Introductions? How about my fist instead? (Almech)

[Kale]

Obviously Almech had been in the games before. The large man moved up and strolled down the passageways side by side with him. He seemed to know the way just as well if not better then Kale did. That puzzled him for a moment. For someone who knew the way so well that would have meant he had been here more than a few times. He could not remember ever having met this large man. Almech was not exactly someone you would forget if you passed him in a passage way or watched him in training. That more than anything else was beginning to puzzle Kale. Something just did not fit into place right. He hated when things were out of place. Surprises could get a gladiator killed. Kale resolved himself to get to the bottom of these oddities later. Right now he would have to focus on their fight. He could not take the chance of being distracted while their lives were on the line. He slowly turned his body letting his eyes scan the crowd as it went. They knew who he was. They knew that Kale did not wave prostrate himself for their approval. What he did for them was strictly a business transaction. They gave him howls and applause which he paid for with blood and violence. There was a far cry difference between being a slave to the masses and respecting them. The gladiator showed his respect to them then with a bow at the waist. He withdrew from his bow as he heard the gate at the opposite side of the arena began to move up. Their opponents had arrived it seemed. Another question that came to Kale's mind was; why was he always the first one to the arena? Did he truly walk that much quicker than others? Kale chopped it up to him simply looking forward to his matches then most others did. That thought brought a rueful smile to his lips. He banished those thoughts from his mind as his opponents came into view. One of them was a male. He stood only a little taller than he was. It was the slow clashing of the gauntlets adorning the man's fists that brought a raised eyebrow from Kale. He knew someone that used gauntlets just like those. In fact she even carried herself in a similar way. He would not make the mistake of assuming what the man would use or how he would fight but he definitely would watch out for what he thought the man would do. He let his eyes drift over to the man's battle partner. Now she was an oddity he had no idea about. The fact that she was here told him that she must be dangerous. Her smooth and confident stride seemed to affirm that notion. He did not know what to make of her. If he judged from what he guessed her partner was using it would be something that they were not expecting to have to fight against. The smaller of the two men did not look to his partner as he was whispered to. He was beginning to like this big guy even more. He was likely just as confused and cautious about this as Kale was. Yet he wanted to begin the fight as soon as possible. "The man is likely using some form of flux to make his hits more devastating" he whispered back to Almech. "The girl on the other hand is a mystery. I haven't got a clue what she might be using. Lets be careful around that one." He let the big man move first, staying in his shadow for his movements to be more difficult to judge.

[Almech]

Almech could already tell that he and Kale were going to make an extraordinary team, "Flux? don't know what that is, but i know what the other part means, we should be extra careful". He took a solid stance, inhaling deeply into his mouth and exhaling slowly through his nose, he did this about three times, he knew this type of combat was much different than what he was accustomed to. Luckily his escape from the Zith cave gave him something of an alright understanding of fighting in his human form. His feet shifted as he grabbed extra traction from the ground beneath him, he shoved off, at great pace, this was one of those things where you just want to end it as fast as possible. He was shifty about the woman, she was unarmed, she had to have some kind of trick up her sleeve otherwise she wouldn't have been here. He raced toward the man first, at least he was halfway expecting what was to come from him. Almech jumped into the air a short distance from the man, lunging toward him, he twirled his body sending three solid kicks towards him.

Clank, clank, clank, was all he heard before landing and just as quickly as he landed the man's fist pounded into Almech's stomach. It knocked the wind out of him, he focused hard on keeping his senses with him, Kale had been correct, no average man could hit this hard. He saw a fist coming at his face, finally able to gasp for the air his lunges so desperately needed, he swayed to one side and hopped back. It was all clear to him now, this man, clearly had not experienced much combat outside of the coliseum, it was due to this 'flux' that he was winning matches. The distraction had worked as Kale's heel landed solidly on the man's jaw from behind, Almech heard the smack of flesh hitting flesh, and the pop, of the man's jaw cracking, could kale hear this too? Almech often wondered how weak the human ears actually were. Their male opponent chuckled a bit "Now it gets interesting" he said in a tone Almech was not familiar with.

The man turned around and punched Kale in the cheek, using his flux to multiply his agility in short bursts invading in on Kale's defences. This was a problem, not only could he increase the power of his blows, he could make them faster as well. Almech made a mental note to pay special attention to this man, knowing your enemy was a sure fire way to be victorious. Almech hoped that the man didn't hit Kale too hard "Wait, what? why would I care?" he thought to himself.

[Kale]

In an odd way Kale felt his companion's muscles tense more then saw them. The moment Almech burst into motion Kale was right behind him. He cursed to himself softly as he sprinted after his comrade. Almech was moving too directly at the man. He should have warned his large friend exactly what flux was. He slowed his pace slightly as they got closer to their targets. The woman off to the side had begun to dash for her partner but she had distanced herself too much when they had begun flaunting themselves to the crowd upon arrival. They would have a few moments with the man before his partner could come to his aid. If they did not take him out in that time they at least needed to injure him. Almech launched himself into the air and set off a series of kicks. The man's arms tensed and then shot out. He managed to block all three of the blows that the big man tried to land. Kale let a small grin cross his face as he began to move in on the embattled pair. The man had already forgotten about him as he began his counter attack. As Kale had guessed would happen the man was moving his arms faster than he should have been able to while being encumbered by the heavy metal gauntlets. He breathed a small sigh of relief that the gauntlets did not have spikes as he saw one of the blows land on Almech. The blow did not look like it would have done much damage but as he continued to try to dodge the man's attacks Kale could see he was in a bit of pain. Kale quickened his pace. As he got closer he began to move his body slightly at the waste. He moved first one way and then back the other way. The closer he got the more pronounced the twisting. When he had finally gotten in range he did not slow his movements. By this time he had built up enough momentum that he did not stop himself from continuing the twist that he was having his body do. He stood up on the balls of his left foot as his body twisted in a circular motion. As his body made its revolution he let the top half of his body lean in one direction to keep him balanced as he extended his free leg in the opposite direction. Kale felt the impact of his heel colliding with the man's face. The sound was clearly audible. The man went down as Kale completed his attack. It did not last very long. The man was on his feet before either of the two could do anything to stop him. "Now it gets interesting", the man said with a sly grin. Kale return the smile in kind. He had to agree with his opponent's assessment. This was going to be very interesting indeed. The man launched himself at Kale with a movement so sudden that it surprised him. He had obviously used flux to speed his movement. Time seemed to slow down as the punch moved in for Kale's face. Kale began to move his hands up to block the blow but soon realized he would not get his hands up in time to stop the blow from landing. Instead he used the toes of his feet to push him back a few inches. The blow landed with a the loud sound of metal hitting something of resistance. The gladiator stumbled and nearly fell from a combination of the blow and his sudden lack of over balancing himself. The man's grin faded ever so slightly as Kale steady himself and did not fall. He spit a gob of blood soaked saliva from his mouth and grinned back at the man. Had that blow landed with all of its power it would have shattered Kale's face. The smaller man had decided that since he could not dodge or block the blow he would make it as ineffective as possible. By moving back even the little bit he had, he had managed to only let a portion of the man's fist impact his face. That small amount of contact had not been enough to seriously insure Kale.

[Almech]

The flux user went toe to toe with Kale for some time, both men landing blow after blow on each other after figuring out each other's rhythm. Kale seemed to figure out how to cushion the flux user's attacks. While the flux user seemed to simply ignore Kale's blows as if in some kind of adrenaline fueled pain numbing rage. The sun was beginning to bake the area around them and the combined body heat of the fans in the stadium making the temperature soar. Almech wiped sweat from his brow as he watched, only a few mere moments had passed by now he peered passed the two brawling brutes, to the woman gladiator. She was still a bit of a distance away but he could see a fire burning in her eyes, it was almost, frightening. Almech's heart started to beat rapidly as his instinctual fight or flight function kicked on, this woman was a monster, he could see it now, the eyes not of a predator, but of a cold blooded killer.

Almech did the same as before, gripping the ground tightly with his feet before lifting off into a full on sprint towards the gauntlet wielding gladiator. He ran as fast as he could, his feet barely touching the ground now, he removed his shirt and flipped off his shoes. He launched himself into the air as high as he could, he'd jumped high enough to have jumped over himself. He flipped himself forward, rolling in the air as his body began to glow, his pants fell to the ground beneath him and he was now in his dog form. Almech descended onto the gauntlet wielder in a full strength tackle, knocking the man forward onto his stomach as Almech ruthlessly sunk his teeth into his shoulder, he had aimed for the neck but missed. He looked upward, at the woman getting ever closer, hopefully Almech's attention toward her would aim Kale in her direction.

[Kale]

It was true that the man was going punch for punch with Kale. He had learned early on that if he tried to block the man's attacks he would still end up with almost just as severe of an injury as he would have if he had not blocked the attack at all. He had then revised his strategy and adopted one that was similar to how Almech fought. Instead of blocking the attacks he was pushing them far enough away from their target that most of them were missing. Those few attacks that did manage to get through were directed towards the harder and less vulnerable parts of his body. Even with these actions his body was already beginning to show bruises from where the gauntlets had managed to deal a bit of damage. The problem with this was that Kale was finding it tough to retaliate. Most of the hits he landed seemed to be having little or no effect on the man. He knew that it was simply the effects of the man using flux. It had a tendency of letting you feel invincible up until the point that your body fell apart. It was Kale's guess that that is what was happening to the blows he was landing. The man simply was not going to feel them until after the match. By then Kale would likely be dead if this continued. Kale backed away from the man. He tensed his muscles and prepared for an all-out attack on the man. If he was going to go on the offensive he had to give it everything he had. He never got his chance. Out of the corner of his eye Kale saw Almech launch himself at the man. He recognized the attack and stayed put to keep the man's attention on him. His eyes widened as he saw his partner launch himself into the air and his shape change. He was the large man no longer. The body that now flew through the air was that of an incredibly large dog. The man did not know what hit him as he was impacted by over two hundred pounds of canine. With a stark clarity Kale suddenly remembered the other combatant. Kale managed to turn in time to see a fist arcing for his face. He caught that fist in his right. Another came in from the other side which he effortlessly caught with his left. It did not strike him as strange that he had caught the woman's limbs so easily. That he had caught them so effortlessly that she had probably let him catch them. That is when a third fist came in and struck him in the stomach. Kale felt the pain shoot through his body for a moment before he let go of the woman's hands and stumbled backwards. "What the hell?" he mumbled faintly. He raised a hand and wiped the spittle from his mouth before eyeing the woman cautiously. He could have sworn that she had just hit him with a third first. He shook his head. She only had two arms. It had to have been her knee. The woman hopped from foot to foot for a moment like a boxer would before she moved in again. She twisted her body and brought her leg up for a kick. Once again the blow seemed a bit slower than it should have. Kale caught the limb easily. Thats when he clearly saw a third leg sprout from her body, the heel driving into his stomach once again.

[Almech]

Almech tore away from the man's shoulder, chunks of flesh and drops of blood flung out into the air, he was done with this man, he was now unconscious and Almech was ready to help Kale. He watched as a third arm grew from the woman's body striking Kale, then a leg grew out from her stomach and kicked him in the stomach, this made Almech angry, he took off running, barking and snarling loudly, trying to get the woman's attention. His time as a pit dog made him quite sufficient in the art of intimidation, atleast in his dog form, he'd never tried in his human form before. He jumped up in between the woman and his partner, sinking his teeth into the woman's third leg before a fist beat him in the side of the head. The leg reverted back into her body as Almech yelped and flew off to the side, she could punch harder than most men he knew, infact, he hadn't been hit that hard since his time as a Zith slave, his memory flashed about in his mind as he regained his bearings.

He shook his head, it was like the force of her blow caused his brain to richochette against the sides of his cranium, his head hurt alot now, he imagined he'd have some very major bruising shortly. His head throbbed but he couldn't give up as he ran at the woman again before she could return her attention to Kale, he jumped at her, she grabbed him by the throat causing his back end to keep going while his top half had stopped. He shifted as this happened, throwing a knee for the woman's face, she let go and Almech fell to his back. He shifted again and rolled to the side and just as he was about to run off, the woman's foot swiftly kicked him in the side and he flew several yards away, he hit the ground with a loud thud, dust kicked up around his limp body. It started to rain, slowly at first, Almech got up wabbling after several seconds on the ground, and then the raindrops started getting bigger until there was a full out downpour, this would make the match that much more difficult.

[Kale]

Once again Almech came to Kale's aid. He had not realized it at first but he now that he had a better glance at the man turned dog he did recognize his companion. He looked very much like the dog that Shale favored for his dog fights. It made sense to Kale though. Shale would be the one to own such an oversized dog. He had no idea why the dog had quit fighting against other animals and began fighting in matches like the ones Kale participated in. Perhaps Shale had freed the large kelvic and this was simply Almech trying to find a way to make a living on his own. For those skilled in combat the coliseum could be an easy way to make a lot of money. There of course was always the chance that you would die in the match that you were in. Those were the risks for making money so easily. Kale dropped to the ground as the woman let go of him. He had not been expecting to get hit in the stomach so his muscles had not be tensed enough to soften the blow. The combination of her striking him with such a powerful blow and the lack of resistance from his body had caused the blow to deal more damage than he would have liked. As he knelt on all fours Kale swallowed in an attempt to hold back the vomit that threatened to rise up through his throat and find its way onto the arena floor. Tendrils of water that had nothing to do with the rain that was beginning to fall slid down the man's face and dripped onto the sand. He swallowed a second time and rose to his feet. The woman managed to send Kale's partner flying. She was tougher then he could have guessed she would be. Where her partner had been about power she was about skill. Where he had been straight forward and aggressive she was tactful and conservative. She would not be an easy one to beat. They had gotten lucky when the separation at the beginning. If that had not happened Kale and his companion might have lost this fight already. Kale felt the edges of his face pull back as he got the overwhelming urge to smile. This fight was starting to become more fun than he could have asked for. He was suddenly glad that Shale had scheduled him to fight that day. He would not have passed this up even if he had had the chance. The gladiator took a deep breath and steadied himself. He was feeling better already. His stomach no longer swirled with nausea. He took another breath and exhaled slowly. His jaw clenched as he began to concentrate on summoning his djed. The woman's attention was still focused on Almech. This would likely be his only chance to use his magical abilities. Unlike the man that low unconscious on the sandy floor near Almech, Kale used his abilities with flux far more sparingly. He knew full well the effects that overgiving could cause. He rarely took the chance of such after effects unless he deemed the risk worth the reward. Keeping his life seemed to be a reward worth the risk to him. Another breath found its way out from between Kale's lips before he felt his djed flow begin to change in his body. If he had not been a veteran of so many fights he might have made the mistake of concentrating his djed flow into his arms. This time however he did not believe that would be a wise course of action. Instead he chose to concentrate on his legs and mobility. He began to feel a change come over his legs. As djed flowed into his legs he began to feel them lighten. It was almost as if they were weightless. A sense of power and invincibility accompanied the weightless feeling. He had practiced flux enough in his time that he knew this was simply an effect flux had on his system. He knew that his weight had not changed at all. It was simply a change of perception. Almech did not move from where he had landed after the woman dealt him the blow. Kale felt a feeling run through his chest at the sight of his new companion in such a state. It was a sensation that was completely alien to him. It felt almost like an ache. He sincerely hoped that his new "friend" was not seriously injured. Such thoughts were forgotten as the woman turned back to look at him. By now the rain had begun to fall in such force that it was difficult to make out individuals in the stands. The water did not seem to make them want to leave. They wanted to see the conclusion of the fight at hand. The rain plastered the woman's dark hair to her head. It made her have somewhat of a sadistic quality as she gave Kale a toothy grin.

[Almech]

Almech stood there in a stuper as the rain pelted his furry head, the rain ran down his snout to his jawline and dripped down, cleansing the flux users blood from it. The blow had made him lightheaded, like the flux user's attack, it had left him out of breath and gasping, he took a moment to catch his breath. The woman had Kale in her sights and something very strange happened, tenticles began to protrude from her arms, dozens of them on each arm. They whipped and lashed about, several went after Kale, he brought up his arms to guard. The very thin tenticles laying open parts of his arms, almost looking like small knife cuts, a few more wrapped his forearms, lifting him off the ground.

The woman lashed him about swinging him up, down, around, he had to have been dizzy and Almech was almost ready to come to Kale's rescue. Kale seemed to be handling himself rather well, gripping the tenticles Kale yanked at them, tearing ripping them away. He landed on the ground in a large mud puddle with a splash, he got up, and looked at the woman, it seemed as though he were thinking. He ran towards the woman, for an instant looked passed her at Almech, this must've been a signal. Almech began running his paws sinking into the mud and flipping it into the air as he moved, Kale withstood the woman's tenticles. He got in close and grabbed at her arms, she stepped back, and slipped backward in the mud slightly. She heard Almech coming and turned to look, but it was too late. Almech lunged into the air, taking a mouthful of her hair as it flipped with her head's movement to look at him.

She was spun around and Almech yanked her onto the ground on her back, with a fierceness. Almech swiped at her face with his claws, the same way a dog would when digging a hole in the ground, one paw after the other, his claws catching at her lips slicing them open, his claws caught her noseholes ripping them open. The woman's once beautiful face was now bleeding profusely and the tenticles reverted into her arms, she eventually went into shock and lost conciousness before letting out a blood curdling scream.

[Cantrip]

Did you want something? Kale: XP Award: Unarmed +4; Observation +1; Running +1; Flux +1 Lores: The Training Grounds; Sizing up your Foes; Proper uses of Flux Rankings: 10 Points Rewards: 4gm* Almech: XP Award: Unarmed +3; Running +1 Lores: The Training Grounds; Timely Transformations; Fighting the Flux Rankings: 10 Points Rewards: 4gm* Additional Notes: And the results are in! Almech, you seemed to take control of Kale a lot. I’m not sure if you’d reached an accord about the course of the fight. Kale, I enjoyed how you were constantly thinking. It made for a very interesting read. The woman's delayed entry seemed a bit strange, and though the seemed to end a bit prematurely, that’s just how it goes sometimes. * Null if you apply for seasonal income for the Fall.