Zhyriad vs. Requiem - Glyde vs. Malisa - "An Unintended Rematch"

My Character
http://www.khplanet.com/forums/270806-post2.html
Location: Essentially, this is the Olympus Coliseum. But it's taken on a more Roman style of housing its battles. The crowd is cheering, and thirsty to see blood spilled. The competitors are brought out blindfolded and shackled until their matches begin. New competitors are brought in from wherever they can be found, often as prisoners. So yeah, pretty much an old gem gone to hell.
Continuum Backdrop: See IC Post​

An unyielding blackness was all that Glyde’s eyes were able to take in as he edged his way forward. The blindfold, tied in unforgiving carelessness around his face cut off even the slightest view of the world around him, which ever it was; even that space towards the bottom that provided the small glimpse was sealed perfectly. To his fortune, through the blackness, he could still hear, and he could still feel, which he had to count for something, even if it was only a little bit. By the sounds around him, and the reverberation of that sound, he guessed he was in a corridor of some sort, though not a very large one. He could feel little outside of the cold shackles that bound him by the wrists and ankles as he treaded, holding him back when he got too far ahead of the voices egging him forward.

He stopped for a moment, attempting to process where he was, what he was doing there, and how he could have gotten there to begin with. Last thing he could remember was camping out in a jungle somewhere, a backwater place, where he and Malisa Jals had stopped by to keep their travels in a good, system-lacking rhythm. It had been nighttime, and they had been gathered around a fire, discussing their next step, and some other topics, like magic, and combat. They had, for their time on the run, evaded anything outside of practical topics to their goal. That night by a campfire, the last thing Glyde could remember was a hard thud to his head, and he was gone. He had awoken wherever he was now, the location of which he had no clue.

“Hey. Get moving you idiot. You’re not here to lollygag!”

A rough jab to his back told him that the speaker wasn’t kidding around, and with slight hesitation, he stepped forward. At first, he set off at an inching step. But in a steady train of thought, he picked up pace, attempting to sprint from his captors. He made it no more than five feet before a forceful pull at his shackles, throwing him back. He scolded himself for even trying to make a break for it. He had done that already, and met with the same tugs against his chains. Clearly, whoever had him in chains wasn’t the least bit interested in letting him go, or even giving him a fighting chance at freedom. They’re smart, he thought. If only they weren’t, I’d be out of here faster than they had me knocked out. Hopefully Malisa’s got it better than I do… hopefully she’ll find me here and spring me out too.

At last, he was pulled back to a true halt. Somewhere beyond where he stood, he could hear the muffled sounds of a large audience. There was something between him and the crowd, or where he was and where they were. A gate, or a doorway was what he imagined; that, or just a wall. A few seconds passed, and the first thoughts were proved correct. The sound of opening gates came, and then dissolved, drowned out by the cheers and jeers of a roaring crowd, certainly awaiting something spectacular. He was going to die where he was, of that much, he was certain as he again allowed himself to be prodded forward like cattle. He would die like a trapped animal, defenseless and powerless to fight against the fate he was being handed. And no one was there to save him, or even give him the means to save himself. Damn. I wonder where she’s at right now.​

 

"Move forward you idiot. Can't you even understand what we're saying?"

"Yeah," Glyde spat as he walked forward, this time at a brisker pace, so as not to displease the man poking annoyingly at his back. "Yeah. I can hear you. I can also hear how pathetic you are. Can't even take a stand and face me. If you had any of the guts your voice does, you'd have this blindfold off me now, and these shackles off. Maybe then you could show me how tough you are, or how tough you aren't."

The effect was instantaneous. He felt the force of his body turning against its volition, the chains then squeezing around his body like a large metallic snake. Then there was a hard knock of a fist pounding into his stomach, driving him to his knees, clenching his gut in pain. He knew he had pissed off his handler, but at that point, he really didn't care. If he was about to die, then didn't really matter how much damage he took along the way. If the sound of cheers from the crowd meant anything to his situation, his getting decked in the gut had certainly proven a sight of pleasure to them. What a way it would be to go, though. No mourning, no tears. Just roars of approval for the killing of someone stripped of their humanity. It was funny, considering he had evaded capture and similar treatment at the hands of a far more capable foe than the one he now took the brunt of.

"That'll teach you, you dirty scoundrel," the captor said, pulling Glyde to his feet with the same force he had applied to each prod forward. "Now get up and keep walking. You'll be free from all of this soon enough. Ha!"

Again, Glyde set foward across a span of coarse sand that crunched underneath his steps. The crowd's cheers grew louder, and some shouts that called out louder than the rest suggested that a second person had entered the area. Maybe I'm not the only one being killed here today, Glyde thought. It would be nice to have some company when I go. At least they'll understand what I'm going through. Maybe we could get these guys steaming even more before they axe us.

After a short while, the sands underneath his feet gave way to a harder surface, most likely stone of some sort. The shackles that had bound him for that seemingly endless span of time loosened, and were soon removed completely. His hands, behind his back until then, came to his front. He contemplated lashing out blindly against the people who had chained him, even if they turned out to have left the range of his reach. But he decided not to, as it seemed he was being given an opportunity to salvage himself. Finally, his blindfold came off, and after a short second of blur, he could see perfectly the masked and cloaked figure before him, whom he assuemd to be the opponent he had to face in order to set himself free.

He was handed a weapon set, consisting of a rounded shield, and a short sword, which he was able to wield well enough with but one blade. He took them without question. It would be best to save Marksman for a latter point in time, when the masked person least expected it. For now, he could play the game, and use the few weapons provided to him. It wasn't like he didn't have any magic or anything. He looked over his opponent, and gave a spiteful smirk. "I'm guessing you didn't have to come in bound and blinded then?"
​

 

Glyde's semi-sarcastic grin faxed when his "good humor"*was*left as ignored by his opponent. Man, what a brick, he thought, recalling how Malisa had always had a witty comeback for the things he said in their "training." The least the gladiator could have done was humor him and give a chuckle. Must not be their style then, he concluded as the sound of a warhorn cut through even the roaring of the captive audience. He readied himself for battle, preparing to go on the defensive from the first move made. The shield he had been so graciously provided rose up so that it's top was at shoulder height.*

Then, there came the booming roar from the onlookers as his opponent dashed forward to make the first blow. Glyde smirked as he lifted the shield to his front. His mind raced with the idea of the gladiator, a warrior by trade, being snuffed out by a foe he had underestimated even before entering the ring. It would be an easy win for him, once he stopped acting the dumby and pulled out his stops. They really wouldn't have the faintest clue of what might have hit them.*

But his start up wasn't quite what he had hoped for. The blow to his body he had braced himself for was not what came. As his face drew back behind the safety of his shield, his feet slipped, or rather, got swept out from under him. Before he knew it, he was flat on the ground, staring up at his enemy. The words that came from them, realized in that moment to be the very person that Glyde had wished could retrieve him, brought to him a joyous feeling, despite that he just been floored. Another fight with Malisa Jals would be a pleasure, and a relief.*

As he elbow came down to nail him, he again moved shield, this time, to block the blow he knew for a fact was already well on it's way.

 

A thundering, deafening wave of boos and hisses filled the arena. Glyde knew by it that Malisa's elbow had been properly deflected. When no second attempt at a hit came, he assumed correctly that she had let up on her offensive. With shield propped on the ground, he pushed*himself back to his feat in time to see her prepping for her next move. She was using magic now, a point she was kind enough to announce to him, and one for which he admitted he was thankful for. "I guess we're giving these bumbles a spectacle," he said under his breath. "If she's using magic, then I best match her with it."*

Her attack finished its short charge period, and he readied for his next defense. The red orb of light skimmed through the air. As fast as it was, it couldn't quite match its target's anticipation. A dome of a brigt hued purple light encased the space around him. The red orb evaporated upon impact with the shielding dome; he could tell he could have taken the orb with nothing more than a faint flash around his body, but it was too late to*think of that. He was on the offensive now, and she was using magic, then so was he.*

He dropped the shield to the ring floor, and tossed the blade off to the side. Raising his arm up he summoned Marksman, aiming it at her with a hint of a cheerful sneer. "If you're gonna use your spells, the least you could do is be a bit more serious." he gave an odd wink, and with the utterance of the word "bang," he opened fire with a small bullet of pure magic energy.​

 

For the short second that the energy-cast bullet sped towards Malisa, Glyde watched in strong hope that it would get through without hitch. It wasn’t much that he was trying to hurt her of course. In fact, the only thing the shot would do if it hit was leave her with light burning or stinging sensation. It would be just enough to show her that he was playing his role, but not too seriously. He reminded himself, even as he had taken the shot, that he would only have to take the battle as seriously as she did. After all, there was no need to go for the kill if it didn’t need to happen, and odds were, it wouldn’t need to happen, provided one of the two could pull up a an escape plan in due time.

Damn! Glyde’s hopefulness faded away into a mild dissatisfaction as he watched his stingy bullet collide with a hastily summoned barrier. Even though he wasn’t aiming to hurt her seriously, it was frustrating to see that she had conjured her defense so readily, and so quickly. She was ahead of him, better in a way she hadn’t been when they battled at The Academy; that was a fact that would eat at him until he gained sufficient ground on which to call himself equal to her. More annoying than that was the knowledge that the crowd was all too quick to approve of his inferiority; it was a fact ushered in by a boom of thunderous cheering and applause.

He shook his head to drive the thoughts out of his mind. If he wanted to get anywhere in this battle, he had stay on his toes, and look convincing without actually trying. The faint kicking of dust from Malisa’s position heralded her follow through: a strong gust of wind, no doubt meant to knock him off his feet a second time. This time he was ready, and itching to show the captive audience that they weren’t looking at a helpless little slave boy. With time he had after seeing that a gust had been aimed in his direction, he quickly called forth an Aero spell. The space around his body circled with a cyclone of air, the pressure of which formed its own hastily made barrier, which caught the majority of the wind gust, knocking back only a few feet before being canceled or carried away by the counter-acting cyclone.

Looking to Malisa, he saw the mirror shield attached to her arm, ready to knock away any shots he could fire, either relaying them back to him, or angling them in some other direction. Estimating that he only had a few seconds, maybe five or six at best until what remained of his air shield died down, he made opted to put the battle into a close up confrontation. In a light sprint, he charged her, bearing his rifle in a carrying position across his torso, as a solider storming across a field might have done. There were two favorable possibilities: her attacks would either get lifted away by the shield, or she’d be flustered enough that Glyde would be able to close that gap without any resistance from her. There would only be a relatively short timeframe for action in any case.​

 

Once more the jeering and cheering of the crowd bombarded Glyde’s ears like a rain of fire spells. Yet once more, he forced himself to swallow and ignore the fact that all but one person in the arena had an innate and absolute hatred of him simply for being labeled a “slave” and holding his own against a “champion” fighter; as if any of them even knew what the story behind the two in the ring even was. He knew, by that point, that any attack Malisa mounted against him would be either too miniscule to do lasting, or major damage, or otherwise, perfectly aimed so that it looked like she had tried to do damage and simply failed out of miscalculation. That fact in itself made it all the easier to stomach her last ditch move against his charge.

There was a wealth of things that he knew he could do to cap off his move, and all of them seemed feasible. He could stop just short of her, and put her at gun point, and hope that someone with authority would see that he wasn’t worth keeping as a captive, and then use that as some leverage or means by which to spring her free from bondage (if she wound up in that situation as well). Still, he imagined himself pulling the same move he had against that guy back in Traverse Town, and throw his bayonet forward in a spear thrust, in this case, aiming so that he just missed her. But either of those would put him in a position he didn’t want to be in: ending the battle quickly.

Instead, in the flash of time he had to make his move, he went with a less foreseeable tactic. Caling his Keyblade away, he arched his torso down as he made his final strides forward. His arms, at first, came up to shield his face from the imminent burning feeling let off by the beams of light that narrowly missed him. In a fluid motion he rounded himself across the ground in a slightly sprung summersault. With the distance between himself and Malisa at much closer quarters, he estimated his roll would make contact with her legs, with just enough force to knock her off balance.​

 

Noting the recognizable feeling of his body touching a pair of legs, Glyde knew that his roll had been a success, and that he managed to knock her off balance for at least a few seconds. He concluded the motion by pulling himself into a kneel on his left knee. In anticipation of retaliation, he summoned his Keyblade back. Holding it at the handle in his right hand, he propped it over his left shoulder, aiming it behind him. It wouldn’t be efficient from an accuracy perspective, he knew; but he also knew that he’d be able to rain out smaller shots for an effective ward, enough so to buy him the time to turn himself around once Malisa was distracted by dodging. As soon as the weapon was placed on its roost, he angled it down, and put off a warning spray of light, ember-like shots towards the ground. He widened the angle, preparing to unload a more serious volley, when he heard a familiar voice echo in his head.

What do we do? You can think responses.

Well that’s pretty simple, isn’t it? He responded in his own thoughts. He rose to his feet and turned around, facing her sternly. He removed his weapon from its shoulder mount, and held it in both hands, more so like a Tommy gun. We fight. We make it look as convincing as possible. Then, when it looks like one of us (or both of us) is ready to admit defeat and suffer the consequences, we spell our way out of this place. Just follow my lead, and you’ll know when it’s time, and what to do when it comes. Yeah? Ending the thought, he sent out another round, this one aimed at Malisa’s right shoulder. If he assumed correctly, she’d have her defenses ready to receive the shot and follow through. That being the case, he placed the butt of Marksman against his shoulder, and began to circle her, putting in light, near hit or non-fatal shots at leisure. Just overpower me, he thought. We both know you can do that. ​

 

At best, Glyde’s shots gave off flashlight bursts. They were nowhere near strong enough to do damage beyond lightly grazing the surface of Malisa’s skin, which, given her defenses, would have been reduced to little more than a tickle. Granted, she had taken the time to summon herself a barrier to hide behind in preparation of his assault. The few shots that penetrated to her after she had dissolved that barrier did little more than give her body a rather lustrous orange glow. She looked all the more impressive in this regard. Glyde on the other hand was made to seem much less capable a combatant than he really was in the eyes of the spectators. But then, that was exactly what he had been going for through the whole battle; putting up a real fight against a “champion” warrior amongst bloodthirsty crowds was a surefire way to land himself in greater trouble than he was, and thus, his feigns had been made to that one effect of giving his opponent the approval. And that in itself would give her the opportunity to work some magic to get them out of there, and back on the road.

But for the time being, there was still the battle to tend to, and Malisa had begun to make her final runs on her end of the plan. When she went into motion, Glyde halted. She was moving too fast for any shot to be effective and accurate, which became that much less so while HE was in motion as well. Yet stopping in the midst of the battle would prove itself to be as dangerous as staying in motion. Within seconds of halting to regain a steady aim on the moving target, Glyde felt his body lurch upwards. There, several feet above the surface of the fighting ring, he floated in a suspension of a controlled sway in gravity. The trick was simple, and so was the way out of it. He’d have been tempted to just let her win, but the thought of bowing now after such a convincing run was preposterous. He’d fight it out a bit longer, if he could, and so, he worked magic of his own, casting a gravity spell contrary to hers… but it was too much, a large miscalculation in the amount force that he would need to break the anti-gravity that bound him.

Legitimately, he fell to the ground, landing with a thud on the flat of his back. It hurt, yes, but only so much. He could have still gotten up, but he chose to remain down, pointing the barrel of Marksman around as best he could. As she would approach him in his “desperation” he would let loose more shots. They’d be stronger, able to do more realistic damage. Yet she would certainly be able to evade them. The battle would be over in moments…​

 

Having anticipated, to some degree, the spell that would "vanquish" him, Glyde had braced himself for the sensation of portal travel; for the first time he could recall, it felt natural, healthy, and even a bit relieving to be moved instantaneously to a new location. With this being the case, he was able to enjoy the journey. As what would have otherwise taken several hours took place over the span of a few seconds, he embraced the warping feeling, and the tunneled image of the cosmos rushing passed his apparently motionaless body. He savored that feeling for those few short seconds he had to feel it before getting churnned out of the dimensional transit into the realm of another world. Landing feet first with a soft thud against a rough, newly paved surface, he set off at a light stroll, into the midst of a small shantytown, the kind he had once been acustomed to in the backwoods of his old home world so many years ago. Granted that this one was different, it was still similar enough that he found himself able to get a bit of comfort out of being there.


Immediately his stroll lead him, unconsciously, to the front door of an inn overlooking what he realized was the heart of what that world was all about. Beyond the mountainous plateau upon which the shantytown and the inn were perched, a large span of cut out earth, a manmade valley, could be seen. All about it, Glyde could see scaffolding, large digging equippment, and the antlike visages of hundreds, possibly thousands, of workers diligantly going about their assigned tasks. This, he knew, was a mining operation, and the world, he realized, was Radiant Garden. Again, he felt a little bit of comfort in knowing where he was, even if it was different from the way he had originally known it. If anything, the lack of the great castle looming over the small village was an upside, something that made the place seem much more relaxed, and easier to make a life in. "Maybe I can stay here a while," he said to himself as he entered the inn. As he entered the establishment, he immediately walked over to the bar, taking an empty seat next to a second empty seat; assuming Malisa sent herself to the same place, she'd be likely to find him.


Not moments later, his anticipations found themselves correct, when the masked (and then unmasked) warriro that was Malisa Jals snagged the seat next to his, and trust the large bag filled with munny upon the countertop. Glyde, in a bit of a shock to see that the battle had been waged over something such as prize munny, spent a minute of disbelief before finally thinking about the munny itself. He opened the sack, revealing the sum of financial asset that his campanion had been rewarded for her victory. Certainly there would be enough for the two of them to share, but Glyde had no way of carrying munny with him on his journey, not that much anyways. His pockets could only hold so much, and that space needed to be filled with the essentials. The few provisions he had had before being ransacked for the Coliseum had been weighing on him. Just a bit of munny would help though, and he'd probably spend it right away on some food at the inn, and then be gone before anything else could happen to him.


He dipped his hand into the sack of munny, taking out a handful. "Get us anything," he said to the bartender. "Food. Drink. Whatever." He then turned to Malisa, and added on, with a smile, "if you don't mind."​

~Fin~

(I'd say we can call it at that epilogue. Otherwise, we might as well not even call it a battle, as light of one as it may have been anyways).