VFX:R FINAL - Penny Adams VS Jerald

Discussion in 'Roleplaying Forum' started by Wolfsbane, Oct 5, 2010.

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  1. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

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    People of the universe! I say: AAARE YOUUU READYYY?

    Howdy, brothers and sisters, and welcome to the second grand finale of the Violence Fights of eXtreme! We have one hell of a show for you tonight, folks, and this time we'll upset more than the balance of good and evil! This fight will bring about the apocalypse itself, by my recon!


    Tell you what, rev, I think you just might be right about that! We're looking at all out universal destruction here, people, and there's nothing we or you can do to stop it once we get it rolling!

    Then maybe we shouldn't?

    What?
    What?

    Maybe we shouldn't. Why bring about the apocalypse? We will all die!

    ...
    ...

    It's the end of the world!

    Yes, but the show...
    It'll be magnificent!

    ...

    ENOUGH with this sillyness!
    Let's get on with it, rev!

    Amen, brother! And now, introductions! First out we have our rollerskating lunatic, the girl that makes superheroes everywhere quake in their little latex boots! I give youuu: Penny Adams! And next: the untouchable, invisible, uncatchable buster of ghostbusters! I give youu: Jerald!

    The arena, then! Are you prepared? Here it comes:
    The Colosseum!

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Which place could be more fitting for the grand finale of our gladitorial show than the very home of gladiators itself, I ask you, and the answer is none! The colosseum, built by the Romans nearly 100 years after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, has seen more entertainment in the form of bloodshed than pretty much any other place on earth. Gladitorial fights incuding duels, team battles, historical reenactments, executions and much, much more, this place has had everything BUT our little tournament, and it’s time to show those Romans what violence really is all about!

    Now, seeing that we figured we needed a little crowd for tonights drama, and the fact that the colosseum can take in 50.000 people, we went ahead and told every citizen of Rome worth telling that something beautiful would happen there tonight. So… the arena might be a bit crowded. Heh!

    So, time for the moment we’ve all been waiting for! It’s time, once again, to prove to us lesser mortals who the most badass fighter in the universe really is! I hope you’ve prepared, fighters, ‘cause there’s no turning back once I’ve said the magic words! Which words might those be, you wonder? How about these:

    LET! THERE! BE! BLOOD! BEGIN!


    (The fight is over in three weeks. Let’s give one hell of a show.)
     
  2. The_Bob

    The_Bob Administrator Staff Member

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    The cameras panned above the crowd in the Colosseum for several minutes, the buzz of voices revealing a note of anticipation. There were numerous stalls and carts deployed, the kinds that sold either food, mementos or first aid supplies and trauma packs, the last sort usually misunderstood by the guests.

    "And we've lost him again, that ghost. Tell me Musashi, why couldn't we send the ghost-cam there to find him right away ?"

    "We deployed it early, but the place was crawling with ghosts of dead gladiators and..."

    "You mean its haunted ?"

    "...And other warriors that perished during the countless fights that took place in the Colosseum. We had to send it back to have it tuned to pick up Jerald in particular."

    The camera zoomed out to show the whole structure form above, several VFX billboards setup around it, the sky above dotted with camera pods, little balls scattering to avoid a helicopter flying by.

    "You're right, it says here that the Colosseum was a cemetery at some point..."

    Musashi cut him off as the picture turned dark, the muffled sounds from the arena fading back in as a cargo hatch opened in the helicopter. The picture was sent from one of many camera-pods in the helicopter seen earlier, ghost-cams activating their camouflage and flying out into the open, looking for the ghost.

    "And we're ready to begin, sorry for the delay folks."

    The picture showed a swarm of translucent figures plowing through the unsuspecting crowd, ghosts of bodies in different stages of decomposition and undress, grayed out by the processing software. The cameras swarmed the Colosseum from all directions, switching between their views, eventually arriving at one that had the ghost-cam logo lit up in the lower-right corner, and a red glob highlighted on the screen, coming closer... And was clipped by another camera, filling the screen with digital noise and green background.

    Upon regaining focus, the image showed an average man, a bit on the chubby side, sitting on his ass and shoving the last bit of a hot-dog down his throat. He had sauce on his goatee, stains on tshirt and shorts, and was licking his fingers as the camera backed up a bit, revealing that he was sitting on a service catwalk beneath a huge screen, above the Colosseum, showing sequences from the previous VFX series.

    He sighed, lifted his heavy ass from the metal grid and walked toward the center of the screen, huge colored dots flickering around his head as Draxius gibbed a bunch of soldiers in the short recap. The guy snorted and reached behind the screen, pulling loose something heavy, a backpack. He sat down with it and pulled out a piece of cloth, weighted it down with a 20 round magazine, a combat knife and two grenades, setting one upright. He laid out rifle parts on the cloth, assembled them, loaded the mag and chambered a round.

    Looking perfectly relaxed, legs hanging down from the catwalk, he shouldered the gun and started looking for his opponent. The view blurred a bit, and a blueish outline appeared around the gunman, slowly gaining focus, something humanoid wrapped around the guy, thin and translucent, like smoke suspended in perfectly still air. One of the more distinct features of the ghost was his right arm, sticking out of the man's elbow, grasping the hand, the trigger finger perfectly aligned with the ghost one.
     
  3. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

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    And you're certain it will work?
    Yep. But be careful with it, will you? The machine's worth a fortune.
    Don't worry about it! When was the last time I broke any of your stuff?
    Well, actually-
    Ooh, we're on! Sorry, Doctor D, gotta go!
    But Penny, I haven't told you abou-
    *click*

    Penny Adams was sitting on the huge screen above the colosseum, currently looking down into the crowd below, trying to find her opponent. She knew she wouldn't be able to see him with her naked eye, but she also knew he needed human bodies to fight, so he had to be down there somewhere.

    After only a little while, she swallowed her pride and activated the gadget she'd got from Doctor D. The glasses in front of her eyes started emitting a faint humming sound, and an orange tune filled her field of vision. Suddenly, she could see them; hundreds, thousands of ghosts moving about the arena, sometimes mocking the humans they passed but most of the time just walking around aimlessly with a sad expression on their dead faces. Then, she saw him. He was right beneath her, currently in possession of an overweight man equipped with a big ass rifle.

    Sneaky bastard... she said. And then, just as the cameras caught up with her, she dived for her opponent, bat raised high in a two-handed swing.

    HAI-YAAAAARGH!
     
  4. The_Bob

    The_Bob Administrator Staff Member

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    HAI-YAAAAARGH!

    The fatty looked up and tried to dodge, but his heavy ass anchored him to the ground. He managed to rise his left hand to slow the blow, and regretted that as it fell off. The bat went smoothly through the fatty limb and shot sparks off the catwalk. He let go of the gun, letting it fall to the crowd below, and fumbled toward the grenades. He pulled one of the pins and went limp.

    Jerald had left the body, instantly darting straight down and rushing past the falling gun, his phantom figure missing a part of its left arm. Ghosts within the arena recoiled as he approached the ground level, his shape hitting one of the unsuspecting tourists below. The short man with a pronounced unibrow stumbled backward, suddenly looking up, and corrected his position a bit to the side. Jerald instantly jumped to the person right behind the shorty, as the falling rifle started to draw a shadowy outline above the unibrow.

    The tall, unusually pale man was the only person around who wasn't surprised by the sudden explosion of brain matter. Disregarding the splatter on his new VFX t-shirt, he reached for the gun, which was embedded in the man in front of him. The short guy was still standing for some reason, but lost his balance as Jerald tugged and twisted the gun to dislodge it from his skull.

    The scope was cracked and the stock fell off, but it seemed the rifle was fine otherwise. Since his left arm was now limp and useless, he tried shooting the powerful gun one handed, gangsta-style, aiming it at the big screen and hoping to hit something.
     
  5. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

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    The bastard left the body as soon as she'd hit him, but he would have nothing for it; she could see him now, even in ghost-form. She threw herself after the spirit, bat still raised high, but failed to mention the little surprise Jerald had left behind. The grenade exploded, causing the huge screen to go up in an even bigger fireball. The shockwave hit Penny in the back like a hammer and sent her crashing into the crowd like a meteor, squashing a few of the now panicking members of the crowd.

    Ouch! That must've hurt!

    Maybe so, rev, but she got lucky; Jerald would probably have blown her brains out if the blast hadn't sped her up like that. I remember back in Nam when we used to para-dive into them jungles, without shoots, trying to hit charlie down below. This kinda reminded me of that, you know.

    Oh, I... Wait a minute... Let me get this straight; you dived straight into the jungle from airplanes, trying to land on an enemy you didn't even know was there? Was that a real strategy?

    Well, when you put it like that the plan may not sound too healthy, but we did get us a couple of charlies!

    ...

    As reality tuned gradually back into view in front of Penny, something completely different was about to happen in another, less bright place nearby. All of the screens suddenly got highjacked by an unknown frequency, showing a semi-visible man standing in a badly lit room. Even though no discernable features could be distinguished, the man was oddly familliar; there was the red bandana, the fat cigar, and a curious whip in his hand. Also, the clothing was... odd. Like stolen from a Mad Max movie. The man spoke.

    You call this a gladiator fight, and you host it in the holiest of places to gladiators everywhere. But your fighters aren't gladiators, and this isn't a real fight. It's a fucking TV-gimmick and it sickens me. All I see is a schoolgirl in silly boots and some sort of cowardly boogeyman trying to win some fame for themselves on the tellie. Well, I won't have it. So, I'm going to turn it into a real fight by introducing some real fighters. Namely these. the last bit was said to a grin, and as it was spoken two very large human-esque figures stepped into the light, probably causing children to pee their pants worldwide. My boys here'll live this show up a bit. Enjoy, you slackjawed scamps.

    Suddenly, the ground in the center of the colosseum erupted in a big explosion, and out of the following smoke came the two freaks of nature seen previously on the TV-screens. From inside the smoke, someone fired a shotgun and screamed, at the top of his lungs, GET AT 'EM! FUCKIN' KILL 'EM ALL!

    Penny moaned. This was not her day.
     
  6. The_Bob

    The_Bob Administrator Staff Member

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    The rifle bounced softly off the arena floor, its chamber open and still smoking.

    "Well what do you know..."

    Said the tall man, smiling at one of the fleshy behemoths. And was crushed by what was left of the huge screen that recently stood just above him.

    Jerald rushed between fleeing people, slaloming between and jumping over them, his feet never touching the ground. The audience around him was being crushed by falling debris and various objects hurled by the monsters. Finally he possessed a tiny asian woman, a scared 30-something with already soiled pants, directly in front of an abomination with a meat hook for one hand. Her gaze stabilized, pupils widening, and she started walking toward the thing. There was a blueish outline of a monster sitting on her shoulders, like a giant gargoyle three times her size, one hand on her head, the rest of his shape fuzzy like a dense tint in clear water.

    The freak hooked her neck and pulled her closer, her feet skidding across the ground then leaving it altogether as he lifted her up to his eye level, gently enough not to break her neck. She forced a wide, twitchy smile on her face, a tiny stream of blood on the white teeth, and her eyes flipped backward.

    The slaver watched as his minion raised the other hand to tear his little victim in half. His jaw dropped as the woman exploded in a bright fireball, scorching the freak. The monster stumbled and fell on its ass, the sound more like a car crash. For the first time the freak made a sound, and it was a scream of horror, muffled by the swollen throat. The ghostly figure reappeared several times around the creature, evidently in pain, trying to escape.

    "Not what you expected, huh?" Said the slaver, looking through some gutted night vision goggles with a weird box wired to the side.
    "What... Is... This...?" Managed the possessed freak, convulsing on its back, smoke rising from its skin as occult symbols began to appear, partially covered by the patchwork of armor.
    "I see you like the ink job..."
    The freak was choking on its own spit now, symbols flickering like christmas lights. Metzger walked slowly toward the monster, pulling a cloth-wrapped package from beneath the armor.
    "Good, it cost me a lotta caps, and I sure as hell hate this occult bullshit."
    He unwound a long wavy blade, inscribed with faded symbols. "This better be worth the caps too," he said raising the knife to stab the monster, then swung it back, slicing through a ghost of an ancient gladiator. The figure stopped and dissolved out of sight, just like that. Metzger grinned and chewed at his cigar. He raised the blade again. "Goodbye." He stabbed downward. Jerald was frantically trying to escape, this body, his prison, about to die without any help. The blade missed. Metzger, confused, swung again, hitting the ground, failed to pull the knife loose, and was hit in the face with the ornate pommel as the blade jumped out of his hands.

    He looked in what looked like disgust as the knife hovered in front of him. Ancient ghosts swarmed toward the knife, which was held by a renewed version of what the slaver had recently hit. Jerald ceased his struggle and the behemoth gasped. The ghost with the dagger moved its mouth.

    "He says he hates slavers...," said the steaming monster between gasps and Metzger fumbled for the goggles. "He also says he's about to fuck you up real bad." The ghosts swarmed around the knife, seeming to be regenerated in its vicinity. Metzger opted to "Fuck this...!" And blasted the knife with buckshot, exploding it into a million pieces.

    Jerald jumped out of the giant's chest, as far as the magic allowed him, and grabbed one of the gladiators' ghosts, pulled it back in with him. The abomination puked blood and exploded, giving birth to a huge gladiator, dressed only in entrails and steaming blood.

    "This is exactly why I hate this occult bullshit...," said Metzger as the reanimated champion stood up, grinning. Behind him, ghosts started to materialize around the shards of the occult knife, these equipped with ancient weapons and armor. All of them immediately running to pursue the slaver, who ran toward the other monster.

    The champion, armed with the meat hook, ignored the pursuit and looked for the bat-girl instead.
     
  7. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

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    Meanwhile, Penny had gotten up on her feet and was currently gathering speed. This was not an easy task, however, seeing that the arena she tried to speed up in was thronged with running and screaming civilians. Her solution to this, however blunt, was to smack the ones who came in her way on top of their head with the bat, carving a highway of blood through the masses. And as the deathtoll rose, her speed increased, and when she finally reached the point where she started to look like some morbid imitation of a man swatting flies in an early charlie chaplin movies, moving her bat arm up and down in a blur, she set her course straight for the hook-wielding beast possessed by Jerald.

    Jerald might or might not have seen her coming, but the hulk he currently controlled was too slow and with a WACK! the hand holding the hook was taken clean off by the indestructible baseball bat. Penny, still going like a rocket, adjusted her course and came in for a second swing, this time SMACK!ing the beasts kneecap away from the arena in what would've been called the homerun of the ages if she'd been a professional hitter. She turned once more, despite the loss of speed, this time going for the kill. She came up from behind the creature, bat raised ever so high, and would've crushed his head with a CRACK! , if he hadn't already raised his own massive hand and caught hers in his. A headbut soon followed, sending the already surprised Batgirl into a much more blurred out, strange world. There was this distant feeling of danger and pain, but when the second headbut struck, pretty much everything went black.

    The beast controlled by Jerald smiled his opponents forehead was colored red by blood, and let the limp body of Penny Adams fall to the arena floor. She was going to die now, this was it, and he was going to kill her with her own precious bat. He reached for it, intruiged by the fact that she'd managed to hold on to it even though he had headbutted her consciousness from her body. As he grabbed the bat and tried to take it from her, he met a strange resistance. Her hand wouldn't let go. He tried time and time again to jerk the invaluable weapon from her grasp, but the silly little girl wouldn't even give him an inch. And all the while, she was whispering something in a steadily growing voice.

    Just as Jerald thought he was was gaining on the unconscious girl, he was winning, she raised her head from the ground, face darkened by rage, screaming I SAID NO! at the top of her voice. In a swift movement, she'd produced something looking like a beam-gun from a cartoon from one of her pockets, firing at the elementalist. Pain rippled through Jeralds etheral body, intense pain, and a strange sensation of getting erased. Penny rose slowly to her feet in front of the paralyzed hulk.

    You like that? she said, panting heavily, This is one of Doctor Ds little gadgets. Wanna know what it does?

    She paused briefly to spit some blood and a tooth out of her mouth.

    It erases spirits. Spirits like you.

    She raised the gun once more, but the execution was cut short by the insane howl of a gladiator behind the Batgirl.

    GROOHAUGA!

    Penny turned just in time to parry the warriors gladius with her bat, breaking the sword in two. But the gladiator still had the momentum and grabbed Penny by the head, tossing her away from her fight with Jerald into a pile of crazed gladiators and panicked spectators. If one listened carefully, one could hear her scream through the otherwise deafening roar of the arena.

    FUCK!

    ...

    Well that was a quick turn of events, I... Wow. Just Wow.

    Amen, brother.
     
  8. The_Bob

    The_Bob Administrator Staff Member

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    The feeling in his left arm returning just in time, he just got whacked with one of those ghost-away beams. Meh. He'd been through this, vorpal blades, sacrificial knives, chants, scrolls, pendants, up to the modern solutions for catching or dispersing ghosts. None of that seemed to work on him, entirely at least. Most of the time he was more annoyed then hurt by these things, even if they managed to keep him in check.

    Still... There always was the risk that one of these times, it would get bad enough. Like now. Somehow, the ray didn't just blow a hole clean through his essence, it started eroding it, forming cracks, parts of the shape falling off and dissipating into blueish smoke.

    The huge gladiator dropped on his good knee. He gasped as his skin started to fade, wrinkle. He fell to his face as a tall, skinny old man, small pool of blood encircling him as he drew his last breath. Jerald's phantom figure soared over the arena, renewed by the life he stole from the body. There still was something odd about the chunk missing from Jerald's gut.

    Hovering above the crowd in his vaguely human form, he flew over one of the ancient ghosts, dived to catch it.

    His arms stretched instantly, jagged bird-like claws where his hands were just a moment ago, the trapped ghost sparking on fire as Jerald drew nearer. It froze in the terrified, pained expression, settling into a translucent crystalline statue that frightened a fleeing tourist who dropped on his ass just in front of the horror. The poor guy plowed the arena floor with his ass, kicking frantically at the dirt, as Jerald appeared in front of him, more clawed arms sprouting from his torso, ripping out parts of the crystal. He shoved the chunks in and around the wound, closing and healing it.

    The ghost wasn't completely frozen, shaking, trying to escape. Cracks appeared wherever Jerald removed a chunk of the status, clearly hurting him. Rather then falling to the ground, the loose shards hovered restlessly near where they separated.

    The tourist froze in terror before Jerald was finished, remaining conveniently close. Replenished, Jerald turned to the frightened man.

    Looking slightly changed, he stood up, wiping dirt off his white shorts, and stepped closer to the shattered statue, his reflection distorted in the hovering crystals. The shards clustered together as his arm drew closer, forming a tightly packed sphere above the open palm. Two other ghosts were sucked into the sphere, as if drawn by gravity, catching fire before becoming squeezed into a spiral and disappearing in the glowing center. Small pieces of crystal orbited it, slowly burning out with blinding magnesium-like flames, appearing as black dots on some cameras. The smooth, liquid surface of the sphere reflected the grin on the bruised face.

    He turned to face the crowd surrounding the batgirl, some helmeted head popped over the rows of gladiators, following a loud metallic clank. The girl seemed to be doing fine, keeping the gladiators at bay, but unable to escape from the ring. Blood and bone parts erupted over the clearing where she stood, batting away at the undead gladiators.

    The possessed tourist raised his hand above the head, the energy sphere following, shouted something obscene and turned it into giant fireball. The energy blew the meat off his hand, melting his face before it got far enough. He stood there, watching with his one remaining eye as it approached the crowd, melting the arena floor along its path into a lake of boiling glass, turning the outer ring of swarming gladiators into ash. And imploded into one tiny point, before reaching the center.

    The sky above the Colosseum turned plain white, the outlines of the ancient structure marked by dark shadows, like an oversaturated black and white photo. The white faded, revealing tiny human figures over the Colosseum, most falling back into the bowl, the rest splattering over the pavement outside. Some camera pods fell straight down to the ground like dead insects. A few rocks fell of the top of the structure, along with one clumsy tourist, blown away by a surprisingly weak shockwave.

    Metzger looked from behind his bodyguard, disgusted as always and spat on the ground. Bodies started falling back down, most of them undead gladiators, rolling down the building, bouncing off the ground like ragdolls. There was a perfectly round crater of melted ground at the end of the glassy path, no more then ten feet in diameter, a sharp outline burnt around it, marking the small area of effect. At the other end of the molten path, stood a badly burnt man, laughing.

    edit: rephrased some of the parts that made no sense at all.
     
  9. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

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    Pain.

    Indescribable pain.

    Then dread.

    And anger.

    Penny opened her eyes, and dared a quick glance at to her left. She instantly wished she hadn't. She quickly turned her head away from the charred lump that had once been her left arm, and started to scream in shock and agony. She had lost her arm. Lost her entire, goddamn ARM. It was gone, disintegrated, taken clean off by whatever it was that the ghost had thrown at her. One could argue she'd been lucky, considering what could have happened. It was only an arm, her left arm, and she was a rightie.

    Only an arm? Fucking hell...

    With great effort, she shoved the two gladiator corpses on top of her aside and then tried to get up, only to fall over screaming as another jolt of pain surged through her body. Having recovered a few moments later, she tried once more. This time she got up on her feet, shaking slightly, and picked up her bat from the ground. Luckily for her, adamantium was almost impossible to get hot, and the sensation of cool metal against her skin was a welcome break from the otherwise mindnumbing pain she felt at the moment. She looked around her for the ghost-away gun, but couldn't find it. It could have been destroyed in the blast. Then again, it could be hidden somewhere beneath all the rubble that covered the arena floor. She didn't have enough time to look for it anyway.

    Shit.

    She fixed her gaze on the man who stood, laughing, on the other side of the crater. That bastard. That fucking bastard. She'd show him. She'd fucking SHOW him! Batgirl, she whispered as she pulled out an old paper bag with two round holes in it from a pocket, I need you now. She then put the paper bag on her head. All around the world, superheroes groaned in their seats as memories of serious head and groin trauma returned to them in a fashion that would've made Pavlov proud.

    Without another word, Penny set off straight towards her opponent. She jumped as she came to the edge of the crater, looking somewhat wobbly, but then something happened. As she landed on the slope, she thrust her heels into the ground as hard as she could, and when she did, the rollerskates on her feet emitted a strange rumbling sound. The next moment, two bright jet beams shot out from behind the batgirls feet, rocketing her towards her opponent in an almost ridiculously high speed.

    An eye for an EYE, motherfucker! she screamed as she brought the bat down on her opponent in berserker rage.
     
  10. The_Bob

    The_Bob Administrator Staff Member

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    Jerald laughed, ignoring Penny until she started to approach him. He mocked her with an amused, intrigued look, slowly raising his remaining arm toward her, sparks igniting in the air, converging to create a fireball. But then something unexpected happened. She blurred out, covered the distance in an instant, knocking his hand off at the shoulder. Before he could react, more crushing blows rained on his charred body, batgirl making tight arcs around him, passing him, each time knocking flesh off bone, crushing the bones and making a bloody pulp of whatever guts lay beneath those bones. Jerald tried to escape, but the body was too mangled to exit cleanly, too much damage has slipped through. The upper part of the gargoyle thing broke off just before penny landed the finishing blow to the gut, popping it open and spilling dark bloody innards in a wide arc.

    What escaped was a head attached to a torn upper torso, the blue mass distorted, evaporating at the edges and where the fireball burned his face. He hovered above the arena, looking for a new host. Most people were dead or heavily shellshocked after the explosion, throwing up blood and fighting to catch breath. He tried to catch one of the survivors, but before he even got close, his head got exploded by a speeding baseball bad, batgirl zooming past. He tried to posses one of the gladiator zombies, but the bat flew right through the spirit and embedded itself in the zombie's chest, penny storming through, dislodging the bat and destroying the rest of the small group.

    "This sure is interesting, she may have lost an arm, but it seems the batgirl is in the lead."
    "More then you know reverend, with a wound burnt shut like this one, she's loosing less blood then Jerald is...of that... magic smoke of his."
    "The what ?"
    "He seems to be made out of some kinda superfine, invisible dust. He can control it to move around and it can easily go through most human tissues, which is how he controls people."
    "Like sock puppets ?"

    Jerald went up to look for potential hosts, suspended for a moment over the landscape of blue lights of swarming police and fire brigades, stopped at the VFX roadblocks all around the arena. Camera pods converged on him as he dived straight down toward a hot dog stand at the rim of the Colosseum, aiming for the sausage peddler who was cowering by the cart.

    "It's more complicated then that."
    "So what was that about Jerald losing this stuff ?"

    Penny ran up the structure, taking long leaps on the rocket skates "Noooo...Youuuu...Don't...!" and in a splash of sausages and mustard, she bashed the poor guy's head in at the very last moment. Jerald went straight through the floor and flew out onto the arena an instant later.

    "It... Uh... Says here that he can regenerate that stuff by consuming souls, but can't recompose himself quickly outside a host. So he is leaking out right now, and has to possess someone quickly or he will fall apart completely."
    "But isn't he supposed to be a ghost? A soul without a body ? How did he just do that ?"

    Jerald swept through the bodies of undead gladiators, stretching, encompassing a large pile of them, over where Metzger's minion sliced them up in bulk. The bodies started contorting in odd shapes, their weapons slipping out of their hands and starting to spiral around the heap. Penny rushed down, singing the bat around, hitting random zombies on the head.

    "It seems this stuff is his body after what he did to himself in that fairy tale land of his. Somehow it can go through walls."
    "But It doesn't make sense!"

    The bodies started to rise as well, Jerald now stretched to a thin cloud encompassing the bloody sight show, the massacred corpses dangling around him like suspended by meat hooks.

    "Hold on there missy!"

    Penny had to duck to evade a shotgun blast, managed to skid around Metzger who stepped out of nowhere, and bumped into the huge tribal monstrosity, the steak-knife fingers of its right hand locking tightly around her bat. There was a flurry of sparks when she pulled it loose, but was held up in the fight that ensued.

    The bodies started to crush together, spinning around the axis set by Jerald's head, white bones wrapping around each other, braking off to connect to the other bodies, freshly coagulated blood dropping to the ground below the forming monstrosity. And then the weapons embedded themselves in the golem, swords, tridents, flails and maces, tattered webs wrapping around joints to reinforce them, pieces of ancient armor forming a patchwork of protection covering weak spots. It had six arms and two fleshy legs that didn't look even remotely human, strips of muscle torn off and rearranged in a grotesque pattern. And no visible head, only five pairs of eyes placed randomly in the torso, and a single eye on the back, framed in a bloodied skull that seemed to have been cut cleanly in half and skinned. Weapons protruded from the end of each arm, daggers and parts of broken blades spiking the shoulders and knees.

    "Ah, I seem to have missed that one."
    "That he can create a body if he wants to ?"
    "It is supposed to wear him out..."

    The creature lumbered toward Penny, Metzger and the tribal minion, about to interrupt their little dance.
     
  11. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

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    Goddamn sonnova... Who the f-, WHAT the fuck are you anyway?

    Penny jumped around the creature, dodging shotgun blasts and swings coming from her two new, unexpected opponents. She knew very well they both had to die before long if she was ever going to kill the elementalist, but she never got a chance to get close enough for a swing. The slaver didn't reply, just kept on shooting, an irritated expression on his face. Just as Penny thought she was going to get hit by the increasingly frequent shots, Metzgers rifle clicked empty, and before his monstrosity got the chance to react she'd taken it's head off with a powerful swing. A moment later, she went for Metzger who managed to parry with his rifle at the very last moment. The bat went straight through, but only came close enough to break off the fat cigar in Metzgers mouth. With the slaver momentarily paralyzed from shock, Penny raised her bat for the finishing blow but was interrupted at the final moment by an enormous arm, coming seemingly out of nowhere, which landed a hit on her which sent her flying into the arena wall a few metres away. Metzger took the opportunity to "Fuck this" and ran for his life as the monster adjusted its course and went for Penny.

    Penny got up on her knees, located her bat and crawled the best she could towards it. She was bleeding from several small wounds all over the left side of her body, and as she stopped to pick up the bat she coughed up blood all over it. Stubbornly, she reached out for it anyway. Just as she gripped it, the grotesque behemoth picked her up and tossed her away several additional metres, causing something inside her to break, snapping audibly. A scream soon followed. Shaking and panting heavily, she started crawling away from Jerald, desperately looking for something that could save her, leaving a trail of blood behind. As he got closer, and Penny got more and more certain that she was going to die, she found something lying on the ground. It was a strange tube of sorts, with a big needle on it. Inside, there was a red liquid. Penny had never been a gamer, but she had played some games. Games like Fallout. Mostly because Doctor D liked to play and discuss them, obviously, since she wanted to stay on his good side, but she had liked some things in them and remembered those things.

    Stimpacks, for example. She'd always wanted to have real Stimpacks that would, when used, restore your health no matter how you were wounded. And, focusing on the item in her hand, she instantly recognized it as such. The slaver must’ve dropped it. With Jerald soon being within reach of her, she jammed the needle into her thigh and let the red liquid fill her veins.

    She shook uncontrollably for a moment as the Stimpack did its job, but was soon on her feet. She wasn’t fully healed, far from, but she was strong enough to stand and, hopefully, swing the bat. As Jerald came closer still, she tightened the grip around her weapon and set off towards him at a slow pace, almost walking rather that rolling. As soon as she got within reach, the monstrosity started swinging at her, its eight arms looking like a meat grinder from hell. Penny dodged to and fro, trying to get through Jeralds defence, but it seemed hopeless. She wasn’t fast enough, and her one, tired arm couldn’t really compete with Jeralds furious eight. So, instead of dodging, she began to “parry” his blows by swinging wildly with the bat, taking chunks out of the arms but never managing to sever them completely. She began to once again pant heavily as the melee continued, and soon her swings couldn’t keep up with Jeralds and she was struck by a powerful uppercut. She hit the ground a few metres away and almost didn’t stand up. Her jaw was broken now, too, and she could barely see because of the blood. She’d dropped her bat. The rocket-rollerblades were out of juice, and she was exhausted. There was the pain also, of course, and the loss of blood.

    Just as she thought of giving up, her head rolling over to the side, she saw something on the ground just a little bit away. It was the ghost-away gun, intact, lying beneath some rubble but still clearly visible from where she lay. Gathering the last of her stamina and will, she managed to crawl and roll over to it, gripping it tight and pointing it towards Jerald.

    Just fucking DIE already! she whimpered and opened fire.
     
  12. The_Bob

    The_Bob Administrator Staff Member

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    The lumbering behemoth impression... It did the trick, most of the time, or maybe even every time until now. Others feared it, were needlessly careful, tried to run while he had the much needed time to get himself together. But how the hell was this supposed to work if the other party insisted on working him over with a baseball bat ?

    Parts of the behemoth fell off as Jerald took the last steps toward his prey, bloody chunks of meat ripping out long strands that held them in place. He considered crushing her with his arms, but felt they would fall off if he tried to move them. He tried to make another step, tendons tearing in the clumsy limb, muscles coming loose, just a few steps short. But... that was just a moment ago! Jerald tried to pull his mind together, back to the present.

    He was... melting! The third shot blasted the last remaining pair of eyes, located where the left collarbone should be. The left arms turned into bloody pulp and started oozing down to the ground. The camera panned back up, showing three big holes in the monster, the batgirl on the other side of the bloody tunnel, struggling to rise the gun for one more shot.

    "Yeah, take that..."-caugh-"Take it all and die already!" She spit blood and shot the beast for the fourth time, another gaping hole opening in the golem.

    The beast opened up and puked blood, a mouth appearing in the center of the chest, throwing up chunks of bone. It was time for Jerald to think fast, but couldn't think at all. His mind was coming apart along with the body he constructed. The legs started to crunch, tiny fountains of blood appearing where the overloaded muscles broke. The meaty behemoth started to collapse like a controlled demolition, bloody mist surrounding the trunks of its legs.

    With what little consciousness he had, Jerald managed to tip the monster over, broken bones popping out all over its legs and back. A part of it fell on Penny's legs, not really pinning her to the ground, but still getting some screams out of her. The mass seemed to boil on the ground, heavy bubbles popping all over the monster, throwing puss and blood all around.

    "Looks like the ghost in a really tight spot right now !"
    "Judging by how weak the golem was, must've been spread pretty thin. It is possible ha can't even leave the body now."
    "That bloody mess looks quite dead to me. Do we have a winner ?"
    "No, not yet... look!"

    A centipede-like creature slithered from beneath the disgusting mass, crawling up penny's leg. It seemed to be made of warped intestines, its legs made of random bones and mangled human fingers, all held together by coagulated blood and a thin mesh of muscles. It had one human eye in front, framed in a loosely attached skull fragment and a bony stinger on the other end, tipped with a rusty arrowhead, dripping with poisonous soot.

    "Lord almighty...! What... What in the hell is that ?"
    "Must be what's left of Jerald. He is too weak to leave the body now so he took what was left unaffected by the spirit disintegrator."

    As penny pointed the gun at the creature, it curled up and instantly jumped over to her chest, some of its legs falling off in mid flight. The creature went for the neck, flailing the stinger like crazy.
     
  13. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

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    The centipede-thingy darted towards her, thrusting its arrowhead poison gland towards her in a flurry. Penny, having been too badly injured to dodge the attack, reacted instinctively and parried with the only thing she could; her mouth. RAAAAAAAH! She roared as she reached out for the creatures tail and sank her teeth into it, just as it was about to sting her. She caught it, but she bit it too far away from the arrowhead, which went partly into her neck. A muffled scream escaped her lips, and she bit down harder on Jerald (or what was left of him), while he retracted his stinger for another blow. Penny jerked her head sideways, throwing the revolting monstrosity away from her, and raised her arm against it. Jerald stiffened as her finger pressed down on the trigger to the ghost-away gun, but in stead on firing a beam the light on the device went black and the faint humming sound it had emitted ceased. Penny stared at the weapon in disbelief, shook it, tried to fire it again but to no avail: the batteries had run out.

    Jerald, relieved by this unexpected turn of events, charged at his opponent as fast as he could, which would normally have made Penny laugh considering how slow he was, but right now he was a lot quicker than Penny who’d probably broken both of her legs when the meaty giant fell upon her. She started to crawl away from the creature, terror on her face, sometimes looking back at it only to be dismayed by the pace with which he gained on her.

    Looks like Jerald is gonna win this after all, rev. He may’ve been reduced to an insect, but that stinger of his sure is a hell a lot better than having to fight with, well, nothing, like the batgirl does. Can’t see how she’s going to make it through this.

    Well, Zeke, I guess you’re ri- wait! Look where she’s going!

    What do you mean, rev? I don’t see anythi- oh. Oh! I see it! But does she? I’m not certain!

    Neither am I, but she might just reach it before the elementalist catches up with her!

    Meanwhile, Penny crawled on desperately, not knowing what to do except getting away from the poisonous fleshtipede. She looked over her shoulder once again, only to see it almost close enough for a pounce. She wouldn’t be able to get away this time; her vision was already getting dim from the poison she’d gotten into her, and her body felt numb. The creature curled itself up, readying itself for the attack. But the very same moment it left the ground, Penny laid her hands on something familiar. It was a round piece of cool metal, designed to send small balls flying through the air but also useable as a weapon – her weapon of choice in fact. She swung around with the bat, hitting the creature in mid-air but without the strength to kill it. She didn’t even know if she’d hurt it, but she wasn’t going to wait and see. Using the stump of her left arm, she started crawling towards the little monster, her bat raised above her head. As she came close enough for a swing, a deadly dance of attacks and counter-attacks ensued, her bat versus Jeralds stinger. She could only keep this up for so long, however, due to the poison which was slowly eating away what was left of her life. She started screaming wildly as she continued trying to swat the insect body of Jerald out of existence, the sound of her bat hitting the stony ground filling the otherwise quiet collosseum with the sound of battle.
     
  14. The_Bob

    The_Bob Administrator Staff Member

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    The worm bounced around Penny, looking for a gap in her defenses, mostly in vain. The bat hit him several times, the gut-worm either squeaking like a rubber duck or farting out chunks of flesh. This was pointless, and the improvised creature was worn out already, in addition to the damage it had sustained. As Jerald lingered, the bat landed another blow, bashing some legs off the creature.

    "Squeek!"
    "Take that...!"
    "Squeeee...! Pffrrrtt!"
    "And that...!"
    "Squeek!Squeek!Squeek!"
    "Slimy little...!"
    "Burp...!"

    The bloodshot eye popped out of the creature as a powerful blow buried half of it in the dirt. The remaining hind legs scooped out some dirt before dislodging the creature from the crater.

    "This is kind of... cute!"
    "No, Natacha, this is deeply disturbing."
    "We should call him Vladimir!"
    "You can't give a name to a... Venomous...articulated...colon...?"

    Jerald rolled across the dirt, dodging several blows. Penny was getting slower, numbed by the poison. He crawled over to the eye, a bloody string of flesh shot out of the empty socket and pulled it back in. Backwards. It took some work to make it face in the right direction. The gutworm crawled around the Batgirl, who could barely move at this point. She followed the creature, slowly and painfully rotating her body to keep Jerald within the bat's reach, but couldn't keep up.

    As he was momentarily beyond her reach, Jerald turned the stinger-side toward Penny and dug in a few feet away. The tail uncoiled, laying flat on the ground, the venom starting to spill out over the sand, foaming and creating tiny clouds of no doubt unhealthy vapors. The tail started to thicken, covered in the sandy foam, thin layer of tissue forming around it. The whole worm had swollen to twice its size, all the legs falling off, the muscles around the gut at the verge of braking.

    Penny's bat was almost in range as the eye popped out of the creature, connected by a small fleshy strand, tiny insect-like legs carrying it away. With her remaining strength, Penny raised the bat as far as she could...
    "No you don't...!"
    And brought it down on top of the now hardening cocoon. Just before the bat touched the creature, the gut contracted, almost instantly, tiny shards of hardened tissue fragmenting off the cocoon, forming a microscopic mist along the length of the worm as it shrunk. A disgusting, slimy mass shot out of the tiny monster, turning it into a translucent empty shell milliseconds before the bat crushed it.

    The huge booger spread out a bit and shot out a flurry of sparks. The sparks ignited a mist surrounding the gel, and the whole thing turned into a disgusting napalm-like fireball headed straight for the batgirl.

    The eye rolled away from the inferno, pushing itself off the ground with the fleshy appendage, dodging globs of burning gel that fell in its path.
     
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