[03] Arctic Sector FIGHT

[DA 2009]

ARCTIC SECTOR FIGHT

(1) Alexander Trafford vs. Kaden

(2) Sage vs. Mal Nova

(3) Vincent vs. Ashe

(4) Tamsin vs. Sophia

[Kaden]

Miraculously, the chilling winds of the Arctic Sector did little to dampen the courier’s mood. He expected each increasingly labored step through the knee-high snow to bring him one step closer to the depression he thought he should be feeling. He had expected the harsh climate of the numb him both physically and emotionally, but it… didn’t.

Sure, both he and Ashe were cold – though, as Kaden pointed out to his own amusement, the girl seemed colder than he was – but it didn’t seem to sober either of them from what Kaden could only describe as euphoria. It had been a long, long time since he had felt so… good. If indeed he had ever experienced such a feeling before. He was somewhat doubtful.

Combat came quickly and with little warning. Well… there probably was warning, but between chatting with Ashe and the near-deafening winds, a little mechanical voice would have been easy to miss. Kaden caught on just before he was teleported off to face his opponent. Suddenly on his own, the courier lamented Ashe’s absence. She had a personality that he could only describe as cute – even her temperamental outbursts were amusing – which was a nice relief. Though, even if it was in passing, Kaden couldn’t help but comment that she should let her hair return to its natural color.

With a shake of his head, the courier cleared his mind of any thoughts not relevant to the fight he was about to be in. The stasis field that enclosed both him and his scheduled opponent was smaller than the courier had been used to in the city, its edges visible at either side. Or perhaps, the courier found himself thinking, it was exactly the same size, but he couldn’t see due to the buildings. It made sense.

On the other side of the field, standing directly across from Kaden, was a man who looked about the same age as he was – though that was often a meaningless point of comparison, since Kaden was regularly reminded that he looked several years younger than he actually was. Before he realized what he was doing, Kaden had begun taking steps forward and waving. It seemed polite to introduce himself to the man who would likely being trying to beat him to death.

As the courier approached, he couldn’t help but let out a low whistle. When that guy showed to up to a psychotic death tournament, he did it in style. The well dressed man seemed a little jittery, but Kaden attributed that to a combination of being cold and being teleported into the middle of a frozen wasteland to fight.

“Boy do I feel underdressed,” the courier said as he came to a stop a few yards from his opponent.

“Yeah,” Trafford made a point of looking him up and down. “You should.”

“Well, anyway,” Kaden brushed past the comment without giving it too much thought. “I’m Kaden. I’ll be your opponent today. I guess.”

“Aren’t you polite.” There was a moment of hesitation. “I’m Alexander.”

“Great. Can I call you Alex?” Without waiting for an answer, the courier continued. “You should probably just go ahead and do your thing. I won’t really be fighting.”

“Whatever makes my life easier,” Alexander said with a shrug.


Reaching into his jacket, Trafford produced a rather large pistol and leveled it at Kaden. Of all the things he could have possibly produced, Kaden was least expecting a gun. Just as the report of the gun echoed through the Arctic, Kaden raised a hand and brought to life a shimmer barrier of cerulean energy. Rejected by Kaden’s defense, the flattened slugs fell into the snow and out of sight.

As the smoke wafted from Trafford’s gun, he tilted his head to one side and let his eyes wander over his opponent’s curtain of ki as it dissipated. For a second he seemed more interested in the light show than the person who had created. That was fine with Kaden, as it gave him time to try and mentally steel himself. Sadly, that didn’t work.

“You surprised me there,” the courier called out. “Back to the basics, though. I like it. Been a while since someone just pointed a gun at me.”

“So much for not fighting. I was just going to blow out a leg.”

“Oh, well, next time I won’t worry about avoiding it, then. And just because I’m not going to fight doesn’t mean I’m going to let you shoot me.” Kaden thought for a minute. “Though I suppose I can see how that might have been a bit misleading.”

With another shrug, Trafford drew a second bead with his Desert Eagle. Kaden dove out of the way as Alexander pulled the trigger. As Kaden dove, he twisted in mid-air to keep his opponent in sight. Doing so provided him with an interesting bit of information. As the bullets streaked through the air, crashing into the stasis field far behind, they left a faint trail of ki in their wake.

Immediately, the courier’s eyes snapped to the gun in Trafford’s hand. There was absolutely nothing his Sight could discern about the weapon. Nothing special, at least. There wasn’t the faintest hint of energy running through it. Whatever Alex was doing, it was a pretty cool trick.

“So you’re just going to avoid being hit?” Trafford asked as he let his arm fall to his side. “That’s really annoying.”

“Sorry ‘bout that, but I have a point to prove.” Kaden brushed the snow off of his jacket as he climed to his feet.

He had already worked it out on his way to the Arctic Sector. Kaden’s hypothesis was that Damon was just a coward who insisted on forcing people into a game. What makes a hypothesis good, however, is that it withstands testing. If Damon forced Kaden into fighting, the courier was right. The idea that they were all just guests in an event would be complete bullshit. If Damon did nothing, then Kaden wouldn’t have to fight. It was win-win no matter how the courier looked at it.

In the back of his mind, Kaden was almost thankful – for a brief moment – for having been thrown into the bullshit that had been Friend or Foe. He wasn’t thankful for the life-threatening situations, or the mental trauma, or the nightmares he still had about running through a mall of zombies, but he got to experience the self delusion of a psychopath like Kai Demolic. Once you’d seen one greedy, power-hungry, control freak, you’d seen them all.

“Once you figure people out, all you have to do is push the right buttons, and they’ll believe that their actions are of their own motivation,” the courier explained to his opponent. “Taunt an overconfident jackass, disobey a control freak, or just prove wrong someone who thinks they’re always right. Why, you could motivate them to do just about anything.”

For someone who spent most of their time analyzing the people around them, the natural inclination was to use that information to manipulate them. It was simple profit motive: a person will try to get as much as they can with as little work as possible. No better way to shirk work than by manipulating someone else into doing it. It was a sadly common practice, in the courier experience.

What Kaden thought sent him apart for others, though, was that he preferred to do his own work. He had never really been one to push things onto others. While Damon may certainly be in a better position – Kaden was, after all, a player in his game – that didn’t mean the courier couldn’t try to make things as big a hassle for him as possible.

The only real problem with the courier’s little game was that he had to stay alive in order to play it. That meant winning fights without actually fighting. He had a handful of ways to disable his opponents, but it definitely sounded like an uphill battle.

“How very profound,” Alexander replied.

“Thanks,” the courier smiled. He chose to ignore the sarcasm in Alex’s voice. “You might want to get a move on, though. I don’t know if these fights have, like, a time limit or anything.”

The courier didn’t realize it, but he was standing on the verge of a slippery slope. It was easy to rationalize playing the games of people who were, by most objective standards, jackasses. Moving from that to coercing innocent people into playing his games, however, was a subtle and easily ignored process. As much as Kaden valued the sanctity of life, it was as easy to ruin one as it was to take one.

The future that Kaden been shown by Kai Demolic was the epitome of what lay in store for the courier if he were not careful. It has been one in which he manipulated himself into a position of supremacy. It had cost him his sight, his friends, and his morals, but he had continued on down the path thinking it was what was best. Not just for him, but for the whole of the world. If he ever stopped to think about it, Kaden would realize how absolutely ridiculous it seemed. At the rate he was going, though, such honest reflection seemed unlikely.

“So,” Kaden continued, a drug-induced smile plastered across his face. “After you.”

[Ashe]

The furious snows pounding at them had died down a short time ago. The wind still had a cold bite to it, but most of the snow in the area had been lifted already, leaving the couple to stride across a thick lair of ice. To help take their mind off the cold, Kaden and Ashe had held close to each other for warmth, despite the effects of the unknown sensations from before having subsided.

"Look," the cream haired girl whispered to Kaden, withdrawing her cold hand from the safety of her jacket. The courier smiled as he realized that it was glowing once more. "I'm not going to try this time," she explained, looking at it like fireflies in a jar. "I'm just going to watch and observe."

The dance of the energy within her palm was similar to that of a luminescent wisp leaping from fingertip to fingertip, surging around in her palm and tracing tiny lines across her flesh in different symbols and shapes. "I wonder what it means," she asked quietly.

Her companion just shrugged. "I doubt it means anything, really. What, do you think its like some alien language talking to you?" he joked, not actually serious.

Her face, however, agreed. "Possibly," she laughed, not sure how to explain it to him.

"You have a wild imagination, Ashe," he announced.

"Yeah, well, there's a lot of things you don't know about me. A lot of things even I don't know about me," she mused, reflecting on the Star's Tear within her mind. Was it some kind of way for the Tear to communicate through her, or was she just pattern seeking, hoping to find comfort and familiarity in things that she didn't quite understand? She finally took a breath and decided that it had to be the latter, as the Star's Tear had been a bit more direct when communicating to her in the past.

Unless it was communicating through her, she considered.

"Here, try this again."

She looked over at him and saw that he had summoned another orb of energy himself, displaying it out for her to look at once more. "Catch!" he suddenly called, tossing it gently to her from a few inches away. She squeeled and cupped both of her glowing hands out without thinking, forgetting for a moment what it was that he was tossing to her.

The ball of energy landed into her hands, harmlessly sitting directly on her glowing palms as she looked at it, her eyes widening as she took it all in. "I'm gonna drop it..." she whispered in worry.

Kaden shook his head in protest and watched her for a moment, deep in thought. "You know," she heard him say. "I think you do best when you aren't realizing what you are doing," he pointed out.

She hadn't even heard him, however. Her hands began to play with the sphere and pushed into it, attempting to mold it into different shapes, laughing gleefully as the sphere always reverted back into an orb as soon as she withdrew her hands from it. Her eyes had inadvertantly begun glowing again, allowing her to see the dance and crackle of power arcing between her hands into Kaden's energy sphere before a trickle of energy would glide through the air to lace around the couriers own hands, even if he moved them.

"I wonder why it still seems connected to you," she breathed. "I mean, I am the one holding it. Aren't I?"

He didn't say anything, unsure of how to answer her.

After a moment, she spoke up once more. "Maybe its because I'm holding a part of you right here. Your essence. A fragment of your soul," she added, repeating herself with new descriptive terms.

Her companion laughed softly. "That either makes it sound hopelessly romantic or... creepy. Anyway, it might have lingering effects since I was the one that gathered it, but its a mixture of your personal energy and that of the nature around it," he explained.

"Is that why there are energy trails lifting off of it and fading into the sky and ground?" she asked.

"Probably."

"Cool," she noted.

The energy suddenly dispersed as she ran forward a few feet and threw herself to the cold icy ground, leaving Kaden to run forward after her. "What's wrong-" he began, noticing that her hands had lost their glow as well, as had her eyes. "Whoa." He had skidded to a stop directly over her as her hands wiped at the ice beneath them, rubbing away the snow directly over it.

"What is this?" she called out louder. "There's something under here," she added, pointing to a spot further down from her. "Help me clear this away. Whatever it is, I saw the energy of mine flowing down and then through it before I lost my sight."

He knelt down nearby, unsure if this was a good idea or a terrible one. Doing as she asked, he rubbed his hands across the ice, shoveling snow to the side to help clear up the mystery of what was lost beneath the frozen sculpture. "I think there's... It looks like some kind of leathery tarp or something. Are you sure your energy was moving through it? Because then it would have to be alive..." he trailed off, looking at the spot that Ashe had wiped clean.

The ice had covered a large bone structured skull, extending out in a reptillian fashion before curving around to large sharpened teeth. The scaled carapace faded into the snowy ice behind them, betraying something enormous beneath it. "So... let's move," Ashe suggested, pushing herself to her feet and warily grabbing him by his jacket. "Yeah, we should really move. If its alive, my - or your - energy might have awo-"

The ice cracked like an earthquake directly beneath her feet. "Not good," she had time to gasp, noticing that the eyelid beneath the frozen ground was now open and staring up at her. As she turned to run, the ground beneath her gave way as a violent eruption of ice exploded in every direction around her, causing her to lose her footing and drop suddenly as the enormous creature occupying the space beneath the ice was no longer present in its location.

"Gotcha!" Kaden called out, catching her by her hand as she tried to catch the side of the ice while she fell.

She had time to thank him before he hoisted her up to her feet, pointing up at the sky. Her eyes followed, catching sight of what appeared to be a massive white dragon shaped creature gliding through the air above them, circling them but showing no signs of attacking. "Its beautiful," she said for the tenth time.

Her companion looked at her as if she was crazy. "Is everything beautiful to you?" he asked, pointing off in the distance to a cave. "We should get out of here before the beautiful snow dragon decides to eat us. Just a suggestion," he added, reaching out to grab her hand.

A large blast of energy suddenly erupted from the distance, striking the dragon in the sky. The majestic creature roared in fury before retreating to take care of its wounds. The pair of stragglers looked off at a windtorn hill top to see a man standing on top of the hill, staring back directly at him. He appeared to have no further interest in the dragon.

Kaden recognized him immediately. "Ashe, get out of here!" he warned, quickly stepping between her and the fighter.

"Huh?"

Before another word could be said, the combatant vanished from where he stood, his smirk lingering in their memory before he appeared next to Ashe, a black combat boot ripping through the air before striking her across the mouth.

"Ashe!" Kaden yelled, his energy entering into his palms in an attempt to protect her.

Vincent rose to his feet, his eyes moving from the girl that was laying on the ice, a trickle of blood creeping from her mouth, up to the fierce blond male before him. Without a word, he crossed his arms, smirking confidently. Kaden growled back, stepping foward immediately but a blue energy field suddenly appeared, seperating the two of them - leaving Ashe stranded on the side with the assassin.

"Kaden?" she groaned, climbing back to her feet.

Vincent quickly spun, leaping behind her to grab her by the throat and holding her up into the air. She looked helplessly at the barrier as Kaden slammed his fist against it, fading from sight as he was teleported to his own fight. Her own fighter said nothing, merely tossing her hard to the ground before holding out his palm to charge a blast of energy.

She leaped from her feet into a roll, narrowly avoiding the bast as her eyes locked onto the cave in the distance. She had two choices. She could either hope that the cave was enough to lose her assailant, or she could hope to somehow use her basic fighting skills to overcome his obvious training and preparation, possibly taking advantage of the ruptured ice terrain from where the dragon had emerged from its confines.

Either way, she had to live.

[Sage]

<Initializing Protocol DA-2242.s “Happy Cocktail”... Commencing procedure.>

Sage leaned back in her chair and exhaled through pursed lips, her eyes closed. She had still been picking over the things Belle had said to her, and the things she had learned in her fight with him. The blue haired doctor was still having trouble with the preposterous moral qualms she refused to let go of, but at least it was becoming more and more clear that the entire tournament was not, in fact, real.

In truth, she was almost giddy. She hadn’t tested the full depth of her abilities in seven years, excluding the fight she just had with Belle. And she had completely lost her mind. She couldn’t imagine how much better she could fight if she had been lucid. The prospect that she could find out with no real consequence, thanks to the nature of Dante’s Abyss, seemed... appealing.

“No, that’s a weird thing to say,” she declared, furrowing her eyebrows. She was participating in an elaborate murder simulator. Even if it wasn’t real, it was still wrong. Wasn’t it? She sighed. It wasn’t hurting anyone. The hybrid began to wonder if she was over-thinking the situation; she was bad for that. Her sister said so all the time.

As much as Sage wanted to feel bad for the things she had done, as much as she expected to, she really didn’t. In fact, as she felt herself beginning to melt in her seat, she realized she felt more relaxed - more serene - now than she had in...

Actually, she couldn’t remember feeling so good.

It was a feeling of immense satisfaction, like she had finally pieced together the puzzle and she got to see what the picture was. If Sage had ever had a social life of any kind, perhaps she would have realized how incredibly lame the analogy was. But it worked. For her, anyway.

Of course, Damon chose exactly that moment to pluck her out of the amazingly comfortable chair she was in and hurl her halfway across the frozen wasteland, and onto her ass in the snow. She might have been immune to the cold, but her clothes still got wet, dammit!

Still, the goodness of her mood was unprecedented. She had no problem picking herself up and brushing herself off. Whatever, right? It was just snow; she could just will it off of her if she felt like it. She didn’t.

Standing a fair distance from her, she suddenly noticed, was a man dressed in orange. Orange. In a frozen arctic white nothing. He looked very, very sinister, but at the same time, Sage couldn’t help but think he looked kind of like a construction worker stuck doing a horrible job in February.

His appearance was unsettling, though. The hybrid could feel the prickles rising on her flesh. The man stood, deadfast, despite the bracing cold, casting a sinister glare at her. By all rights, she should have been terrorized. But, somehow, she wasn’t. Or, she was. Sort of. But not enough to revert to the shivering lump of frightful, self-loathing impotence that she usually became. In fact, she almost felt angry at him for disturbing her good spirits.

Didn’t stop the lump from forming in her throat, though. No, it’s good, she reassured herself. If it turned out he was as sinister as he looked, at least she wouldn’t feel very bad about harming him. She watched the steam form in front of her as she exhaled with a shaky breath. Why was this so hard?

“S-So we’re supposed to, um, ...fight each other, right?” Sage winced at her overture. Just abysmal.

The man didn’t seem to respond. At all. He didn’t even acknowledge she had been speaking to him. Something else was off, too. With a bit of concentration, Sage convinced the snowstorm to die down, removing the filter of obscurity from overtop her new opponent. It also, she noted with a twinge of regret, revealed the stasis field in all of its oppressive wonder.

The man was green. A namek, she quickly decided. She hadn’t seen a namek in years. And the ones she had seen never gave off a vibe like this one did. Sage frowned. That revelation only served to dampen her spirits.

Suddenly, and without warning, an immense rush of wind ripped at her, blowing her hair back and threatening to carry her off in the sky. Throwing up an arm to shield herself, Sage could hardly keep her eyes open as the high winds forced tears out of them. She gritted and bared her teeth as she struggled against the sudden whirlwind, and finally, a slick, black sheet of ice erupted up from the ground, shielding the girl from the fury of the namek’s element.

The girl hesitantly stepped out from behind her shield, and immediately realized that the alien was gone. Immediately panicking, Sage spun around, then back the other way, then around the first way again. He was nowhere!

How do you hide out here?! the girl projected her thoughts. There’s nothing here!!

Fearful eyes darted up, down, left, right. Sage’s head jerked to and fro, like a sparrow; timid. Fettered. Skittish.

Where is he?! Where did he go?! it wasn’t about wether he would hurt her or not. It was about being killed by a sucker punch. She couldn’t let go of this opportunity. Not now that she was coming to terms with it. Not now when she had been reminded of Sol’s cruelty. Just calm down. It’s okay, it’s oka-where is he?!

Suddenly, the girl spun on her heel. Nothing. She narrowed her eyes. She could have sworn she heard-

Sage whirled back around, this time feeling almost sick from fear. She worried she might just throw up. He was saying something. Just... quiet. Far away. She wasn’t going crazy, was she?

This time, her head jerked to the side. No, that wasn’t her imagination. Whispering. It was almost silent, but it was someone whispering. Then she heard it from her other side. A different voice. Sage scanned the wastes again, but stopped as the whispers approached in intensifying cadence. Quickly, the collection of voices and whispers overwhelmed intelligibility and became nothing more than unyielding noise.

The quarter saiyan took several steps back, sweeping her head back and forth. There was noone out there. Finally, she grasped at her head with her one good hand and squeezed her eyes shut. “St-stop it!! Stop it!!”

The namek didn’t listen. Instead, he made the voices louder. Sage began to shake, regretting that she hadn’t felt more terrified earlier, as if it would have made her less frightened now. “Please!! J-just-” she caught her voice in her throat, and then, in a whisper. “...Stop.”

And then, as if to make things even worse, the jade man appeared out of nowhere in front of her, and threw a punch to the temple of the wide-eyed girl, shattering one of the layers of Hoarfrost she had unconsciously sheathed herself in. She was sent hurtling through the air, but at least those whispers stopped.

Smacking into the snow didn’t hurt. Not like crashing onto the harsh dirt of the forest sector. How she had been unfortunate enough to fight there twice, she didn’t know. Though dazed, Sage picked herself up off the ground, and faced her aggressor.

This was her realm, and this game wasn’t real. She couldn’t let- whatever he was doing - change that. She couldn’t let herself be taken in. She had to be strong. She blinked away her dizziness, and, for the third time in the contest, she encased her hands in the huge, menacing claws of ice that had come to define her fighting style - or lack thereof.

Taking Sage’s claws as a challenge, the namek kicked off of the ice and launched himself forward - or he intended to. Looking down, he found his feet encased in ice. He looked up at the girl, his face devoid of the confusion she had been expecting.

He struggled against his frozen shackles, but Sage wouldn’t let the opportunity to end the fight quickly slip by. From the frozen ground emerged frozen, spear-like tendrils that snaked up from the snow, before lancing at the immobilized son of Retane.

With surprising flexibility, Sage’s victim twisted and bent around the deadly Frostroots, and finally broke free of his restraints. He leapt from the trap the girl had sprung upon him, and bounded down the tundra toward her.

The hapless healer froze as he closed the distance.

That was what the murderous alien thought, anyway. Sage, however, had tricked him. The snow he was running on had become the slickest ice beneath his feet, and he found himself crashing on his chin instead of putting his fist to the girl’s jaw.

Instead of climbing back to his feet, the namek hurled himself up into the air, and stayed there. “You can fly, too?!” the girl nearly protested. A series of frozen javelins manifested in the air around her, and rocketed up at Maleficus like SAMs after a fighter pilot.

Because it was the pilot you wanted. Planes could be replaced. Experience couldn’t.

Her adversary, however, had turned out to be an ace, as if in defiance of the color of his skin. He either dodged or cut down the vicious projectiles with a remarkable grace. His fighting was so smooth. So... careful.

She almost didn’t realize he was diving down at her, and threw up a Frostbite storm to deter him, but Maleficus simply shielded his face and blasted through it, slamming his knee into Sage’s gut, before throwing a backhand to the side of her face. She was sent skipping across the ice like a rock over a lake.

The namek was hardly stupid, however, and chased after her, punting her up into the air like a football. He thundered upward after her, but Sage, in desperation, encased herself in a chunk of ice and from it burst frozen spikes in all directions.

Maleficus broke away, narrowly evading one of the frosty skewers, just as the protective Glacier around Sage shattered. The blue haired girl fell through the air above the namek and raked one of her grotesque claws over his back.

The two of them fell from the sky, hitting the ground with a staccato pair of thumps. Sage found herself face-first in the snow, and in a great deal of pain. It was a long drop; she was actually a little surprised she hadn’t broken anything.

Still, it hurt to move. She had to fight to get to her feet, and even then, she took a knee. She just needed a breather, she reasoned. Just a minute to rest.

To Sage’s surprise, she was up first. It was then that she saw the blood pooling beneath her namekian opponent. Maybe he was dying. Maybe he was already dead. The thoughts played out in her mind, differently than they had in the changeling’s case. The nagging moral questions were still there, but somehow muted.

The girl knew she would take no solace in the death of this namek, but he stood between her and her goal. And, she reminded herself for the millionth time, it wasn’t real.

“I j-just want you to know... I am sorry,” she explained, thinking she was talking to a corpse. “I had t-” she cut herself off as Maleficus lifted himself up onto his elbows. Sage gritted her teeth and flexed her claws. So be it.

[Jesper]

Sophia sat up from her near-fetal position and blinked free a few stray tears. She tried to wipe them off of her face with her arm, but it only served to wet her face more, as she had spent the previous ten minutes crying on it. She was crying, though she no longer felt the need to. Sniffing loudly, she stretched her legs out on the bed she was sitting on and yawned. Looking at all of her appendages, she couldn’t help but laugh. She would be been better served to shed her tears on something other than herself because, judging on how wet her knees were, when she cried, she cried a lot.

“Oh yuck,” she smiled. “What was I even crying about?”

Crawling from her bed, she frowned—what was she crying about? She suddenly no longer cared about much of anything, happy as she was. The healer giggled and ran to the door, swinging it open and jumping past its frame to the room inside. Sage should have been there, but when the blonde’s eyes landed on the chair on which she had previously sat, she found that the girl was no longer there. She must have gone outside or something; it seemed crazy to the healer, but Sage seemed to like the cold. She had to have liked it, since she could control it. She was like a snowman, in that sense, because…

“Wait, that doesn’t make sense,” she said, grimacing and putting a hand to her head. She was overbearingly joyful, out of nowhere, but she found it hard to concentrate. It was hard to even hear her collar beep when it happened, or feel the device when it started to vibrate. She closed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, letting colors swirl under her eyelids before she opened them again. When she found that the collar had swept her away for another combat situation, she was, somehow, delighted. The snow reminded her of the Friend or Foe competition, where she and Kaden had built a particularly awesome snowman, placed machine guns on its arms, and killed someone immediately after they were done.

Those were truly good times.

Looking around, she saw many of the same conditions that they had back then for making snowmen—most notably among those was snow. Shrugging, she picked up a chunk of snow and packed it into a ball. She began to roll more snow onto it, seeing if she could still remember how to even make one. The healer was so determined in her snowman-making technique that she barely even noticed that her opponent had arrived.

“Um…” the maid cleared her throat, garnering Sophia’s attention. “Are we not supposed to fight now?”

“What? Oh, right…” the former priestess glanced between the large chunk of snow that she had just formed and her oddly-dressed foe. “Um…can…can it wait? I’m kind of busy.”

“B-busy?” Tamsin’s expression looked a mixture of confusion and disgust. “Are we even allowed to wait?”

“I’m not sure,” Sophia shrugged. “Actually, I’m pretty sure we’re not. Piper got shocked once.”

“What? Who’s Piper?” Tamsin tilted her head.

“The point is that we need to hurry!” Sophia smiled brightly. At that point, she had begun work on the second part of the snowman. Pointing to the base, the healer continued. “We can fight after the snowman is done. I promise.”

“Um…okay!” the maid nodded. With the other girl’s help, the work went a lot faster. It took mere seconds more to complete the torso for the snowman, and the head just as long to complete from scratch. When their creation stood, fully formed, the pair of opponents took a step back to observe their masterpiece. Tamsin flashed a thumbs-up, and though Sophia shared the girls optimism, she couldn’t help but feel as though there was something missing.

“Oh. We’re not even done, are we?” the healer snapped her fingers in realization. “It needs, like, a face. And arms.”

“But where are we going to find them? We can’t exactly go anywhere…” the silver-haired girl spoke.

“We’ll have to make do…” Sophia said as she looked around for something—anything to use. Her eyes scanned the blanket of white until they landed on two icicles, each easily a few feet in length, just laying in the snow. Clapping giddily, the healer ran to them and picked them up, almost dropping them when the cold stung the skin of her hands. “These will work! Um…I guess you’ll just have to draw in the face with a finger or something while I put these bad boys in.”

Tamsin nodded, and both fighters did their assigned duty. When they were finished, they stepped back once again like two painters who had just put finishing touches on a large painting. Both stroked their imaginary beards thoughtfully until they were pleased with what they had done.

“Well, that was fun,” Sophia said, turning to Tamsin with a grin. “What should we do now?”

“We…need to fight,” Tamsin frowned. “I told you this not ten minutes ago. Did you really forget?”

“Oh right! Dante’s Abyss! Okay, well…” Sophia glanced around until the icicles protruding from the snowman’s sides caught her eye. Pulling the icicle out from the side closest to her, she pointed the sharp end at Tamsin. “En garde!”

“Very well, I accept your challenge!” Tamsin giggled, arming herself with the remaining icicle. The pair stared at each other, shooting mock glares while they tried not to smile.

“Ha!” Sophia grunted as she lunged forward, swinging the icicle downward. Tamsin, sounding a similar grunt, brought her icy weapon up, tilting it sideways to block the blow. Ice clanged on ice, and though the healer suspected that they would both shatter, nothing of that effect happened. Bringing the chunk of ice up closer to her face for inspection, she ran her hands along the surface—it hadn’t so much as cracked. She couldn’t even remember ever seeing ice any sturdier than what she was holding at that point.

I’m going to have to keep this, Sophia thought.

“I will not lose!” Tamsin shouted long before the healer was ready, striking Sophia. The tip of the icicle glanced the blonde’s cheek—blood trickled from her wound as she reached up to touch it.

“Ow! No fair, I wasn’t ready! You’re not playing right!” Sophia groaned, pouting her lips.

“I’m…I’m sorry?” Tamsin shrugged, looking at the bloodied tip of her ice weapon.

Sophia swung her icicle suddenly, clipping the maid’s shoulder and forcing her to drop her weapon. As the girl gasped and clutched her wound, Sophia giggled. “It’s okay. I forgive you!”

The pair shared a laugh, though Tamsin wound back a fist. The healer smirked and grabbed the other end of her icicle with her off-hand, lifting like a batter lifts his bat to bunt a pitch. The maid’s hand connected with the solid ice, causing the girl to recoil in pain. Sophia chuckled when nothing happened, though it shattered just when she thought she had won the exchange. A few stray shards of ice pricked the skin of her face—she didn’t feel a thing, though she knew that she would likely be feeling it later.

“Don’t give up now!” Tamsin shouted as she extended both arms as far as she could to each side, charging large ki orbs in both of her hands. Sophia pondered her options as the ample amounts of energy she had collected gleaned off the surface of the ice and into her eyes—she could have tried to match the energy she had collected, or she could have employed a more…unorthodox strategy. Either way, she figured, it would be awesome.

Raising her arms in a cross, she dug her feels as far into the snow as she could. When Tamsin threw her attacks, she grimaced and shrunk back a little bit. She had only been able to absorb ki through her hands before. It made sense that she could theoretically absorb it from anywhere, though it hadn’t crossed her mind until just when the attack hit that maybe that moment wasn’t the greatest time to test out a theory. The ki was strong, much stronger than she anticipated, and she knew immediately that even attempting to absorb all of the energy would kill her much faster than actually taking the blunt of the attack. The energy that she did absorb trickled into her veins as the rest of it exploded on contact, knocking her a few feet backwards and onto her backside.

The energy inside of her burned immensely, but she didn’t care as she crawled to her feet. “My strategy actually worked!” she shouted. “Well…kind of. I’m only halfway done.”

“What are you mumbling about?” Tamsin began walking towards the healer.

Sophia raised her arms and discharged the ki she had obtained. “Pew! Pew!” she emulated a laser sound as the energy flew towards Tamsin.

[Mal Nova]

There was no drug strong enough to calm the Jade Fiend, not when he didn't want to be tamed. No, his body faught the rush of emotions head on as he looked forwardas the adolescent tried to be menacing agasint his ferocious caliber. There was no relaxation within himself as he looked on at her, the lacertaitons along the flesh of his back, darkening the dark orange cloak, creating burgandy streaks, down the cloth. The pain was numb though, the cold chill, his anger, and the unexplained experience taking care of such trivial things.

He let his feral instincts kick in, gradually, though he didn't want to, still unsure what the difference of letting the 'beast' loose, and letting the Abyss effect him was. His cloak altered, slowly, losing it's color actually, fading into darkness. It stuck out in the white snow, more then the purple hued stains from where he'd crashed at, at the very least, but the warrior didn't seem to notice or care. He shoved off, knowing the female more then enough as it was.

They had been together in a room once before, when she had been so upset, sobbing, and had changed the tempaure and done something to their foes to allowhimself and others like Vad, to escape. He cocked his head and looked at her curiously though, wondeirng how she had become so much more skillfull since the endevour, and the scowl over his face increase ten-fold. He realized that within the little bit of time time they had been away from one another, that she seemed to increase in skill much greater then he had, and it annoyed him.

He lookecd at her, in the girl's attack mode, and saw the eyes... He hesitated, as he saw the innosence from deep within. Not only had he glanced them before, but he saw his comrade deep within. He paused, hesitated, and paid for it with a barrage of energy and snow. It struck and stung him, making himn recoil in defense, but that wasn't going to stop him.

Not the Son of Retane.

As he hovered there, attempting to figure it all out, he looked dead on at the female, and all thoughts of being an aquaintance, vanished. He now knew how much of an Ice Bitch she cold be, and refused to let her play her games as she hand forseen. She had met him before but never saw his talents, not like he had seen hers, so he had the upperhand here, even in her own enviroment. He snarled and lifted himself off the ground, the flakes that game near him, quickly fluttered away.

His face, started smoking, the image of the skull starting to take over the briused face, for a second time. He treid to fight back the beast, but quickly found himself over whelemed He was attacked ever which way mentaklly, till he had to given in and let the beast take control.

He sat there, though, looking in disbeleiv, frowining as he did, if a mental imagination coulld, and let lose a snarl all of his own.

Had Sage seen anything so surreal before she wouldn't have been sure. She looked on in disbelief, as the visage changed from Flesh to bone, to flesh. SHe even nearly fell backwards, and the Namek, seemingly Insane, grabbed his head and let lose a shrilling cry.

Nova, arrogant in his on belef's would find himself to be nothing more then an arrogant child, as he allowed himself of that which was rightfully his; His Body.

He felt his lip curl in an angry snarl, as he hovered above the Ice Princess, He saw no ally, no comrade, only someone that could bleed. He saw no one similiar to Tamsin, nor the children of David, but saw, someone ready to go toe to toe with him.

He again let out a growl of anger, this time thrusting his arms in her direction. He snapped his arms tought and let the cyclones that quickly fashioned themselves about his apendages kick up with their ferocious howl; His own unseen claws, lashing out grappling her own. She looked more shocked at the strange tactic, and could only stand in shock as the Fiend Wind ushered down the invisible appendages, barreling straight at her.

Had you ever been attacked with the sharp wind, you'd have known that a full frontal assault was far more dangerous then as per usual, and as it hit home, Sage let out a scream, almost as if a plea, begging for it to stop.

Of course, Mal wasn't going to listen to the pleas, though.

[Tamsin]

Unaware of the chemical reaction that was activated inside her body, Tamsin gazed behind Maleficus as he hastily launched himself into the air. His plead to not follow him still resonated in her mind as the Namekians lone figure disappeared on the horizon in the direction of the arctic wastes. The maid was overwhelmed by a wave of emotions as various thoughts conflicted in her mind. The words "Don`t follow me! I BEG YOU!" kept playing in her ears like a constantly repeating recording...yet, could she really do as he asked?

Nova was troubled by his demons, threats that could engulf his very being. In his lonesome struggle, he made a desperate cry: "I-I need...help. I need you to help me." Yet, in spite of this, he begged her not to follow him. But the prodigy quickly realised that she could not fulfill such a request. Even if she wanted to, she had already followed him into the Abyss. There was no turning back for either of them. The adolescent quickly made up her mind. No matter how long and difficult the path ahead may be, she was determined to be there for her master every step of the way...and follow him to whatever end.

With a new sense of determination, Suzaku began her descent from the mountains. In the past, the green rogue was forced to face his ghosts alone...but not anymore.

----------

The vast frozen steppes of the Arctic Sector were unforgiving towards anyone who dared to pass their threshold. As the already cloudy day gave way to the even deeper darkness of the night, a strong wind blew across the plains. The sheer frigidity of the weather chilled to the very bone and the human girl was forced to wrap her cloak tightly to safeguard herself from it. The thick layer of snow covering the surface was not of much aid to the maid either, her legs feeling heavier with each step. Combined with the gloom situation her master was facing and the prodigy could not help herself but feel....overjoyed?

It felt very strange to the maid. Yet, in spite of the many challenges ahead of her, this did not hinder her spirit in the slightest. Infact, she did not recall feeling so happy since her time in the guild. The obstacles in her way no longer seemed broding, but fragile and insignificant. The girl imagined that, like the snow under her feet, they would quickly gave way to her sheer force of will. Suddenly, her pace quickened as she merrily thought to keep her blood flowing to defy the cold. Although it was extremely tiring to move in such a manner in deep snow, the adolescent kept going. In the end, she was practically leaping, regardless of the fact that this caused her body to ocassionally sink akwardly into the frozen watery substance.

Tamsin`s navy blue eyes turned towards the darkened sky, an enormous grin forming on her face. Suddenly, she felt the urge to fly, just like her master. Then she could be with him in an instant and help him reach the greatness he so desired. The girl started to jump, higher and higher. Although she would fall to the ground each time, this did not dissipate her desire and she kept going. Beacuse this was her sole focus, she did not notice the sudden noise that her collar started to emit. The silver hair made on more leap into the air and she could have sworn she had begun to ascend ....until her body dematerialised and she found herself somewhere else entirely.

She was again standing in the middle of a white field with nothing but snow stretching out for miles. One thing was different, however...she was not alone. Rolling balls of snow not far away from her was another girl, only she was several years older then the maid. Figuring that she was her opponent, Tamsin approached her and she quickly found herself engaged with the other female....in making a snowman. As they produced the unliving construct, they heartily laughed like old drinking buddies in a pub. Drunk from sheer joy, they forgot for a few moments that they were involved in a bloodsport and that one of them would have to face the dire consenquences of such an activity. Since they were required to begin fighting eventually, the girls began to trade blows and both of them suffered injuries. But no matter what, they continued to cackle like mad as their duel went on.

Having absorbed some of the energy her opponent had sent her way, Sophia raised her palms. Voicing sounds similar to those in a video game, the priestess began to fire her own ki orbs. Forced to jump into the snow from the attack, the maid sheltered herself with her arms as various explosions caused the white substance to erupt violently upon impact. With some difficulty, she got back onto her feet. Her opponent was taller and stronger then she was and the conditions severely hindered movement...but she did not care. Her confidence skyrocketed as she felt prepared to take on whatever the person opposite of her was willing to throw. While her fight against Vad was a bruttle struggle for survival, Suzaku was much more used to fighting this time around.

Different shades of blue clashed as the two faced each other once more and a brief pause occured in the battle. It was then that the prodigy noticed the clothing of her opponent...and she laughed once more. Besides the regular outfit, which looked awfully thin and revealing for polar conditions, Sophia also wore random pieces of light armour. The adolescent could not understand if wearing armour was some sort of a new fashion trend, considering her previous two opponents also wore armour. But the girl was also quick to remind herself that the woman in front of her was not even nearly as heavy-clad as the men she encountered before.

Shrugging off further thoughts on the matter, the maid pulled out one of her Ki Knives. Determiningly, she charged forth and threw it towards her opponent. Due to the limitations of the terrain, the attack was too slow and the priestess was able to dodge easily. However, wondering where the knife came from, she finally noticed the carrying belt beneath Tamsin`s cloak.

"Hey! That`s no fair! I don`t have a we-," complained the blonde, but was smacked in the face before she could finish and landed with a soft thud on the snow behind her. Suzaku got a good chuckle from that....but it did not last long. A moment later, the azure-eyes woman stretched out her arms and grabbed the adolescent firmly by her wrists. With a silly smile plastered on her face, the priestess remarked: "Do not worry. I will just suck you of all the energy and then it will all be over."

The maid smiled back, but she started to panic as she felt the ki flows in her body ebb away. Although she tried to pull herself free, the blonde held the grip firmly and did not release the adolescent. Tamsin then noticed with the corner of her eye the knife that she threw lying in the snow not far away. She desired to reach it...and it flew right into her hand! Shocked at the unexpected occurence, the girl nevertheless gripped the weapon firmly and slashed at her foe. Sophia finally released her, a painful yelp escaping her lips.

Although she was bleeding, the priestess`s moodswing quickly turned it into a joke: "Now that is some mosquito bite!" The maid laughed...yet her laughter suddenly felt hollow and more forced. As the chemical cocktail that fueled their moments of joy began to wear off, Tamsin`s smile faded away. She looked at the snowman that was the end result of the duo`s efforts. It still bore the smile that Tamsin drew on him...but it seemed much less sincere and innocent then just moments before. Infact, it seemed like it was grinning ominously at the two as it stood witness to the harsh realities of Dante`s Abyss.

[Alexander Trafford]

“You’re quite boring,” Trafford stated in an exaggerated drawl. Several more rounds exploded from the barrel of his high caliber handgun and were sent whistling through the air on either side of the courier’s head, before detonating harmlessly in the fair, snow-covered surface behind him. In all honesty, Alexander was not bored by this Kaden fellow in the slightest, it was just good business to keep a steadfast appearance with relatively unknown opponents. He thought the messy haired man was quite . . . humorous. Every time he dipped or dived to avoid one of the Desert Eagle’s slugs, he reminded the young telekinetic of that damned rabbit who made a fool of Elmer Fudd on his favorite childhood show, Looney Tunes. He had long since forgotten the clever character’s name, but he had always pitied poor Elmer. Perhaps, Trafford wondered to himself, this time he would catch that ‘silly wabbit.’

The weapon felt strangely light in his palm as he leveled it at his opponent, who was casually awaiting the next round of energy augmented bullets. He had begun to notice that his vision was blurry, not to the extent that he could not see, but such that it was necessary to close one eye in order to focus. As he shifted his weight onto his front foot he nearly stumbled. He had become lighter too, apparently, and unexpectedly so. Not only had his body undergone the false transformation, but his mind had as well; the stress and the tension from Vad’s demise seemed to have relinquished its haunting grip.

The Desert Eagle bounced against his hip as he let his arm drop to his side, and his trigger finger loosened. He knew these symptoms. Although, he admitted, these drugs were more relaxing and pure than his heroin.

“Man, I’m fucking high,” Alexander whispered through a smirk, bearing his pearly whites at his foe. The man did not comment, and so the telekinetic felt it was safe to assume that he could not hear him. He spoke louder this time and asked Kaden a question, “Do you smoke pal?”

Trafford reached into his suit’s inner pocket and withdrew two cigarettes. One he slid into the corner of his mouth, the other he held out towards his opponent.

“From time to time,” Kaden responded as he rose from his defensive position, “sure.”

The courier took a step forward, and Alex recognized the slight wobble in his step, along with the rosy grin plastered against his visage. Was this messy haired man high as well? He wondered, perhaps he was not the only one who buried his past beneath abuse. Not that it mattered. His inquest had been rhetorical; this fellow was foolish to believe the young telekinetic would part with one of his cherished Marlboros on charity alone. But, of course, Kaden couldn’t possible have known otherwise. Trafford waited for his counterpart to take one more step.

“Ah, now that is just too bad,” The well dressed combatant exclaimed as his furrowed brow encroached over his dark, deep set eyes. Alex tossed the cigarette into the air, nearly shedding a tear as he released it from his possession, and watched as the white cylinder amassed a layer of thick, golden energy.

The courier’s eyes immediately leapt to the cigarette, but only for a moment. His gaze followed something that lie between the floating object and the Armani adorned teenager. Trafford did not comprehend the man’s actions.

Kaden released a tiny bolt of power from his fingertips. In flight it resembled a small arrow. The miniature pseudo-attack struck the area between the cigarette and the position where Trafford stood, before vanishing into an even smaller burst of light. Alex’s confusion only increased when he suddenly lost control of the augmented Marlboro and it detonated prematurely; although, Trafford’s efforts were not entirely in vain. Apparently, the courier was not expecting the tiny cylinder to transform into a dazzling display of lashing golden tongues desperately reaching out from an explosive burst.

The young telekinetic quickly leveled the massive handgun at his momentarily distracted opponent. His finger gently squeezed the trigger in a series of slow, rhythmic motions that unleashed a number of poorly aimed slugs in the direction of his foe.

Without missing a beat, Kaden recovered from his short-lived trance and dove to his side, nearly catching a bullet in the chest as his body dropped into the soft, smooth powder. Trafford readjusted his aim, firing two more energy augmented cartridges in the direction of the courier – who immediately manifested an energy shield; and the two slugs detonated harmlessly and uselessly against the cerulean barrier.

“God damnit man!” Alexander exclaimed and his cigarette nearly fell from his mouth. “Why won’t you just die already!?”

Tugging at his Armani suit jacket and readjusting himself, Trafford inhaled deeply and drew the cancerous fumes into his lungs, forcing his frustration to subside. His enemy took a moment to dust off his jacket, before rising to one knee. Ace’s eyes lit up and the messy haired youth noticed that he had been fidgeting his hand.

“What the heck?” Kaden questioned rhetorically as his visage contorted into a mask of confusion. His ability to detect energy had almost always proved useful, but now he saw, or felt, a pooling of power under his feet. And that could not be possible, could it?

The courier looked down just in time to see the mass of gold spreading in a circle beneath him. The concentrated radius became thick and opaque with the garnering color of the entertainer’s potent energy. Kaden’s feet dug into the loose snow and he shot backwards, but the sole of the shoe that covered his back foot slid out from underneath him and he collapsed onto his side.

Explosions are generally mesmerizing to Alexander in their contradictory nature. Things that are beautiful should not also be deadly. If something is dangerous and deadly, like a snake or a blowfish, then it should be hideous, as such creatures are. But as he triggered the single shot of power, he was nearly blown away, albeit not in the same way that Kaden was. The billows of smoke intertwined as they slowly rose above the many branches of flame, both thick and thin, that crept up from the root of such a poetic tragedy, who could not find such a display to be beautiful?

But, as generally happens, Trafford’s trance was broken after the flames abated and retreated into smoldering ash. And all that was left was Kaden’s steaming, crawling figure desperately attempting to lift himself back onto his feet. Eventually, he managed to rise to one knee. But by then Alex had made his way over to his fallen opponent.

“Dodge this,” Trafford stated through a grin and a slight chuckle. He loved quoting movies. Lifting his right arm, he leveled the hand cannon at his opponent, aiming the barrel squarely at the courier’s chest. And then suddenly he remembered the name of that clever rabbit, it had been Bugs Bunny. Smirking, Alexander pulled from his childhood his favorite quotation of all time.

“Be vewy, vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits,” Alexander spoke with an exaggerated speech impediment. His massive grin quickly subsided as Kaden’s expression mutated into a cocktail of confusion and concern. Trafford reasserted his grip on the trigger and realigned the business end of the Desert Eagle with the courier’s chest.

[DA 2009]

SAGE VS. MAL NOVA

As the Fiend Wind ripped at Sage, she found herself somewhat defenseless. This was her playground, her environment, but wind did not equal cold, and thus, she was completely vulnerable to Mal Nova’s elemental attacks. Had she the mind for strategy, she could have figured out a way to turn the situation to her favor, but right now her focus lay in not getting sliced up like salami. Her victories chalked up to accident and inexplicable rage through manipulation. What hope did she have in direct face-to-face combat?

Mal pushed his energy forward, placing all of his might behind the single attack; he could leave nothing to chance. Not this time, not again. The beast was slowly overtaking him, and if he was to rise to the greatness destined upon him, sooner or later, he had to embrace it and harness it.

Once again in the fight, Sage had no recourse but to become surrounded by a bunker of ice, preventing the Fiend Wind from lacerating her skin. Instead, the furious gusts merely shaved uselessly at ice. It was a good defense, but provided little latitude for offense. Frustrated, and realizing that his prey was completely immobilized, Mal Nova launched himself at the ice-covered girl and tore viciously at the frozen casing with his bare hands. He was tired of them running, running from him, and somehow managing to get away. Eventually, the Glacier shattered, just as it had done before, and Mal cut the girl four bloody gashes across the cheek. She recoiled, and the Frostroots came of their own accord. Maleficus, however, by this point was wise to that seemingly automated defense, and quickly teleported away on lightning reflexes.

He reappeared in the air, and sent another burst of Fiend Wind from above. Sage felt her body being wrenched to the side from the blast, and quickly gathered enough of her senses to start running, albeit somewhat aimlessly. Where was there to go? Eventually she’d reach the barrier, but this fight, she didn’t intend to run away. Maybe it was the cocktail surging through her veins, or maybe it was a bit of confidence she’d managed to muster in her skills, but thus far, she’d been able to hold her own…without help.

Mal took great delight at throwing gusts of wind, almost like he was shooting fish in a barrel. He followed her from above, like a great aerial bomber of doom. The only thing that could have possibly completed the terrifying bombardier maneuvers would have been Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” playing in the background. Bits of snow flew up as the tunneling drills of wind struck everywhere but the intended target, as if the arctic field was filled with deadly landmines. Suddenly, she cut around and started running the opposite direction, catching him off-guard. Sage threw up a bit of Frostbite, causing the namek’s dominant position to be compromised. Immediately afterward, the entire battlefield became trenched in a thick fog that permeated from the mistress of ice herself. The temperature quickly dropped, but suddenly heated back up at an insane pace, causing a thick obscurity to the environment. Mal projected a quick burst of wind to counteract the Frostbite, but the goal had already been accomplished.

He breathed heavily, unable to see through the density. All that was visible were strange, glittery bits dispersed throughout the mist. Then, shapes and shadows began to dance along the emptiness. Mal just shook his head: pathetic. It took more than a few tricks to scare him, the son of Retane, a spawn to ascend to the mantle of Reaper. He was the monster here. The imperfect namek sucked in a deep breath, and expelled a gale in all directions, whipping up the fog and dissipating the blanket it cast over the snow.

Sage could sense that her many distractions were failing to set up a decent enough attack to keep the namek down for good. She sighed, more of mental exhaustion than physical. The emerald-skinned creature was proving to be completely relentless, a trait shared with her first opponent—had she even remembered the second, or could discern without doubt what was real and what was not about that encounter. Suddenly, a second wave of fresh euphoria overcame her, cementing her resolve. Unbidden, her cryokinetic energy came to the surface, faster than she could control it, faster than she could realize what was going on. It reached a pinnacle, and as it boiled over, she let out a shriek.

Mal, of course, being keen of hearing, pinpointed the sound exactly, and sought to swoop down upon his prey, a trail of wind blazing in his wake.

Sage screamed, and kept on screaming, as her power completely exploded like a nuclear blast. Mal was stopped in his tracks by arctic winds that rivaled…no, surpassed…that of anything the master of airstream had ever created. The ground beneath erupted in glacial spikes, and snow furiously kicked up into the air. It was as if the entire Arctic Sector had bent to her will, and focused on a single target: Maleficus Nova. He threw his arms up, surrounding himself in another torrent of wind to try and ward off the inevitable. A thick sheen of frost slowly crept along his clothes, and eventually his skin. And then, finally, the swirling torrent of the storm closed in on him, completely encasing him in ice. Not once did he scream.

As the last of Sage’s energy left her, she collapsed to her knees and fell over on her palms, and the storm subsided, leaving behind a trail of devastation in its wake. Within the bubble of the stasis field, everything remained as she had initially willed it. She raggedly caught her breath, and looked up. Oddly, she saw nothing. She doggedly got to her feet and walked over to where her opponent had last been located. As she neared closer, she saw a smattering of ice chunks scattered across the spear-like glaciers. Upon further inspection she realized that the chunks…weren’t…colored like normal ice. Bits of green…and black…and metal…glistened within…

She looked at it, putting the pieces together in her mind. The worst thing was, she couldn’t be sure, but she felt…happy? She was happy that this happened?

[DA 2009]

VINCENT VS. ASHE

Runrunrunrunrunrun, her mind screamed frantically. She squeaked as an energy shell rocked the snow beneath her feet, causing her to trip. Chancing a look behind her, the girl could see the menacing eliminator hot on her trail, his ki rifle poised and aimed in her direction. Her eyes widened even further, if that was possible, as she scrambled up and jerkily ran towards the entrance of the cave. Although it was entirely the wrong time, a random movie quote popped into her head: “A true Ninja is a master of himself and his environment.” Sadly, she wasn’t a turtle, and she definitely wasn’t a ninja, so hopefully her cave plan would suffice, even if the quote didn’t completely apply…like, at all.

Vincent hounded her mercilessly, firing relentless ki shells, but her awkward movements made her trajectory far less predictable, and the element of surprise was already used up.

Ashe vanished into the cave, not bothering to watch where she was going. A few slippery paths spider-webbed from the entrance, and she picked the first one she saw. The pink-and-blonde-haired girl didn’t get very far before she realized she’d selected the wrong damn one as she slammed head-on into a dead end.

“Oh crap,” she cursed under her breath. She turned around, hoping to have enough time to reroute to a much better course, but Vincent proved to be an excellent tracker, and the student could hear his footfalls approaching steadily closer. Panic settled in, and she flapped her hands uselessly about as she frantically tried to think of an alternate plan. Uh, okay, okay, I can do this. I can do this. Pie? No wait, why I am thinking about pie? Strategy! Think of strategy!

Vincent saw a shadow moving along the wall and blasted in its direction. The shadow ended up being a red herring, and an innocent bat was fried against the rocky cave wall.

Oh god, I am so fucking dead, Ashe wailed internally.

It was at that moment that she noticed a tiny ledge in the wall that connected her cavern with another. Seizing the opportunity impulsively, she tried to hoist herself up, slipping a bit as she did so, but she managed to claw her way upwards and she settled herself in the tiny space. Ashe briefly toyed with the idea of using it as an escape hatch, but that idea was brutally rejected when she found she couldn’t crawl all the way through. Instead, she turned around so she could watch the dead-end, and prayed that Vincent would overlook her hiding spot. Maybe she could wait out the combat.

Vincent finally reached the end of the pathway, and was completely surprised that his quarry was nowhere to be seen. He was absolutely sure he’d heard her walk down this path. He leveled his gun in all directions, even checking the ceiling to make sure she wasn’t handing overhead and waiting to drop in on him. A fantastic epiphany overcame Ashe, and she quietly eased herself onto the end of the ledge, waiting until Vincent’s back was turned so he wouldn’t see her devious plot.

“YAAAHHHH!” she screamed as she launched herself like a flying squirrel at her opponent’s exposed six.

He yelped in surprise as her arms latched tightly around his neck and her legs wrapped around his midsection. He fired the gun reflexively, although the shells bored uselessly into the rocky walls. The furyian stumbled around as he tried to pry the petite teenager off of him, and met with little success. Ashe freed a hand and craned her head over his shoulder to get a better look at his neck. She fumbled along his collar, searching for a very specific button. This task was made all the more difficult by the fact that he was flailing around, and he eventually just slammed his back up against a wall, giving her the full brunt of the attack. However, the girl refused to yield. After all, if she could stay conscious in the face of a full, helpless beating, what was that supposed to do?

“Aha!” Ashe cried triumphantly as her fingers eventually located what the thing for which she had so frantically been searching. “Sucks to be you!”

With vigor, she pressed the “Game Over” button.

Second passed.

Nothing happened.

In confusion, she pressed it again, and again, and again, wondering just why in the hell it wasn’t working. Vincent eventually figured out what she was trying to do.

“Don’t be stupid!” the eliminator laughed. “That’s not going to work. The button only works inside of a bunker, you idiot!”

He stopped long enough to turn his gun at himself, pointing it directly at Ashe’s head. She stared in horror down the end of the barrel, seeing the glow as it formulated in the firing chamber. So much for her plan. Vincent squeezed the trigger. An explosion burst along the side of Vincent’s face as he felt the recoil of the blast. When he turned around and focused, he could see a scorch mark on the cave wall. He looked down, and saw, much to his disbelief, the girl sitting on her butt at his feet. Somehow, she’d managed to let go in that split second. Her ki wand was poised up at him. Her aim, unfortunately for the eliminator, was far more true than his. A single shot fired from the tip of the wand, and bored straight through the space between his eyes. The eliminator slumped to the ground, and Ashe scooted herself away from him, as completely in shock as he was.

[DA 2009]

TAMSIN VS. SOPHIA

Slowly, but surely, the effects of the cocktail faded away, leaving the two girls with something of an emptiness in the wake of their jubilation. Their tolerance for it was either higher than the rest—a surprising feat—or perhaps they had received doses that were too low. Sophia groaned as she put a palm to her head, and her line of sight followed Tamsin’s to the snowman. It was as if the very same thoughts ran through her head, except for one. Immediately, the priestess could see an image of Tempo flashing in her eyes, and in her jest, had almost done the same thing to this poor girl, and she would have done it happily, thinking it nothing but a joke. The sudden unsettling horror of it didn’t sit well at all. After all, she’d made a snowman with the girl, so she couldn’t very well kill her, could she?

“I don’t…really want to do this,” Tamsin admitted finally.

Sophia looked her square in the eyes. “Neither do I. But, we don’t have any choice. I…have to see my friends again.”

“I have to see my master again,” the maid replied.

It was odd. The fight was becoming oddly reminiscent of that Sophia had had with Piper, and after a moment of thought, she realized she hadn’t seen Piper in a while, and briefly wondered what happened with the girl. Piper may not have been a friend, but that didn’t mean she was any less important as a life. Knowing that she’d given Tempo a much quieter way out than the boy would have likely gotten from anyone else, Sophia wrestled with the prospect of repeating history. This girl was…different, kindred somehow. They both wanted the same things, and if it really came down to it, Sophia was going to be the one to get what she wanted, but she couldn’t help but feel remorse as the barrier of the happy cocktail opened the threshold of guilt that it had been holding back.

“I can make it painless, you know,” Sophia offered. “It would hurt, for a moment, and then it would just be like going to sleep.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t take you up on that offer,” Tamsin smiled sadly. “So what do you want to do?”

Sophia thought for another moment, and then, completely reiterating the words that had been laced into her mind by her very first opponent, said, “One attack, for real. We both hit each other at the same time, and whoever gets up first, wins.”

Tamsin nodded. She had to be brave, for her master. She had already made up her mind to find him; he’d asked for help, and she was going to give it. The maid flipped the knife expertly in her hands, poising it against the inside of her arm for a quick strike. Sophia had nothing but her two fists, but as she had proven once before, it was all she needed. The wind whistled around them as their duel ticked down to the quick-draw. As if on cue, both of them launched at each other at the same time. Tamsin’s knife came up, and so did Sophia’s hand, charged with venomous ki. The weapon cut a shallow line along Sophia’s arm from the wrist all the way up to the elbow, sending a spray of blood splattering across the snowman. Tamsin, however, froze before she could complete the maneuver: Sophia had gone straight for the throat, literally. Her arm had gotten in the way of the intended path of the knife, and her hand gripped tightly on the maid’s neck, pumping a steady flow of poisonous energy directly into her veins. Tamsin’s arms fell uselessly to her sides.

Before Sophia could inject enough, her mind played a trick on her, and she could see Tempo’s dying expression superimposed over Tamsin’s body. She squeezed her eyes shut momentarily, and the image vanished. The priestess immediately halted the flow.

“You lose,” she whispered. “Just walk away. Go back to your master.”

Realizing Tamsin was being given a second chance, the servant girl merely nodded wordlessly.

“And I do not want to have to fight you again,” Sophia continued, feeling the same old well of tears. Trustingly, she released her hands, and Tamsin clutched her wounded throat and stumbled away, off into the tundra on the other side of the stasis field. Sophia looked at the blood-covered snowman, wondering why she’d been allowed to be so happy, only to cruelly have it ripped away from her at exactly the wrong moment.

[DA 2009]

ALEXANDER TRAFFORD VS. KADEN

“Wabbits?” Kaden repeated dazedly.

Alexander nodded. Wasn’t he clear enough the first time? Then again, who could tell? He was riding on cloud nine. As he squeezed the trigger, Kaden flippantly smacked the gun away from the center of his chest, and the energy-augmented round fired uselessly off into the chilly sky. “I dodged it,” Kaden said matter-of-factly.

“Wascally wabbit,” Ace replied in frustration.

Kaden backed away. “I’m sorry,” he shrugged sincerely. It seemed like the polite thing to say. The orange-haired youth was trying so hard, and the courier felt a little bad for him. The least the red-eyed boy could do was make him feel better about himself. Then he thought perhaps a joke would help; it usually worked in any other situation. “Maybe it’s duck season?”

“Wabbit season!” Ace insisted.

“Duck season!” Kaden giggled.

“Wabbit season!”

“Duck season!”

“Wabbit season!”

“Rabbit season,” Kaden baited perfectly.

“Duck season!” Trafford suddenly switched.

“Rabbit season!”

“Duck season! Fire!” Ace put the gun up to his own head, before realizing at the very last second what he was doing, and jerked his cranium away from the trajectory of the bullet and it sailed off without harm. He felt a mixture of amusement and irritation that he’d fallen for the oldest trick in Bugs Bunny’s book.

“Whoa, hey man, I was just trying to lighten the mood. I didn’t mean to do that. Are you okay?” Kaden asked, moving closer to inspect the health of his opponent.

Alex moved to pistol-whip Kaden with a backward swinging motion of his arm, and the courier bent backwards at the midsection to avoid it, decidedly taking a few steps back afterwards.

“Good,” the courier said. “I thought you might have hurt yourself.”

Trafford stared almost drunkenly at his opponent. “I’m great,” he slurred.

“Yeah, you’re doing pretty well,” the blond-haired boy admitted. “If I was actually fighting, it might be a lot more fun. Maybe some other time, though.”

Ace spun the pistol around on his hand, contemplating his next move and taking a few puffs on his cigarette. He then gripped his second pistol and pointed them barrel-up towards the sky. “Check this out,” Alexander said. He released them, but they didn’t fall. Instead, they levitated into the air, encased in a glow of ki. It took some of the personal element out of using his beloved Desert Eagles, except this was a killer idea.

Kaden’s Sight activated, and he could see the technique at work again; some form of influence from Alex was behind the seemingly magical manipulation. He watched with morbid curiosity as the pistols eventually turned on him. The curiosity shattered with resounding realization as the guns began to fire of their own will, sending a peppering wave of bullets his way. He twisted and contorted his body to dodge them, eventually throwing up a barrier to catch the rest in a net of exploding shrapnel. Alex didn’t look the least bit annoyed this time; he rather enjoyed watching Kaden squirm. That is, of course, until the courier fired a bolt of ki his way. Ace was in no physical condition to dodge, and couldn’t react fast enough. The Break hit him dead on, and he could feel the psychokinetic energy within him diffuse, causing his pistols to clatter uselessly into the snow. Kaden kicked the pistols away, trying to obscure them in the snow. As long as his opponent was disarmed and had nothing to hit him with, the courier figured it would be a hell of a lot easier to stay alive in this fight.

Alex simply pulled out a pair of old leather gloves from inside his jacket and slipped them on his fingers. “Welcome to Fight Club!” he announced grandly as he raised his fists into a boxing position.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Kaden advised.

“Well I do! Now come here so I can kick your ass!” Ace ordered.

“I told you, I’m not fighting, and I can’t let you beat me, either,” Kaden replied.

“Then I’m comin’ to you,” Alex said, and he proceeded to stumble over to his opponent.

Kaden shook his head. The boy’s advantage was at long-range combat. What in the world was he thinking? Alex charged up his gloves with energy, and threw a few wide-missing punches. Kaden didn’t bother to raise his arms, as it wasn’t very difficult to dodge. Trafford eventually lost his balance and tumbled into the snow, and the courier waited for him to get up. He was trying so hard.

“Hold still,” Ace commanded. “I must break you!” he added in a thick faux Russian accent.

Their little dance continued, and Kaden repeatedly moved backwards, hard-pressed for ideas. At last, Alex backed off a couple of paces and threw his open palms up to his ears.

“Okay, I surrender,” he said cheerfully.

“Really?” Kaden replied, somewhat incredulous.

“No, not really,” Alex answered honestly. A single desert eagle flew to his palm, and he aimed and fired before the courier had time to dodge. Kaden caught the bullet directly in his shoulder, and his body twisted to the side from the force of the impact. Alex chuckled; all he’d been doing was moving around until he could find his gun. After using the firearm so many times, and imbuing it with his energy, it seemed almost synchronized with his body. At least, that’s what he’d liked to brag about. He’d simply seen it half-buried in the snow. The fresh trail on the otherwise virgin snow was a dead giveaway.

Kaden grunted, a hand moving immediately to the bullet hole to staunch the flow of blood. On pure reaction, he threw up a Flare, knocking Alex back before he had time to detonate the psychokinetic-infused bullet. Trafford was knocked bodily in the opposite direction, and he crumpled in the snow. Kaden hissed in agony as he used his ki to push the slug out of his body so it couldn’t be used a second time. It dropped in a trail of blood onto the white blanket of ice below. Alexander would not be deterred, however, and he got right back up and aimed his gun again.

“Combat protocol complete. Disengaging stasis field,” the collars chirped.

The bullet blasted through the air, directly at Kaden’s chest, just barely missing and whizzing through empty air, as the two were teleported away from the stasis field.