The Sentinel barely had time to get his halberd back to him by the time Vargas leapt: an impossibly-fast blur of pink-violet, toxic eyes and jaws moving so fast they were a blur. He was crashing down toward him, and the Sentinel would be thrown down, violently, and pinned.

He did the only thing that instinct dictated that he do: he slammed the butt of the halberd against the ground, and jerked himself back, aiming the tip up for the Master's lunging bulk. He aimed for the jaw, the throat--not the sides, but the center. He had no time to be precise, before the weight hit him, and he went sprawling down against the rock, the breath knocked from him, the hit dizzyingly hard.

Round: 4/5
Attempt: Impale Vargas on the way down
Defense: --
Injuries: --

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

gore

- THE LEVIATHAN -

He had time, as he came crashing down, to see the glint of the spear-tip--the halberd's long point--raising up to meet him. He did not have time to dodge it.

His heart briefly sank, knowing the damage this could inflict; knowing that he'd made the devastating mistake of underestimating this one not once, but unforgivably, twice in one battle. With a seasoned enemy he'd have known to keep his distance. Not to engage, so long as it still held its weapon. But the gangly youth with its oversized halberd had not seemed skilled enough to truly pose a threat, and now--as he came crashing down, as the metal tore into the underside of his jaw and ripped into his throat--he was lamenting his mistake. His pain threshold was immense, but even so he heard the splatter of hot, acidic blood, and felt the sharp tear of dark steel (was it steel-? Did it matter?) through flesh. His own bulk, his own momentum, had served as the basis of the attack.

Another strength, he had time to think, wryly, and then his blood was trickling into his lungs.

The hole was bright: a toxic chartreuse, glowing as the likewise-glowing blood spattered down and dripped to the floor. There it hissed, on the rock--and on the Sentinel, where it struck--and Vargas coughed and gurgled out a snarl. "I said no serious injury," he protested, but it was halfhearted. He had no real grounds to criticize: he'd said to fight like a real fight, and he would hardly die from this.

A few inches to either side, perhaps.

But not from this.

He'd intended to keep the Sentinel pinned, but he had to see to his throat--and didn't want to kill it with his toxic blood. So after slamming it heavily against the rock, jarring it half-unconscious, he jerked back--aiming to take the halberd with him.

Round: 4/5
Attempt: Take that damn halberd
Defense: --
Injuries: ow, dude, wtf? (bruised elbow, now torn throat)

The hit was incredibly jarring. His skull had cracked against the rock beneath him, not fracturing but sending him into a nauseating spell of dizziness. He might have blacked out, for a moment--it was difficult to tell--and when his vision swam back into focus, the Leviathan was drawing back.

A faint, distance sense of triumph struck him--he'd hit! But it was weak. The blood splattering him was hissing, burning even, and the Master would only be slowed down. And-

-the Sentinel's arm wrenched in his socket as the halberd was jerked free, right as he settled his grip back around it. The sound of claws swiftly scratching over stone, of droplets of blood hitting the rock and then hissing upward, had him struggling back into the fight.

His mind quickly informed him that the Master would be back on him in an instant: a heartbeat leap, once again, and in a real battle he'd be dead. And so he struggled to call upon the magic he'd used only once or twice before: a power from an unknown source, a gift of balance from, it seemed, the very cosmos itself.

Would he--could he--take to the air in time? Could he get sky-borne, and leave Vargas bleeding on the rock? That might be a success, in a true fight: to leave one's enemy to bleed out while one remained neatly out of reach.

As he rolled--somewhat sluggishly--to his feet, ethereal blue wings snapped out to either side. They were wispy, curling, with bright specks of firefly glow slowly circling through the shadows that enveloped him--but the aesthetics did not matter so much as the effect. Those wings were magic, but they worked; the Sentinel was lifted into the air in a sudden, smooth sweep, his pained blinking mattering little beneath the fact that he was suddenly twenty, twenty-five, thirty feet into the air--and rising.

Round: 5/5
Attempt: Get distance in the air
Defense: --
Injuries: Nearly concussed

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas staggered back, one six-thumbed hand raising quickly to the site of the wound to check-

-IS HE FUCKING FLYING?
Six toxic eyes shot upward as the blue wings carried Sentinel abruptly out of range, into the air, leaving the Master flabbergasted on the ground. This was not a magic that he knew; how the hell had Sentinel learned this, and from where?

A glance down at his hand showed that the wound was indeed bleeding, and rather badly; but it was not a fatal strike. No arteries had been severed, and it was an injury that, though painful, could be seen to by himself. Meanwhile-...

He glanced up, and all six eyes narrowed. A rare moment of petulant anger struck him, and he had to force it back--no, he did not want revenge. The child was merely obeying its order: to fight him. Undoubtedly if he commanded it down, and to submit to his anger, it would. But still, he was not quite done with this fight: he still had the halberd in hand.

Vargas made a single concession to safety in that he turned it around, so that when he hurled it in an arcing thrust for the airborne Onyx, it was butt-first and would not, as it had done to him, impale.

But-... The Sentinel had bruised his right elbow from the start, and so Vargas, reluctantly, had to use the left. Though he was near equal in skill, it was only near; the left arm was not quite so practiced as the right.

Still, it seemed to fly true: hurtling for the Sentinel where the winged being hung, watching him, high in the air.

Round: 5/5
Attempt: Hit Sentinel with a thrown halberd
Defense: --
Injuries: torn throat, bruised elbow

His vision had barely cleared enough to recognize that his own black halberd was hurtling toward him. And if his eyesight had not been near-inverted by his integral corruption--if he did not see better in dim light, and worse in the bright--he would not have seen it at all.

His reaction time was slowed by the strike to his head; he reached for it, trying to curl out of the way, but he underestimated the speed and power behind the Master's throw. It cracked into his gut, eliciting a pained "oof" of sorts, and then fell away before he could get ahold of it. A moment later, just as the pain began to bloom along his abdomen, he heard the metallic clatter of it falling to the ground.

To top things off, the magic wings, without his concentration, were faltering--and so he hastily lowered himself down to the rock, chasing the halberd where it had fallen. A wary glance was cast upward now and then, ready for Vargas to attack, though luckily the Leviathan seemed to simply be watching him for now.

- THE LEVIATHAN -

"Enough," Vargas said, sharply, and was displeased at the gurgle in his voice. He stepped back, hand again raising to clasp at the wound torn beneath his jaw. His magic curled up through it, and somehow, its chaotic power seemed almost to laugh at him: he, a Master, half-impaled by his own creation a fraction of his size.

The Leviathan heaved a massive sigh, annoyed at his own mistake, and dropped to his haunches. The worst of the damage was knitting shut, but it was barely a mending at all; he'd need to continue to tend to it, to see that it was properly closed. Meanwhile, he looked up and over the Sentinel.

Needless to say, he approved of its progress. He made a mental note to praise the Orthoclase, next he saw him, on its work: perhaps a lack of praise for solid work had been a part of its miserable moods. As for the Sentinel itself, it was quick, quick-thinking, strong, and uncomplaining. "Come," Vargas said, gesturing for it to approach. "Are you injured?" He wasn't sure how hard he'd struck it, either with his tackle or with the halberd; it was limping a little, hobbling as if its gut were wounded, as it pushed up with its weapon back in hand.

"You are quick. And you react, and plan, quickly. Both of these are strengths, in your favor. And you are skilled with what you have. I cannot teach you the finer points of work with your halberd," he went on; he knew that Chaos-Two had delved into that a little, at least. "Nor with your magic. Speaking of which--where did you learn--what you just did? With those wings?" he asked, bemusedly. Those were not the Creator's magic. That was not of the Chaos which should flow through the Onyx's veins.

Character: The Sentinel Age: +2 (2 Cycles) Magic Level: +3 (Brawler) ROUND 1 Attempt: +14 Penalties: - ROUND 2 Attempt: +19 Penalties: - ROUND 3 Attempt: +17 Penalties: - ROUND 4 Attempt: +16 Penalties: - ROUND 5 Attempt: +17 Penalties: - Total: 88

Character: Vargas Age: +19 (19 Cycles) Magic Level: +5 (Champion) ROUND 1 Attempt: +19 Penalties: - ROUND 2 Attempt: +4 Penalties: - ROUND 3 Attempt: +20 Penalties: - ROUND 4 Attempt: +16 Penalties: - ROUND 5 Attempt: +13 Penalties: - Total: 96

WINNER: Vargas

There was pain in his gut, and at the front of his pelvis, where the half of the halberd had struck him. It was bruising--he could feel that--and even past his detachment it was hard not to cry out as he limped forward. When he had let go the tense fighting stance on command, he'd felt it like a flood kicking in, and now, standing before Vargas, it ached.

Vargas asked if he were injured, and he took a moment to assess. "It... hurts," he answered, tone matter-of-fact and empty of emotion, though tight with pain. He did not know more than this. Had he been truly damaged, or was it only superficial? He didn't know; he knew only that it hurt. And so that was his answer.

A soft hiss of pain escaped him as he lifted too-many blue eyes to peer into Vargas's too-many. The comments on his skills, he noted down; he did not thank Vargas because he did not think them compliments. They were remarks. Observations. Factual. And so he noted them in turn but said nothing about them.

The question, though, that was--something.

He hesitated. It had come to him--as did so many errant thoughts and concepts--as he stood silent in the Aperture. He had been thinking of the balance of things--of a necessary cycle of life and death, destruction and birth, and all those other teetering things that required even weight upon both sides so as not to topple. And he had, in delving into this concept with magic, somehow found that gravity--up and down--life--these were things, too, that could be balanced. He thought he'd sensed another presence, but...

"I... do not know," he began, unsteadily, still half-hunched over with pain. "I was... standing. Thinking. A voice--no, a presence--came, but I do not know... when they are real. There are always voices. Whispers." Black claws gestured gently outward, the hound turning to indicate the wisping smoke ever-shrouding him.

Chaos, it was; and so were its ever-present voices. "I do not know if that is where it came from."

- THE LEVIATHAN -

Vargas eyed the limp, heard the uncertain declaration of pain, and hoped that he hadn't genuinely harmed the child. Granted, it had torn a damn hole through his jaw and throat-... speaking of which: "Incidentally, impaling someone's throat can be fatal. Avoid that during spars." He might have punished it but it... did look injured. Foolish, he thought, for both of them: to lose something so useful, so early, would be... bad. And for he, the Master upon whom half this cave's survival might rely, to allow himself to die in a spar-? Pure idiocy.

As for the magic--how strange. He'd never heard of anything like that, and found himself studying the Sentinel with as close as his face could come to a frown. It had simply... learned a new magic, just like that-? Something he, Vargas, had never seen before? Something unaligned to any of the elements that he knew of, and untouched by corruption?

It was baffling.

But back to the topic at hand.

"Our next generation will emerge in, if I am accurate, a few weeks' time. I intend to give Chaos-Two time to hatch and recover, so that it might raise them. In this space of time I do not need you so much--not while there are no young to protect. And I require you fully-trained. You have made an impressive start, but there are a few things I will teach you. And then, I think, I will send you to explore the caves. I think you can defend yourself," he observed, "but do not take foolish risks. You will be tasked with learning what you can: learning about the Gembound and their habits, learning of magic, learning most of all about fighting styles. Learn of the desires and goals of those within the caves, so that you may be prepared to defend against them if need be. Understood?" he pressed.

He was already thinking of what, precisely, to teach it. Defensive stances, perhaps. A better grip on the halberd--though in part that would only come when the Onyx had grown into the damn thing. How, perhaps, to deal with smaller enemies. Vargas was hardly a difficult target to hit.

Vargas briefly rubbed his elbow, and eyed the Sentinel over. "You may take such travel once you are recovered from our spar, and not before. Simply alert me before you depart. Now: are you ready to learn what I have to teach you?" he asked.

That was it, then: a note not to stab others in the throat during a spar, and instructions for the future. The next hour or two he would spend gently adjusting the Onyx's stance, teaching it stillness, stealth. How to use its shadows to hide itself, and how to use trickery to call out a victim, should it be necessary. How to deal with smaller opponents. How to keep secrets, and to unravel them from others--important, for the Forge. How to hunt for himself, and how he should not trust the words of others at their face value.

He found that, for all the creature's prowess, it was singularly naive: it seemed to have trouble grasping the concept of a "lie." But it would learn--it would need to, if it were to survive.

To learn this, and all the rest.

exit

He listened, struggling to focus past the pain. A faint, childish sense of protest rose up at the idea that he had done wrong, but it was quickly smothered by obedience, by necessity, and he took a note. Throat is deadly. The Overseer had told him--but he had not aimed for the dangerous parts of the throat. ...Granted, he could've easily missed--had it been the whispers urging him to try it anyway?

He could not remember. He offered, instead, a simple "I understand" in that quiet voice, and then fell silent to listen further.

Wandering, questioning, exploring: and he took note, carefully and in an ordered mental list, of his tasks.

And then it was time to further train. Past the pain, then--and it was bad, but he felt, now, that it would at least not kill him.

"I understand," he repeated, to the Leviathan's first question; and in the same rasping near-whisper, "I am ready," to the second.

exit