
Char didn't answer straight away -- but, soon enough, his trembling hand pressed down on the black bracelet on his other wrist. His voice was hoarse as he spoke, head angled up towards the sky.
"I surrender…" he said bitterly.
That was the end of it. One moment Char was there, the next he was gone, whisked away by whatever other abilities the Caravan had been granted for the purposes of the Dawn Contest. King sighed in relief, flipping the kitchen knife in his hand and withdrawing it up his sleeve.
Horatio hopped onto his head and chirped.
"Hm?" King frowned. "Too harsh, you say, Horatio?" He took a step forward onto the edge of the roof once again, scoping out the flooded city before him. "Nonsense. Inadequacy is a lesson a boy must learn -- I can say this from experience. Besides…"
His eyes narrowed as he spotted the dot he'd been looking for, so very far away.
"...I already have teammates -- and no interest in winning this farce."
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Atoy Muzazi waded through the streets of Pangloss, Radiants ignited on both his palms, the blazing heat evaporating the water where it came close.
With all the steam rising up, this probably wasn't the most innocuous way of getting around, but at the same time he couldn't allow himself to be caught unarmed. The other contestants would be looking for people who had their guards down anyway, and if Muzazi's suspicions were correct…
"Caravan," he said, his voice commanding. "How long until the Melee commences?"
"Two minutes," the band answered in its snide little voice. "How about it, Muzazi? You think that's enough time? Huh? You freakin' out a little?"
Muzazi ignored the taunts. Two minutes, then. One hundred and twenty blessed seconds in which he could think freely.
His current position was disadvantageous, but not debilitatingly so. It was quite viable to stay down here in the flooded streets, where few others would go, and wait out the early stages of the Melee. Ascending to the rooftops at this point would be foolish: long-range combatants would have already claimed that territory. He'd be putting himself in their ideal environment without time to prepare countermeasures.
And besides…
"If you think you're sneaking up on me," Atoy Muzazi said, turning to the water flowing down the street behind him. "You should know it's not working."
There was no response, save for the sound of gently running water. Muzazi kept his eyes fixed on a specific spot, right outside the ruined mouth of what might have once been a shopping center. A spot where the water did not move quite how it should have.
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"One minute!" cried Caravan.
"You can't fool me," Muzazi said, still staring. "I know you are there. If you don't reveal yourself… I'll simply wait until the Melee begins and kill you."
Bubbles began to flow up from that spot, one after the other, breath beginning to make itself known. Muzazi narrowed his eyes, and raised a Radiant.
"Thirty seconds!"
Bubbles continued to rise. Muzazi took a step back, ascending up the slope at the end of the street slightly, reducing the impact the water would have on his movement. Visibility would be a major concern if he was fighting an underwater enemy, too, especially with his Radiants kicking up so much steam.
"Ten seconds!"
But Atoy Muzazi had never had the luxury of choosing his battlefield. He fought when and where the situation demanded. If he needed to dive to the bottom of the ocean to dispatch his foe, he would merely start holding his breath.
Far up above, fireworks began to flare across the sky. A celebration, or somebody's ability activating? There was no way to tell.
"Three!"
Muzazi took a deep breath.
"Two!"
He adjusted his footing.
"One!"
The Radiant in his hand flared, and…
…with a mighty splash, the water exploded outwards, the hidden Scurrant leaping at Muzazi. He was some sort of aquatic variant, clearly, with razor-sharp teeth and undulating gills on the sides of his neck. As he flew through the air towards Muzazi, he opened his mouth wide, clearly intending to clamp it down on Muzazi’s head and tear his face free.
He’d clearly underestimated the difference in strength between them.
Muzazi pushed one leg back, readied his Radiant and, as he went to slash at his incoming foe… that leg buckled beneath him.
He only felt the pain a second later. First from the open wound on his thigh -- and then from his shoulder. The shark Scurrant tore out a sizable chunk of flesh as he leapt over Muzazi, the water turning red where he dived back in upon landing. Muzazi put a hand against his injured shoulder as he blasted upwards, thrusters on his feet propelling himself over the water.
What had happened? He’d been attacked from below to throw off his counter, clearly, but by what? Muzazi glanced downwards, infusing Aether into his eyes to boost his perceptions.
There.
Shadows, but clearly visible. Countless tiny blobs, diving down into the water, vanishing from sight a moment later. Some kind of fish? Carnivorous fish, perhaps? That seemed possible, judging from the jagged gashon Muzazi’s leg. With a grunt, he ignited tiny thrusters along the borders of his damaged flesh, cauterizing both of his wounds and preventing further bleeding.
It seemed this shark-like fellow was done hiding, at any rate. He launched himself out of the water once more, kicking off a brick wall to pursue the ascending Muzazi. Again, he opened his jaws like a bear trap, clearly intending to take a vicious bite.
That wouldn’t work a second time, especially since Muzazi was no longer in the water -- but surely this man understood that too. No doubt there was a trick to it.
Muzazi slashed a Radiant downwards at the shark-man as he came into range, but -- as expected -- the Scurrant dodged. The only part of it that was unexpected was his method. The Scurrant suddenly spat a wad of infused saliva upwards while disabling his own infusion for a moment, allowing the momentum to propel him down into the water once more.
Yes -- a trick. The real attack is the spit.
Muzazi’s eyes were still infused to their utmost, and so he could still see it as the spit sailed past. Swimming inside its depths, like it was a miniature ocean all to itself, were countless tiny fish. Their scales were a dark red, and their mouths were overflowing with fangs.
Carnivorous organisms, just as Muzazi had thought.
He slashed, the heat of his Radiant vaporizing the spit, and looked down at the ground with a stern expression. The shark-Scurrant was perched atop a piece of debris poking out of the water -- and now that he’d finally stopped moving for a moment, Muzazi could see that his eyes were jet-black, lacking even pupils. A disquieting glare.
“Your ability,” Muzazi said firmly. “Allows you to introduce carnivorous fish to liquids. I don’t know if you control them directly, but at the very least they don’t attack you. Correct?”
That also explained something else he’d noticed -- during that last attack, the spit had been aimed at the injury on Muzazi’s shoulder. If it had made contact, would those fish then have manifested inside his bloodstream? It didn’t even bear thinking about.
The Scurrant scratched behind his ear, a fanged frown on his face. “Even if you’ve figured it out… so what? I’ve already bitten you twice, you know, and you haven’t hit me once. You’re not so tough, Atoy Muzazi.”
Muzazi raised an eyebrow. “You’ve heard of me?”
A snicker. “You’re famous. But you’re nothing special. Nobody’s ever survived a third bite, you know. It’s impossible. One-hundred percent.”
“One-hundred percent? Splendid.” Muzazi swiped his Radiant through the air before him. “I’ll be breaking a record, then.”
The way the Scurrant had said that concerned him, though. A secondary ability, perhaps? One that activated once the user landed three hits, and would enact a penalty on the enemy? He wouldn’t be discovering the nature of that penalty, then. If death was that close to him, he’d have to slay it first.
Radiant Lustrous!
Atoy Muzazi had not realized he could do this before experimenting with his Radiant.
His ability was to create thrusters possessing both heat and propelling force, and attach them to objects. He could adjust both the heat and force of a thruster, and could do so independently for each. That was how he’d created the Radiant -- a thruster with maximum heat and no actual propulsive force, allowing him to swing it like a weightless sword. However, it still needed to originate from an object: in this case, the palm of his hand.
Indeed, Radiant Lustrous was a technique Muzazi had not considered until he’d begun to broaden his own interpretation of his ability. His thrusters could attach to anything, after all. What exactly was preventing him from attaching them to each other?
Two thrusters created simultaneously, with each other as their source. The result was simple and astounding -- a spear of white light appeared in Muzazi’s free hand, so bright he couldn’t even look at it directly. Without another word, he hurled it at the shark-man, the projectile tracing a path of white Aether through the air.
The shark-man barked laughter as he dived backwards into the water, avoiding the Radiant Lustrous, but that was fine. It hadn’t been intended as a weapon, but instead as a delivery mechanism. As the Radiant Lustrous was embedded into the wall, the Aether that Muzazi had infused into it flowed downwards…
…until the very ground beneath them was coursing with his white light.
This enemy no doubt intended to conceal himself beneath the water again, then leap out and strike Muzazi when his attention was on the wrong spot. Foolishness. He’d been lucky enough to have that tactic work once. He should have been satisfied with that simple miracle and gone home.
But, Muzazi supposed, it was inevitable that a contest should have losers.
Radiant Ablaze.
The water burst into blue light as dozens of Radiants flared into existence beneath its surface, with the ground as their source. Immediately, the water began to bubble and froth, the heat from the thrusters pushing it to its boiling point. High above, Muzazi watched the chaos with cautious eyes, pupils flicking this way and that as he waited for it… as he waited for it…
…there.
His skin red and burnt, the Scurrant shot out of the water, his mouth open and ready to scream. He never got the chance.
It was the slightest, subtlest wave of an arm. If one had seen it, divorced from context, they wouldn’t even be able to understand that it was an attack. But it was enough. With that one wave of the Full Moon’s hand, his enemy’s head was cleanly severed from their neck.
Muzazi watched, his expression grim, as the body and the head alike tumbled back down into the boiling water.
That’s one more sin for today.
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“Oh,” King observed, holding his binoculars up to his eyes. “How vicious!”
He’d repositioned himself into the board room of a ruined office building. This place had clearly once been extravagant, but time and disaster had taken their toll. The wall of the board room had a huge hole in it, for one, opening it up to the elements -- but curses and blessings often came hand in hand. That also made it an excellent reconnaissance point, after all.
Behind King, the two unfortunates who’d tried to eliminate him lay dead on the floor, without so much as a wound on either of them. Their electric guitars, the Armaments they’d used to channel the Aether, had been laid respectfully on their chests. King was nothing if not a studious man, after all. His seniors had often taught him to respect the dead.
“What do you think, Horatio?” King murmured, watching as Atoy Muzazi ignited the thrusters on his feet again, zooming off to his next battle. “Should we move in?”
Horatio chirped.
“Quite right,” King nodded. “Best to let him tire himself out a tad more. We can keep ourselves concealed until a good opportunity presents itself. It’s not as if we have any interest in winning this thing, after all.”
With another tweet of agreement, Horatio hopped up from King’s shoulder, sitting down upon his head. Such a cheeky creature. King couldn’t help but smile. He endeavored to make honesty his policy and so -- even when speaking to a bird -- he never told a lie. He really had no interest in winning the Inner Melee.
He and his compatriots had been hired for one purpose and one purpose only: eliminate the Full Moon, Atoy Muzazi, here and now.