Nylan
Characters Welcome
Story will be up soon enough. I've never been good about being early, but it will be up well before the 9pm EST deadline.
EDIT:
EDIT:
TBNES - Tournament
- Thread starter thomas.berubeg
- Start date
Nylan
Characters Welcome
OOC: Alrighty then, here you go. Twenty minutes to spare. I'm going to go cry in the corner of shame now.
Leo Cazals vs Chaos the Laughter
Round 1
Leo sighed.
“Look, we really don’t have to do this, you know. We don’t have to fight.”
“But that’s not what Mr. Judge North said. He said we have to try to kill each other! That sounds like fun!” Shadows danced across Chaos’s face as he spoke.
They were on a raised platform surrounded by thousands of people. Above them loomed the red-and-white striped pavilion. A machine to the side of them was powering up, with its blinking lights and whirring sounds. Leo turned his head towards the judges box and raised his voice in reply.
“Yes, but Mr. North is a little rat turd!” The crowd hushed.
“A rat turd? I didn’t know rats could poop so much! Fascinating!”
The pavilion then burst into laughter. Leo tried to speak, but could not be heard above the spectators’ mirth. He took a deep breath and made another attempt.
“I really mean it, you know! We can end this! We can work together! These are terrible people and we can stop them!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hey, so…the pamphlet says you’re Chilean! What does that mean? Do you like to eat chili? I tried some at the cafeteria. It was fantastic…I cried for hours! Oooooh, look…a pretty bug!”
Chaos spun around and tried to catch the orange butterfly as it fluttered around his head. After looping a few times, it flew over to Leo’s side of the circle. His opponent obviously wasn’t paying much attention to him.
So he squished the bug.
There was a flash of blinding light…and then he took a fist to the stomach that sent him hurdling against a cold stone wall. Lights danced in front of him as he sank to the floor. Through the dim torchlight of his newfound surroundings he could see his opponent standing over him. His expression was now terrifying.
“YOU HURT MY NEW FRIEND!!!”
He shook and clenched his fists as he shouted. Leo slowly helped himself to his feet, and winced as he felt a cracked rib. Ah…this sucked. Clearly, he was not getting anywhere with this…thing.
Best finish him off quickly before he gets too riled up now… Jeeves quipped.
Leo’s fist connected with the monochrome mask. No reaction. His left sank into his belly…nothing. This guy was a walking mannequin.
“Hey! Stop doing that! I want to be mad at you!”
“Ah, well…sorry. I…I gotta go.” As he spoke, he smashed his boot into Chaos’ foot and took off down one of the skull-lined corridors as fast as he could.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” resonated the cry thought the catacombs. The sound bounced all over and it became clear that these crypts were massive.
Leo scrambled from room to room as he tried to lose his pursuer. He darted left, then right, then left again through the passageways. His foot splashed through a puddle. After a few minutes he stopped to catch his breath. There was no sign of Chaos.
He was now in complete darkness. All he could hear was his own breathing and the steady drip of water ahead of him.
He was then promptly tackled into the wall.
They struggled on the floor. Leo bit his arm. Chaos retaliated with a kick to the kidneys. Leo rolled over him and tried to escape, but Chaos was too quick and dragged him back by the foot. They rolled and struggled over bones strewn across the floor and into a puddle
Leo shoved the maniac’s head in the water and held it there, but to no effect. Chaos continued to struggle and grapple without trying to lift his head.
“What…are you?”
I’m not sure myself, but he’s not alive. He has no heartbeat; draws no breath. You’re not going to defeat him easy. I recommend we obliterate him entirely.
There was no time to reply as Chaos was soon on top of him. He wrapped his hands around Leo’s throat and began to squeeze. This monstrosity’s strength was ten times his own. He was helpless.
“You know, it’s funny how fragile living things are. They give up pretty easily. Soon you will be nothing more than a squishy bag of water and bones! Squish squish squish!” He sang to himself. Leo was starting to see spots and his mind began to cloud as he searched desperately for a way to escape.
“Oh…I do have a question though…” spoke his assailant. The voice was distant and fuzzy. “What is that shiny ball thingy in your pocket for?”
Ah. That was it.
Leo pulled the orb out of his pocket and smacked Chaos in the head with it.
The masked figure reeled back and clutched at his mask. Leo took the opportunity to bolt down another corridor. He knew he didn’t have much time before Chaos would be on him again. He stumbled and fell as he found himself in a larger room lower than the corridor he had been in.
“Jeeves, can you give me a hand here? I can’t see.” As he spoke the orb began to glow and the Chilean took in his surroundings as he held his wounded side.
The hall had opened up into a large burial chamber…probably belonging to someone important. There was a large painting of the Garden of Eden on the opposite wall, split through the middle. The other walls were lined with racks of swords, spears, and shields. In the middle of the floor rose a granite tomb in the form of some sort of medieval warrior…perhaps a knight. He thought he heard a soft gurgling noise…and smiled.
Leo crossed the room quickly and took one of the spears off of a rack. He stepped over behind the tomb and spun around just in time to see Chaos come flying out of the corridor. H leaped from the entrance over the tomb on top of him. He raised his weapon to block his assailant and thrust him to the side before throwing it through the mannequin’s chest, pinning him to the floor.
Chaos cried in agony. Perhaps he could not die, but he certainly could feel the blow.
“You don’t like that, do you, friend? That’s called pain. It’s a very normal part of mortal existence. Since you want to know everything about our way of life, I suppose it was only a matter of time. Let me show you about it.” He kicked Chaos in the head before walking back to the rack and grabbing a few more spears.
“I…I don’t like this part of life.” Came the reply.
Leo smirked darkly. “No, I suppose you don’t. There are few who do. Yet…look around you. Walls of bones. Tombs of once-great nobles that are now nothing more than rotting flesh. Weapons of war. It doesn’t paint a very pretty picture, does it?
“You see, we humans are great at causing pain. Professionals, even. Yet we are not so good at taking it. It’s sad yet necessary. No one gets through life without pain. If I have to deal with it, you should have your fair share.” He thrust spears through both of his opponent’s legs and went for one of the arms when Chaos gave a shout.
“AAAARGHH!!!!! NOOO!!!! MAKE IT STOP!! I CAN’T STAND THE PAIN!!....” He raised his hand up as if to protect himself.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that hurt? I didn’t mean to. I mean…it feels pretty good to me!”
“Didn’t….didn’t you say we could help each other? Didn’t you say we could be friends? I…I just want to know what it’s like to live. So many centuries alone…”
“Yeah, well you should have thought of that before you BROKE MY RIB!” came the shout as Leo crunched another pole into Chaos’ side and twisted it. He used four more to pin down his wrists and biceps. “There, that should hold you for about twenty seconds or so, right? I just need a moment…”
He then walked over to the painting and kicked at the crack in the wall. It gave in and a dark liquid spouted back at him. With a sword from the other rack he dug at the hole and opened it further. The room was now rapidly flooding.
“You know…you can’t kill me with water.”
Leo pocketed the orb and slung the sword over his shoulder as he walked out of the room and into the dry corridor from when he had come.
That isn’t water…
Leo cackled as he walked away. “No, but I’m pretty sure even mannequins burn!”
In one swift motion he took out a match from deep in his trench coat, lit it, and tossed it into the room, which promptly burst into flames. Leo thought he heard Chaos’ screams above the roar of the flames, but paid it no heed.
I must say, I’m impressed. That was quite brutal of you. I might start to like you after all!
“Shut up.”
Oh, come now. You know you enjoyed it.
“I SAID SHUT UP!!” The shout bounced down the halls and throughout the catacombs. It wasn’t the only sound resonating, however.
Leo paused. The echo he heard…it wasn’t Chaos’ screams…it was his laughter! Leo spun around to see a fireball fill the hall behind him. He threw his hands up to shield his face as the flame blew him off his feet and into another chamber. He was badly burned, but not dead. Leo was sure that was only thanks to Jeeves.
“You’ve made a mistake, friend! You think pain will stop me? Pain is just a simple mortal emotion! Yes, it burns. Yes, it hurts. No, I don’t like it.” He could be seen walking down the hall, wreathed in flame, cackling with glee.
“Wee! This is so fun! Thank you so much friend! This is so exciting! Fire is chaos! Now I get to use chaos to destroy you! So appropriate! Hey…am I in a monologue? That’s so cool!”
Chaos summoned the fire around him, which grew stronger and larger with every second. He raised his arm, ready to cast it all at a burned and ragged Leo.
He rolled back on his heels, and focused on the orb as he jumped further and faster than any normal human could. He flew through the flames and severed Chaos’ head, which thudded to the floor. His body crumbled into a smoldering heap next to it.
Leo stood slowly, using the wall to help, and walked over to regard the mess. He coughed and hacked as he did. Then the severed head spoke.
“Ow, this hurts A LOT! You are a very stupid person, man-with-sword. Have I not told you that I cannot die?”
“Shut up and go back to whatever dimension you came from.”
Leo placed his foot on the talking, smoldering mass, and with a jerk pulled off the mask. The wrappings turned to dust immediately. Leo threw the sword over his shoulder once again as the world began to swirl about him. Soon he was back where they began in the middle of the pavilion. What the crowd saw was a burned, blackened man with a mask in one hand and a sword in the other. There was complete silence.
He turned to regard the spectators wordlessly, then tossed the monochromatic mask into the judges box, where it fell right in Judge North’s lap.
“Now…who’s next?”
Leo Cazals vs Chaos the Laughter
Round 1
Leo sighed.
“Look, we really don’t have to do this, you know. We don’t have to fight.”
“But that’s not what Mr. Judge North said. He said we have to try to kill each other! That sounds like fun!” Shadows danced across Chaos’s face as he spoke.
They were on a raised platform surrounded by thousands of people. Above them loomed the red-and-white striped pavilion. A machine to the side of them was powering up, with its blinking lights and whirring sounds. Leo turned his head towards the judges box and raised his voice in reply.
“Yes, but Mr. North is a little rat turd!” The crowd hushed.
“A rat turd? I didn’t know rats could poop so much! Fascinating!”
The pavilion then burst into laughter. Leo tried to speak, but could not be heard above the spectators’ mirth. He took a deep breath and made another attempt.
“I really mean it, you know! We can end this! We can work together! These are terrible people and we can stop them!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hey, so…the pamphlet says you’re Chilean! What does that mean? Do you like to eat chili? I tried some at the cafeteria. It was fantastic…I cried for hours! Oooooh, look…a pretty bug!”
Chaos spun around and tried to catch the orange butterfly as it fluttered around his head. After looping a few times, it flew over to Leo’s side of the circle. His opponent obviously wasn’t paying much attention to him.
So he squished the bug.
There was a flash of blinding light…and then he took a fist to the stomach that sent him hurdling against a cold stone wall. Lights danced in front of him as he sank to the floor. Through the dim torchlight of his newfound surroundings he could see his opponent standing over him. His expression was now terrifying.
“YOU HURT MY NEW FRIEND!!!”
He shook and clenched his fists as he shouted. Leo slowly helped himself to his feet, and winced as he felt a cracked rib. Ah…this sucked. Clearly, he was not getting anywhere with this…thing.
Best finish him off quickly before he gets too riled up now… Jeeves quipped.
Leo’s fist connected with the monochrome mask. No reaction. His left sank into his belly…nothing. This guy was a walking mannequin.
“Hey! Stop doing that! I want to be mad at you!”
“Ah, well…sorry. I…I gotta go.” As he spoke, he smashed his boot into Chaos’ foot and took off down one of the skull-lined corridors as fast as he could.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” resonated the cry thought the catacombs. The sound bounced all over and it became clear that these crypts were massive.
Leo scrambled from room to room as he tried to lose his pursuer. He darted left, then right, then left again through the passageways. His foot splashed through a puddle. After a few minutes he stopped to catch his breath. There was no sign of Chaos.
He was now in complete darkness. All he could hear was his own breathing and the steady drip of water ahead of him.
He was then promptly tackled into the wall.
They struggled on the floor. Leo bit his arm. Chaos retaliated with a kick to the kidneys. Leo rolled over him and tried to escape, but Chaos was too quick and dragged him back by the foot. They rolled and struggled over bones strewn across the floor and into a puddle
Leo shoved the maniac’s head in the water and held it there, but to no effect. Chaos continued to struggle and grapple without trying to lift his head.
“What…are you?”
I’m not sure myself, but he’s not alive. He has no heartbeat; draws no breath. You’re not going to defeat him easy. I recommend we obliterate him entirely.
There was no time to reply as Chaos was soon on top of him. He wrapped his hands around Leo’s throat and began to squeeze. This monstrosity’s strength was ten times his own. He was helpless.
“You know, it’s funny how fragile living things are. They give up pretty easily. Soon you will be nothing more than a squishy bag of water and bones! Squish squish squish!” He sang to himself. Leo was starting to see spots and his mind began to cloud as he searched desperately for a way to escape.
“Oh…I do have a question though…” spoke his assailant. The voice was distant and fuzzy. “What is that shiny ball thingy in your pocket for?”
Ah. That was it.
Leo pulled the orb out of his pocket and smacked Chaos in the head with it.
The masked figure reeled back and clutched at his mask. Leo took the opportunity to bolt down another corridor. He knew he didn’t have much time before Chaos would be on him again. He stumbled and fell as he found himself in a larger room lower than the corridor he had been in.
“Jeeves, can you give me a hand here? I can’t see.” As he spoke the orb began to glow and the Chilean took in his surroundings as he held his wounded side.
The hall had opened up into a large burial chamber…probably belonging to someone important. There was a large painting of the Garden of Eden on the opposite wall, split through the middle. The other walls were lined with racks of swords, spears, and shields. In the middle of the floor rose a granite tomb in the form of some sort of medieval warrior…perhaps a knight. He thought he heard a soft gurgling noise…and smiled.
Leo crossed the room quickly and took one of the spears off of a rack. He stepped over behind the tomb and spun around just in time to see Chaos come flying out of the corridor. H leaped from the entrance over the tomb on top of him. He raised his weapon to block his assailant and thrust him to the side before throwing it through the mannequin’s chest, pinning him to the floor.
Chaos cried in agony. Perhaps he could not die, but he certainly could feel the blow.
“You don’t like that, do you, friend? That’s called pain. It’s a very normal part of mortal existence. Since you want to know everything about our way of life, I suppose it was only a matter of time. Let me show you about it.” He kicked Chaos in the head before walking back to the rack and grabbing a few more spears.
“I…I don’t like this part of life.” Came the reply.
Leo smirked darkly. “No, I suppose you don’t. There are few who do. Yet…look around you. Walls of bones. Tombs of once-great nobles that are now nothing more than rotting flesh. Weapons of war. It doesn’t paint a very pretty picture, does it?
“You see, we humans are great at causing pain. Professionals, even. Yet we are not so good at taking it. It’s sad yet necessary. No one gets through life without pain. If I have to deal with it, you should have your fair share.” He thrust spears through both of his opponent’s legs and went for one of the arms when Chaos gave a shout.
“AAAARGHH!!!!! NOOO!!!! MAKE IT STOP!! I CAN’T STAND THE PAIN!!....” He raised his hand up as if to protect himself.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that hurt? I didn’t mean to. I mean…it feels pretty good to me!”
“Didn’t….didn’t you say we could help each other? Didn’t you say we could be friends? I…I just want to know what it’s like to live. So many centuries alone…”
“Yeah, well you should have thought of that before you BROKE MY RIB!” came the shout as Leo crunched another pole into Chaos’ side and twisted it. He used four more to pin down his wrists and biceps. “There, that should hold you for about twenty seconds or so, right? I just need a moment…”
He then walked over to the painting and kicked at the crack in the wall. It gave in and a dark liquid spouted back at him. With a sword from the other rack he dug at the hole and opened it further. The room was now rapidly flooding.
“You know…you can’t kill me with water.”
Leo pocketed the orb and slung the sword over his shoulder as he walked out of the room and into the dry corridor from when he had come.
That isn’t water…
Leo cackled as he walked away. “No, but I’m pretty sure even mannequins burn!”
In one swift motion he took out a match from deep in his trench coat, lit it, and tossed it into the room, which promptly burst into flames. Leo thought he heard Chaos’ screams above the roar of the flames, but paid it no heed.
I must say, I’m impressed. That was quite brutal of you. I might start to like you after all!
“Shut up.”
Oh, come now. You know you enjoyed it.
“I SAID SHUT UP!!” The shout bounced down the halls and throughout the catacombs. It wasn’t the only sound resonating, however.
Leo paused. The echo he heard…it wasn’t Chaos’ screams…it was his laughter! Leo spun around to see a fireball fill the hall behind him. He threw his hands up to shield his face as the flame blew him off his feet and into another chamber. He was badly burned, but not dead. Leo was sure that was only thanks to Jeeves.
“You’ve made a mistake, friend! You think pain will stop me? Pain is just a simple mortal emotion! Yes, it burns. Yes, it hurts. No, I don’t like it.” He could be seen walking down the hall, wreathed in flame, cackling with glee.
“Wee! This is so fun! Thank you so much friend! This is so exciting! Fire is chaos! Now I get to use chaos to destroy you! So appropriate! Hey…am I in a monologue? That’s so cool!”
Chaos summoned the fire around him, which grew stronger and larger with every second. He raised his arm, ready to cast it all at a burned and ragged Leo.
He rolled back on his heels, and focused on the orb as he jumped further and faster than any normal human could. He flew through the flames and severed Chaos’ head, which thudded to the floor. His body crumbled into a smoldering heap next to it.
Leo stood slowly, using the wall to help, and walked over to regard the mess. He coughed and hacked as he did. Then the severed head spoke.
“Ow, this hurts A LOT! You are a very stupid person, man-with-sword. Have I not told you that I cannot die?”
“Shut up and go back to whatever dimension you came from.”
Leo placed his foot on the talking, smoldering mass, and with a jerk pulled off the mask. The wrappings turned to dust immediately. Leo threw the sword over his shoulder once again as the world began to swirl about him. Soon he was back where they began in the middle of the pavilion. What the crowd saw was a burned, blackened man with a mask in one hand and a sword in the other. There was complete silence.
He turned to regard the spectators wordlessly, then tossed the monochromatic mask into the judges box, where it fell right in Judge North’s lap.
“Now…who’s next?”
Nylan
Characters Welcome
Fantastic Nylan!
Don't let me down now!
Seon
Not An Evil Liar
*Cackles with glee*
Round One
Keder vs Kill Girl Miyabi
Keder vs Kill Girl Miyabi
Keder felt a familiar twinge of energy coursing around him and in an instant the carnival scene vanished in a blue flash and was replaced by pitch darkness. As far as teleports go it was probably one of the smoother ones he's been on.
As soon as he felt stable ground under him he set to work figuring out his surroundings. He could just conjure some light but that would give away his position, no it would be better to do this the old fashion way. He felt around the ground, mostly smooth stone, large pieces not small rocks, some sort of structure jutting upwards. He walked around for a bit felling his way around until he hit a wall that curved upwards and in the distance he heard the sound of trickling water.
"Hmmm.... caves, how original. Well no sense getting worked up about this "stunning" environment, best get to work."
Keder sat down and let his mind expand searching for his target. It was that long of a search as it appears that his foe was the only other intelligence for miles. There was something odd about the feel of this mind, he could put his finger on it without a more probing deeper. Fortunately they were quite a ways off so he could afford to give himself some light and time to think about this odd mind.
After bring up a bit of light Keder saw that his assumptions about his position was right. It looked like a standard cave, like the hundreds he's been in before.
"I wonder what sort of beasties usually inhabit places like this on this plane? At least there's no trolls here." He chuckled and followed the stream towards his adversary.
When he arrived in what he guessed was around visual range he dismissed his light. "If this turns out to be walled off I swear I make the next person I see think they're a footstool." After feeling around on the ground for a bit he discovered to his relief that he didn't need to find another way around. He crept out on to what quickly realized was a cliff, "Bah blasted Hells I need to be more careful."
From this vantage point he spied a bright spot light in the chamber in front of him with a figure jumping around the light. After a few moments of focusing he realized that the figure was a women dressed in quite odd clothing making some quite obscene gestures towards the direction she had apparently came from.
"Clearly maniacs are the same on every plane, now lets get a better look at you..." Keder once again let his mind wander towards this women and again he got the feeling that something was off about this mind. However he couldn't let that stop him now. He dove into her mind and was first hit with some quite odd thoughts drifting on the first level of her consciousness. Before he could move deeper something in this mind changed, thoughts were moving faster and his probe was being thrown around her mind.He'd never felt anything like that, she wasn't fighting him with here will but instead the properties of the mind change. She went through her thoughts fater than what should be possible and parts of her mind sealed themselves off. He needed to get out now. Just as he pulled himself from the flux that had become her mind he saw what had bothered him at first, her mind extended beyond her body. From what he could tell the mask she was wearing was some how part of her mind.
Back in his own head Keder sat down sweating, that had almost been too much. "Lucky me my first fight and I'm going to have to use only physical means." He quickly heard shouting coming from the chamber in front of him.
"Now now it not nice to poke around in other people's brains. Why don't you come out and I can poke you some too?"
Keder's thoughts raced as he thought about how he could take her, best to keep her guessing and can't let her be able to initiate combat. He pulled out a few arrows that he kept in his pack and quickly propelled them to their target. Watching with unlikely optimism Keder hoped that this might just be it for the fight. Much to his expected disappointment this women dodged all of his arrows. "Right so fluctuating mind and enhanced reflexes, this is not going my way." Keder muttered under his breath. In a fair fight this women will kill him, he'd have to make sure that there's no fight in the first place.
Keder stood up and bolted back in the direction he came from, over his shoulder he heard the women jeering behind him, "Ah there you are. Oh are you running away? That's no way to treat a girl. I'm going to have to hunt you down and teach you some manners."
"Yeah, yeah just keep following me we'll see how that ends." Keder thought to himself.
After a few minutes of running he came to the place he was looking for, there was a small fork in the path and quite a few loose rocks that will do nicely. He moved down one side of the fork and began stacking rocks in the entrance of the fork. He heard the odd women down the tunnel, "So what are a mind reading archer? That's weird, I've never killed anyone like that before this should be fun." He needed to work faster or this will all fail. he hastily finished, now all he needed to do was hold it.
This was the part he was dreading, could he hold these rocks while keeping his mind open to the women's presence and still have enough energy for what needed doing. Fortunately it seemed that the women was just about to catch him and his wait was short. He saw her presence in his mind's eye but still had to time this perfectly, "3...2...1...Now!"
Keder put all of his energy into propelling the rocks forward and holding them against the far wall. Sweat was dripping off his face, if this missed he was done for. Fortune smiled on him this day though, his trap had worked and the woman was pinned with blood trickling from between the rocks.
Somehow the women was still alive and spouting off to Keder, "No fair! Who taught you to fight? This is cheating, I want a redo! You can't beat me like this!"
She was probably done for but Keder hadn't stayed alive this long by leaving anything at "probably". He noticed the women's katana on the ground and in one swift motion sent it into the women's skull.
"Finally you shut up." With that final exertion Keder collapsed onto the ground.
Crezth
i knew you were a real man of the left
@Nylan:
thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
Well. We still have to hear from three of our contestants. But, those of you that have fought,no matter what our decision is (and it is a FINAL decision,) have fought well. And we are PROUD of you.
I'm partly done, here's a sneak peak of part of my story.
"For I am he for whomst thou seekest... seeketh? Ethethethethest."
Chaos rolled the word around her tongue, like a connoisseur tasting the texture of a sound. Delicious!
"For I am he for whomst thou seekest... seeketh? Ethethethethest."
Chaos rolled the word around her tongue, like a connoisseur tasting the texture of a sound. Delicious!
mayor
Heart & Mind
lurker's comment: this is very fast becoming my favorite thread 
awesome stories guys
awesome stories guys
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
Won't be able to make it due deadline, but it will be done tomorrow.
thomas.berubeg
Wandering the World
OOC: for LJ's sake, I'm going to extend to tomorrow. But Not at all any further.
Thanks to those of you that HAVE posted.
Thanks to those of you that HAVE posted.
Chaos the Laughter vs. Leo Cazals
Round 1- Fight!
Leo cursed vigorously in Spanish as he sprinted towards the center of Carnivale- a late wake-up call compounded with an unexpected conflagration in the cafeteria caused by some idiot stuffing the toaster with several loaves of bread had left him running badly behind schedule. Forcing the remains of a stale muffin into his mouth in mid-sprint, he arrived, exhausted, in the tent.
“Ah, Mr. Cazals, you certainly enjoy cutting your schedule quite thin.”
It was Judge Alenia, an unreadable expression on her face. She seemed to be writing something in an unseen notebook. Judge North stood beside her, playing at the ever-present cigarette in his mouth.
Leo tried to mutter an apology, but it was lost between heaving breaths. After a few seconds of recovery, he took note of his surroundings. In front of him was what he had been told would transport him to his destination- a strange looking and rather gaudy machine, much like the rest of Carnivale. The crowd around him was almost invisible in the dimly-lit main tent- only the faces of the two judges, and a single suited figure looming behind them, were within clear sight.
“Where is Chaos?” he spoke at last, realizing with growing discomfort that his opponent was nowhere to be seen.
“Your rival’s already entered the battlefield, son.” drawled Judge North, “You’d best get in there before he prepares too elabourate of a trap for you.”
Leo cursed inwardly- while he doubted that Chaos the Laughter would be able to produce a trap in any amount of time, his opportunity to talk to his opponent before the battle was missed.
“Well, send me in then-”
Before Leo had finished his sentence, a blinding flash went off. Waving his arms around for a few moments, he held onto a cold, damp wall as his sight returned. He was at the top of a long, torchlit staircase, descending down into a void still invisible to his dilating eyes. He had just taken his first, cautious steps down when a deafening noise rattled his very bones.
“WHO DARES...” boomed the sepulchral, echoing voice. Leo took cover in a small impression in the wall.
“ENTER THE LAIR...” the voice continued. Leo scanned around for the source of the voice, but could see nothing.
“OF...” Leo braced himself.
“PRINCESS SOPHIA ROSITA SNUFFLES.”
The halls went silent, save for the quiet drip of moisture through the crypt.
“What?” Leo’s voice broke the silence. Unseen, Chaos uncrossed her legs and rose, taking a few steps towards the bottom of the staircase. The human stood a short distance up the stairs, glowing a dull red in the torchlight.
“Sup!”
“You... your name is... you’re a woman?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Leo began to descend the stairs, entering into the antechamber. A disconcerting motif of orderly columns of bones repeated itself along the walls.
“Um, you called yourself Princess Sophia Rosita... Snuffles?”
“I’ve adopted many names! Regardless, you need search no longer, For I am he for whomst thou seekest... seeketh?”
Chaos narrowed his eyes and scratched at his chin.
“Ethethethethest."
He rolled the word around his tongue, like a connoisseur tasting the texture of a sound. Delicious!
Leo stared, almost entranced by confusion, before rapidly shaking his head to clear his thoughts.
“You know what, never mind. Look, we don’t need to fight.”
“Hmm?”
“This tournament, this ‘Carnivale’.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s evil. They’re manipulating us, if we fight now then we’re exactly what they want us to do.”
“Uh huh...”
“We can stop this, Chaos, we don’t need to fight!”
“Well, yeah...” the masked figure began, kicking indecisively at the floor.
“So if we just-”
“...but we’re GOING TO!”
“-work togeth- No, wait!”
Leo’s response was cut abruptly short as Chaos barreled into him. The man squished against her shoulder, winded by the sudden acceleration. The pair hurtled out of the antechamber and down a long corridor, coming to a stop as they decelerated by means of crashing through a flimsy wooden doorway. Detaching on impact, Leo slid along the floor, breaking the legs of a towering shelf. Chaos somersaulted to the side and managed to stumble to his feet, barely keeping his balance as the overloaded shelving unit began to tip. His raucous laughter was quickly drowned out as the massive stacks collapsed down onto the two combatants.
The deafening crash went on for several seconds. Leo held his head between his arms for protection, holding his breath. Thick dust obscured his sight as his eyes opened, and he struggled to free himself from the wreckage. With sudden disgust, he realized that the splintered box on top of him was a coffin- the thick dust most likely the last remains of its ancient occupants. Shoving the debris aside and pulling himself up, he looked around the clearing room to locate his enemy. Beneath a massive sarcophagus, a small part of Chaos’ foot was visible. It twitched slightly, then went still. Leo stood, crouched in combat readiness but awash in uncertainty, until his enemy’s muffled, lilting voice came through.
“Have you ever been crushed before?”
Beneath the sarcophagus, the flattened figure of Chaos grinned widely and exploded up off the floor. Leo flung himself to the side as the massive woodwork smashed down where he had been standing only moments before. Chaos yawned and stretched, her flattened body restoring itself, before her attention returned to the fight. Leo was backing away, his eyes wide at the sudden display of superhuman strength. The bauble in his pocket took this moment to speak.
“So, ready to give diplomacy a break and tactics a try?”
Leo made a tactical decision to flee the room. Chaos, excited by the challenge of pursuit, followed him out shortly thereafter.
The halls led further and further in to the tomb. Chaos might have worried about getting lost in the labyrinthine mess, if he had been one to worry about anything. She wasn’t in any hurry, although the chase would get boring if things got too slow.
Leo’s run came to an abrupt halt. He leaned against a wall, gasping for breath, as he looked around. Dead end. He should have taken the right turn at the last room. Searching the room for weapons, he found nothing but a torch. Plucking it from its bracket, he wondered aloud how the whole lighting system hadn’t burnt out years ago before holding the flame out before him as a weapon.
“Let him come...”
“Hi!”
Leo was so shocked by the voice behind him that he did not even tighten his hand as Chaos lifted the torch out of his grip. He didn’t even think of asking how his enemy had gotten into the room before delivering a punishing punch to Chaos’ gut. She doubled over, before getting up and striking back at Leo’s face. Leo retaliated with a grab at Chaos’ arm, causing the torch to tumble to the floor. With one inopportune step, the flame was snuffed and the room fell into darkness, save for a few embers on the floor, and the cold glow of Chaos’ one white eye. Three more swift blows made Leo add stars to the list of things he could see, as he lay hunched over on the ground.
“We still...” Leo wheezed, “We still don’t have to fight.”
“But why?” Chaos’ eye moved as if his head was tilted quizzically. Leo felt two hands tighten their grip around his shoulders, slowly beginning to slide him up the wall.
“Well, why do you want to fight?”
“I... well, it’s something you do. I’m here to do stuff. This is the first time I’ve had sensation, and do you know how it feels?”
Leo groaned and spat out blood.
“FANTASTIC! I’m going to try everything, and do everything! That’s why I’m here Leo! That’s why I’m here!”
Leo felt his feet lift off the floor, still in a daze. Chaos’ words floated into his brain like thick syrup, and his thoughts slowly began to fill in to formulate a response. It was at this moment that Leo, for the first time, felt that he understood what was going on behind that animated mask of a face. Chaos was like a child! He wasn’t evil, or driven to any sort of end- he was just a being utterly unaware of social norms, or even proper rationality- solipsistic in the extreme. It made him feel almost bad about what he was about to do.
A vicious kick struck somewhere on Chaos’ lower body. The masked figure yelped, and Leo tumbled to the floor. He landed awkwardly, and made it all of two steps before Chaos’ hands closed on him. A motormouthed giggle followed as the grip tightened once more and Leo was lifted back into the air. A sudden sensation of movement and whistling air rushed through Leo, before he crashed headlong into one of the shelves surrounding the room. Switching grips, Chaos spun Leo around like a whirling battering ram, as the debris of the room rained down upon them.
“I didn’t know you could do this with people!” exclaimed Chaos, smashing Leo’s body into a yet another stack of pottery, “Is this what dancing is like?”
Leo could only groan and bleed some more in response as his brutalized body smashed into the walls again and again. He could only quietly thank the fact that Chaos had not simply dashed him against the rough stone floor- rotten wood and fragile clay were decidedly less lethal.
With her opponent dazed and barely conscious, Chaos the Laughter finished off her destruction of the room and flipped the limp body over her shoulder. As she proceeded to walk out of the small dead end, taking the turn that Leo had missed, her collapsed foe began mumbling weakly.
“Hey Jeeves... any chance you might be able to help out a bit here?”
“Well, it’s been fun watching you get massacred, and I’ve already done more than you’d like to know to keep you from getting outright killed... but I’ll see what I can do. Take your opening when it comes.”
Leo felt a rejuvenating surge course through his body, and the concussed haze in his mind cleared. His eyes darted around, seeing that Chaos was taking him into a room larger than anything else he’d seen yet in this complex.
“Wow!” exclaimed Chaos, “A mausoleum! A boneyard! With real bones!”
Leo was unceremoniously dropped to the ground as his rival sprinted off towards the center of the room, shoving the lid off of a stone-hewn chest. Chaos dug through, picking out and feeling each of the skeletal fragments, examining them with the air of an art critic at a sculpture exhibition.
“Amazing! These things are inside you- I wonder if I could have them.”
Chaos spun around, once again catching Leo just seconds before his strike. That same vicious grip once again locked his hands together in painful immobility.
“Smooth Leo. Well, it looks like your time is running out- better think fast.”
Leo heeded Jeeves advice, and thought fast.
“Oh no!” he shouted, suddenly staring into space over Chaos’ right shoulder, “That bone’s getting away, catch it!”
Chaos spun around, hands at the ready to seize any escapees from her new treasure trove, to see...
“Hey, I don’t see anyth-”
Leo’s hand connected with the mask the second Chaos turned back around to face him. A horrible digging sensation flooded through her body as the fingers dug in beneath her mask. A bizarre electric tingling, at once burning hot and numbingly cold, flowed through Leo’s fingers which were now deeply immersed in the glowing corona surrounding Chaos’ head.
“Whoah! Easy now! HEY!” Chaos thrashed about in surprise. The sensation was bizarre and unprecedented. Wind whisked beneath her face, exposing all that which lay within. For the first time, he felt vulnerable. Exposed. And then... terrified. In a word, utterly awful. An alien fear suddenly rising, Chaos pushed his opponent away with greater force than ever before. The human was easily dislodged, but Leo’s grip on the mask was steadfast.
“Nyeeeeaaaaaaagh!” Chaos wailed as her face stretched agonizingly away from her. As the mask was wrenched further away, its connection grew weaker and weaker, like a magnet being torn apart from its opposite. Leo groaned from the tremendous exertion, wincing at Chaos’ sudden desperate blows. With a sudden release like a broken suction, the mask ripped off in its entirety and Leo was hurled across the room, sliding along the rough cobbled floor. The mask, now as dead and inanimate as any other, remained clutched in his hand with a death-grip. Bruised, winded and scraped, but otherwise intact, he looked up to see his foe, back turned to him, flailing about like a lunatic.
“Aaaagh! My mouth! My eyes! My face!” Chaos screamed and writhed, thrashing about and colliding with the walls, “I’m blind!”
She slowed for a second, frenzied activity suddenly turning into terrifyingly slow, purposeful movements.
“Oh wait...”
Her body straightened.
“I can see...”
Its hands lowered away from its head.
“Just...”
It began to turn.
“FINE.”
Its head turned towards Leo Cazals. The Chilean met the gaze, much to his immediate regret. A void stared into him, boring into his eyes. It was faceless, showing no hint of anything at all, beyond that horrid, swirling inky blackness. Leo had to avert his gaze, lest the darkness consume him altogether.
“Now...”
The faceless monstrosity took an unsteady step towards him.
“Give me...”
“MY. FACE.”
Leo backed up, watching the figure begin to stagger more and more. The tight fabric around its arms was beginning to look loose, and its movements were growing more erratic. Whisps of black smoke began to flow out of the head, overcoming the white aura containing them, flying out and disappearing into the darkness of the mausoleum’s roof. The voice spoke again, more intense this time.
“GIVE IT BACK!”
The faceless Chaos began a loping run, its arms now flailing about, as trying to ward away invisible flies. It struggled on a few more steps before one of its legs collapsed. With every movement, some supernatural wind blasted through the chamber, as more and more of the thing that was Chaos broke down. A shoe fell off, but the body soldiered on, arms making futile attempts to extend themselves towards the Mask, by now only a few meters away.
“NO! You don’t know... what... you’re... please...”
The wild gusts of wind faded to an echoing silence, and there was nothing in the chamber but Leo, his orb, the mask, and a pile of clothing. For a few seconds, he stood speechless, half-expecting the laughter to begin again. Nothing was forthcoming. Leo took a deep breath, and began to work out where exactly he was in the tomb. At a light jog, he left the mausoleum the way he’d entered, turning left and making his way through the series of rooms through which he’d fled several minutes earlier.
As he walked, a soft hissing sound seemed to follow him. Room after room passed, until at last he could ignore the noise no longer. Searching around him, he quickly found its origin to be in the mask.
“Uh... Jeeves. Can you tell me anything about this face?”
The demon in the orb was uncharacteristically silent.
“Jeeves?”
”Ehmmm... it’s coming back. And it’s not happy.”
Leo let out a string of curses and threw the mask violently to the ground. It clattered on the cold cobbled floor, little shadows flowing off of it like silverfish, retreating into the dark crevices of the stonework. He stepped away, looking around to see that the room of collapsed coffins was not far off- the exit was near.
Turning away, Leo began to run down the hallway, entering into the collapsed room. A brief look back, as he began to crawl his way over the debris, showed the inky shadows coalescing around the upturned mask. Both he and the blackness froze as the eye contact was made. Scrambling, he stumbled his way through the splintered wood, cutting a direct path to the door. Closing it behind him would have been useless, as the hinges had already been thoroughly destroyed, so he set out in a dead sprint. Just one more corner to the stairs. Don’t look back, don’t look back, but maybe it’s RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
Suffering a lapse in willpower, Leo looked. His imagination had gotten the better of him. The mask, held aloft in a billowing dark cloud, met his eyes, its expression twisted into a visage of unspeakable fury. It hurtled towards him, and from all directions ribbons of white and black spun themselves out of nothingness in the air, wrapping around the empty form of Chaos the Laughter. Incarnate once more, Chaos took two impossibly swift strides and seized Leo's neck from behind, pressing him roughly against the wall.
“That... wasn’t... very nice.”
Leo struggled, but he knew couldn’t beat the raw strength of this supernatural being in a straight-up fight.
“Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get back here?”
“Ah... about a minute?”
“DO YOU KNOW HOW SLOWLY TIME FLOWS OUT THERE?”
Leo gritted his teeth and responded.
“No! And I did what I had to do to live.”
“What you had to do to live... you’ve never been out there. You’ve never felt what it’s like, living in a world without sensation! I’ve been there, and I’m not going back!”
“You told me that...” Leo wheezed, the air beginning to be crushed out of his lungs. “You told me that’s what you're here for. To feel things.”
“Yup! Yes I am!” Chaos’ mood seemed to shift immediately to the conversational.
“But you’re just a tourist. You’re not learning... anything about what a human experience really is.”
“And why’s that?” Chaos’ grip returned to its previous intensity.
“Because you’ve yet to realise that your actions have any effect on others. You’re learning nothing until you recognize that other people feel things just...” the grip tightened further, “...the same...” his body rose higher and higher up on the wall, “...as you.”
For the first time, Chaos was quiet. His face molded itself into a frown into a frown. Leo stared into the monochromatic eyes, trying to make out any sort of human response in the blank splashes of black and white.
“So you’re implying... that you’re experiencing too?”
“You felt loss when I took your mask. I’ve felt pain... constantly since you started fighting me. Pain and many other things.”
Chaos’ hands loosened enough to let Leo breathe.
“I’m... going to have to think about this for a bit.”
The grip tightened suddenly. Leo felt his vision turn to black, and sank into peaceful oblivion. Chaos released its grip, and hefted Leo’s body over its shoulder once again. With slow steps, the masked figure ascended the staircase, approaching the return portal to Carnivale. His face was unreadable, immersed in unfamiliar thoughts for the very first time.
Round 1- Fight!
Leo cursed vigorously in Spanish as he sprinted towards the center of Carnivale- a late wake-up call compounded with an unexpected conflagration in the cafeteria caused by some idiot stuffing the toaster with several loaves of bread had left him running badly behind schedule. Forcing the remains of a stale muffin into his mouth in mid-sprint, he arrived, exhausted, in the tent.
“Ah, Mr. Cazals, you certainly enjoy cutting your schedule quite thin.”
It was Judge Alenia, an unreadable expression on her face. She seemed to be writing something in an unseen notebook. Judge North stood beside her, playing at the ever-present cigarette in his mouth.
Leo tried to mutter an apology, but it was lost between heaving breaths. After a few seconds of recovery, he took note of his surroundings. In front of him was what he had been told would transport him to his destination- a strange looking and rather gaudy machine, much like the rest of Carnivale. The crowd around him was almost invisible in the dimly-lit main tent- only the faces of the two judges, and a single suited figure looming behind them, were within clear sight.
“Where is Chaos?” he spoke at last, realizing with growing discomfort that his opponent was nowhere to be seen.
“Your rival’s already entered the battlefield, son.” drawled Judge North, “You’d best get in there before he prepares too elabourate of a trap for you.”
Leo cursed inwardly- while he doubted that Chaos the Laughter would be able to produce a trap in any amount of time, his opportunity to talk to his opponent before the battle was missed.
“Well, send me in then-”
Before Leo had finished his sentence, a blinding flash went off. Waving his arms around for a few moments, he held onto a cold, damp wall as his sight returned. He was at the top of a long, torchlit staircase, descending down into a void still invisible to his dilating eyes. He had just taken his first, cautious steps down when a deafening noise rattled his very bones.
“WHO DARES...” boomed the sepulchral, echoing voice. Leo took cover in a small impression in the wall.
“ENTER THE LAIR...” the voice continued. Leo scanned around for the source of the voice, but could see nothing.
“OF...” Leo braced himself.
“PRINCESS SOPHIA ROSITA SNUFFLES.”
The halls went silent, save for the quiet drip of moisture through the crypt.
“What?” Leo’s voice broke the silence. Unseen, Chaos uncrossed her legs and rose, taking a few steps towards the bottom of the staircase. The human stood a short distance up the stairs, glowing a dull red in the torchlight.
“Sup!”
“You... your name is... you’re a woman?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Leo began to descend the stairs, entering into the antechamber. A disconcerting motif of orderly columns of bones repeated itself along the walls.
“Um, you called yourself Princess Sophia Rosita... Snuffles?”
“I’ve adopted many names! Regardless, you need search no longer, For I am he for whomst thou seekest... seeketh?”
Chaos narrowed his eyes and scratched at his chin.
“Ethethethethest."
He rolled the word around his tongue, like a connoisseur tasting the texture of a sound. Delicious!
Leo stared, almost entranced by confusion, before rapidly shaking his head to clear his thoughts.
“You know what, never mind. Look, we don’t need to fight.”
“Hmm?”
“This tournament, this ‘Carnivale’.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s evil. They’re manipulating us, if we fight now then we’re exactly what they want us to do.”
“Uh huh...”
“We can stop this, Chaos, we don’t need to fight!”
“Well, yeah...” the masked figure began, kicking indecisively at the floor.
“So if we just-”
“...but we’re GOING TO!”
“-work togeth- No, wait!”
Leo’s response was cut abruptly short as Chaos barreled into him. The man squished against her shoulder, winded by the sudden acceleration. The pair hurtled out of the antechamber and down a long corridor, coming to a stop as they decelerated by means of crashing through a flimsy wooden doorway. Detaching on impact, Leo slid along the floor, breaking the legs of a towering shelf. Chaos somersaulted to the side and managed to stumble to his feet, barely keeping his balance as the overloaded shelving unit began to tip. His raucous laughter was quickly drowned out as the massive stacks collapsed down onto the two combatants.
The deafening crash went on for several seconds. Leo held his head between his arms for protection, holding his breath. Thick dust obscured his sight as his eyes opened, and he struggled to free himself from the wreckage. With sudden disgust, he realized that the splintered box on top of him was a coffin- the thick dust most likely the last remains of its ancient occupants. Shoving the debris aside and pulling himself up, he looked around the clearing room to locate his enemy. Beneath a massive sarcophagus, a small part of Chaos’ foot was visible. It twitched slightly, then went still. Leo stood, crouched in combat readiness but awash in uncertainty, until his enemy’s muffled, lilting voice came through.
“Have you ever been crushed before?”
Beneath the sarcophagus, the flattened figure of Chaos grinned widely and exploded up off the floor. Leo flung himself to the side as the massive woodwork smashed down where he had been standing only moments before. Chaos yawned and stretched, her flattened body restoring itself, before her attention returned to the fight. Leo was backing away, his eyes wide at the sudden display of superhuman strength. The bauble in his pocket took this moment to speak.
“So, ready to give diplomacy a break and tactics a try?”
Leo made a tactical decision to flee the room. Chaos, excited by the challenge of pursuit, followed him out shortly thereafter.
The halls led further and further in to the tomb. Chaos might have worried about getting lost in the labyrinthine mess, if he had been one to worry about anything. She wasn’t in any hurry, although the chase would get boring if things got too slow.
Leo’s run came to an abrupt halt. He leaned against a wall, gasping for breath, as he looked around. Dead end. He should have taken the right turn at the last room. Searching the room for weapons, he found nothing but a torch. Plucking it from its bracket, he wondered aloud how the whole lighting system hadn’t burnt out years ago before holding the flame out before him as a weapon.
“Let him come...”
“Hi!”
Leo was so shocked by the voice behind him that he did not even tighten his hand as Chaos lifted the torch out of his grip. He didn’t even think of asking how his enemy had gotten into the room before delivering a punishing punch to Chaos’ gut. She doubled over, before getting up and striking back at Leo’s face. Leo retaliated with a grab at Chaos’ arm, causing the torch to tumble to the floor. With one inopportune step, the flame was snuffed and the room fell into darkness, save for a few embers on the floor, and the cold glow of Chaos’ one white eye. Three more swift blows made Leo add stars to the list of things he could see, as he lay hunched over on the ground.
“We still...” Leo wheezed, “We still don’t have to fight.”
“But why?” Chaos’ eye moved as if his head was tilted quizzically. Leo felt two hands tighten their grip around his shoulders, slowly beginning to slide him up the wall.
“Well, why do you want to fight?”
“I... well, it’s something you do. I’m here to do stuff. This is the first time I’ve had sensation, and do you know how it feels?”
Leo groaned and spat out blood.
“FANTASTIC! I’m going to try everything, and do everything! That’s why I’m here Leo! That’s why I’m here!”
Leo felt his feet lift off the floor, still in a daze. Chaos’ words floated into his brain like thick syrup, and his thoughts slowly began to fill in to formulate a response. It was at this moment that Leo, for the first time, felt that he understood what was going on behind that animated mask of a face. Chaos was like a child! He wasn’t evil, or driven to any sort of end- he was just a being utterly unaware of social norms, or even proper rationality- solipsistic in the extreme. It made him feel almost bad about what he was about to do.
A vicious kick struck somewhere on Chaos’ lower body. The masked figure yelped, and Leo tumbled to the floor. He landed awkwardly, and made it all of two steps before Chaos’ hands closed on him. A motormouthed giggle followed as the grip tightened once more and Leo was lifted back into the air. A sudden sensation of movement and whistling air rushed through Leo, before he crashed headlong into one of the shelves surrounding the room. Switching grips, Chaos spun Leo around like a whirling battering ram, as the debris of the room rained down upon them.
“I didn’t know you could do this with people!” exclaimed Chaos, smashing Leo’s body into a yet another stack of pottery, “Is this what dancing is like?”
Leo could only groan and bleed some more in response as his brutalized body smashed into the walls again and again. He could only quietly thank the fact that Chaos had not simply dashed him against the rough stone floor- rotten wood and fragile clay were decidedly less lethal.
With her opponent dazed and barely conscious, Chaos the Laughter finished off her destruction of the room and flipped the limp body over her shoulder. As she proceeded to walk out of the small dead end, taking the turn that Leo had missed, her collapsed foe began mumbling weakly.
“Hey Jeeves... any chance you might be able to help out a bit here?”
“Well, it’s been fun watching you get massacred, and I’ve already done more than you’d like to know to keep you from getting outright killed... but I’ll see what I can do. Take your opening when it comes.”
Leo felt a rejuvenating surge course through his body, and the concussed haze in his mind cleared. His eyes darted around, seeing that Chaos was taking him into a room larger than anything else he’d seen yet in this complex.
“Wow!” exclaimed Chaos, “A mausoleum! A boneyard! With real bones!”
Leo was unceremoniously dropped to the ground as his rival sprinted off towards the center of the room, shoving the lid off of a stone-hewn chest. Chaos dug through, picking out and feeling each of the skeletal fragments, examining them with the air of an art critic at a sculpture exhibition.
“Amazing! These things are inside you- I wonder if I could have them.”
Chaos spun around, once again catching Leo just seconds before his strike. That same vicious grip once again locked his hands together in painful immobility.
“Smooth Leo. Well, it looks like your time is running out- better think fast.”
Leo heeded Jeeves advice, and thought fast.
“Oh no!” he shouted, suddenly staring into space over Chaos’ right shoulder, “That bone’s getting away, catch it!”
Chaos spun around, hands at the ready to seize any escapees from her new treasure trove, to see...
“Hey, I don’t see anyth-”
Leo’s hand connected with the mask the second Chaos turned back around to face him. A horrible digging sensation flooded through her body as the fingers dug in beneath her mask. A bizarre electric tingling, at once burning hot and numbingly cold, flowed through Leo’s fingers which were now deeply immersed in the glowing corona surrounding Chaos’ head.
“Whoah! Easy now! HEY!” Chaos thrashed about in surprise. The sensation was bizarre and unprecedented. Wind whisked beneath her face, exposing all that which lay within. For the first time, he felt vulnerable. Exposed. And then... terrified. In a word, utterly awful. An alien fear suddenly rising, Chaos pushed his opponent away with greater force than ever before. The human was easily dislodged, but Leo’s grip on the mask was steadfast.
“Nyeeeeaaaaaaagh!” Chaos wailed as her face stretched agonizingly away from her. As the mask was wrenched further away, its connection grew weaker and weaker, like a magnet being torn apart from its opposite. Leo groaned from the tremendous exertion, wincing at Chaos’ sudden desperate blows. With a sudden release like a broken suction, the mask ripped off in its entirety and Leo was hurled across the room, sliding along the rough cobbled floor. The mask, now as dead and inanimate as any other, remained clutched in his hand with a death-grip. Bruised, winded and scraped, but otherwise intact, he looked up to see his foe, back turned to him, flailing about like a lunatic.
“Aaaagh! My mouth! My eyes! My face!” Chaos screamed and writhed, thrashing about and colliding with the walls, “I’m blind!”
She slowed for a second, frenzied activity suddenly turning into terrifyingly slow, purposeful movements.
“Oh wait...”
Her body straightened.
“I can see...”
Its hands lowered away from its head.
“Just...”
It began to turn.
“FINE.”
Its head turned towards Leo Cazals. The Chilean met the gaze, much to his immediate regret. A void stared into him, boring into his eyes. It was faceless, showing no hint of anything at all, beyond that horrid, swirling inky blackness. Leo had to avert his gaze, lest the darkness consume him altogether.
“Now...”
The faceless monstrosity took an unsteady step towards him.
“Give me...”
“MY. FACE.”
Leo backed up, watching the figure begin to stagger more and more. The tight fabric around its arms was beginning to look loose, and its movements were growing more erratic. Whisps of black smoke began to flow out of the head, overcoming the white aura containing them, flying out and disappearing into the darkness of the mausoleum’s roof. The voice spoke again, more intense this time.
“GIVE IT BACK!”
The faceless Chaos began a loping run, its arms now flailing about, as trying to ward away invisible flies. It struggled on a few more steps before one of its legs collapsed. With every movement, some supernatural wind blasted through the chamber, as more and more of the thing that was Chaos broke down. A shoe fell off, but the body soldiered on, arms making futile attempts to extend themselves towards the Mask, by now only a few meters away.
“NO! You don’t know... what... you’re... please...”
The wild gusts of wind faded to an echoing silence, and there was nothing in the chamber but Leo, his orb, the mask, and a pile of clothing. For a few seconds, he stood speechless, half-expecting the laughter to begin again. Nothing was forthcoming. Leo took a deep breath, and began to work out where exactly he was in the tomb. At a light jog, he left the mausoleum the way he’d entered, turning left and making his way through the series of rooms through which he’d fled several minutes earlier.
As he walked, a soft hissing sound seemed to follow him. Room after room passed, until at last he could ignore the noise no longer. Searching around him, he quickly found its origin to be in the mask.
“Uh... Jeeves. Can you tell me anything about this face?”
The demon in the orb was uncharacteristically silent.
“Jeeves?”
”Ehmmm... it’s coming back. And it’s not happy.”
Leo let out a string of curses and threw the mask violently to the ground. It clattered on the cold cobbled floor, little shadows flowing off of it like silverfish, retreating into the dark crevices of the stonework. He stepped away, looking around to see that the room of collapsed coffins was not far off- the exit was near.
Turning away, Leo began to run down the hallway, entering into the collapsed room. A brief look back, as he began to crawl his way over the debris, showed the inky shadows coalescing around the upturned mask. Both he and the blackness froze as the eye contact was made. Scrambling, he stumbled his way through the splintered wood, cutting a direct path to the door. Closing it behind him would have been useless, as the hinges had already been thoroughly destroyed, so he set out in a dead sprint. Just one more corner to the stairs. Don’t look back, don’t look back, but maybe it’s RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
Suffering a lapse in willpower, Leo looked. His imagination had gotten the better of him. The mask, held aloft in a billowing dark cloud, met his eyes, its expression twisted into a visage of unspeakable fury. It hurtled towards him, and from all directions ribbons of white and black spun themselves out of nothingness in the air, wrapping around the empty form of Chaos the Laughter. Incarnate once more, Chaos took two impossibly swift strides and seized Leo's neck from behind, pressing him roughly against the wall.
“That... wasn’t... very nice.”
Leo struggled, but he knew couldn’t beat the raw strength of this supernatural being in a straight-up fight.
“Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get back here?”
“Ah... about a minute?”
“DO YOU KNOW HOW SLOWLY TIME FLOWS OUT THERE?”
Leo gritted his teeth and responded.
“No! And I did what I had to do to live.”
“What you had to do to live... you’ve never been out there. You’ve never felt what it’s like, living in a world without sensation! I’ve been there, and I’m not going back!”
“You told me that...” Leo wheezed, the air beginning to be crushed out of his lungs. “You told me that’s what you're here for. To feel things.”
“Yup! Yes I am!” Chaos’ mood seemed to shift immediately to the conversational.
“But you’re just a tourist. You’re not learning... anything about what a human experience really is.”
“And why’s that?” Chaos’ grip returned to its previous intensity.
“Because you’ve yet to realise that your actions have any effect on others. You’re learning nothing until you recognize that other people feel things just...” the grip tightened further, “...the same...” his body rose higher and higher up on the wall, “...as you.”
For the first time, Chaos was quiet. His face molded itself into a frown into a frown. Leo stared into the monochromatic eyes, trying to make out any sort of human response in the blank splashes of black and white.
“So you’re implying... that you’re experiencing too?”
“You felt loss when I took your mask. I’ve felt pain... constantly since you started fighting me. Pain and many other things.”
Chaos’ hands loosened enough to let Leo breathe.
“I’m... going to have to think about this for a bit.”
The grip tightened suddenly. Leo felt his vision turn to black, and sank into peaceful oblivion. Chaos released its grip, and hefted Leo’s body over its shoulder once again. With slow steps, the masked figure ascended the staircase, approaching the return portal to Carnivale. His face was unreadable, immersed in unfamiliar thoughts for the very first time.
mayor
Heart & Mind
lurker's comment: speechles 
Nylan
Characters Welcome
well done
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
Sorry, but I am dropping out. I have a very busy schedule, and I would have liked to have done this, but I do not have the time or motivation.
That being said, good luck to everyone else, and great stories so far
That being said, good luck to everyone else, and great stories so far
Angst
Rambling and inconsistent
I happened not to have time either. Also, spending time on this makes me feel bad about not having time to spend on my own NES; I wish to dedicate my NESing time to getting my own update done first and foremost, secondly managing other NESes. And seeing that this requires a couple of hours I have difficulty to reserve... I am going to hand the victory to Tycho.
However, I'm going to PM something to Tycho; Seon knows what it's about, but I don't want to clutter the thread. So, there. Gratulations, Tycho, I like your story.
However, I'm going to PM something to Tycho; Seon knows what it's about, but I don't want to clutter the thread. So, there. Gratulations, Tycho, I like your story.
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