Watch the Footage

Sound. A sudden flash of light in the heart of the dust cloud and an onslaught of Ice shrapnel, propelled by white hot plasma. "Fuck. Bastard set off an Yin Yang Bomb." He commented, bracing for impact. Rushing towards his opponent put him in a position where he couldn't avoid the burst of the explosion.

The icicles broke on contact yet, being this close to the center of the blast, they hit like bullets. The heat from the plasma, while still mitigated by Seiryu's resistance still charred patches of clothing and skin. Once the wave passed, it's motion clearing the cloud of dust, Pixel could see Alaki on the ground, immobile and looking at him.

The Forged was partially destroyed. His plating punched full of holes and he looked at Pixel, who was still standing, with widened eyes, an expression of terror. Pixel however, was barely able to stand.

"Guess you win this one..." He said to Alaki. "Well, maybe... If you can outrun lighting." He smirked and began to fall. No aim, no target, just... Light up.

"Ma...Zio." He said, falling unconscious. Summoning the rest of his power as an indiscriminate shower of thunderbolts.

Through half-closed eyes, Alaki saw the dragon from the beginning of the fight fade out of existence as his bleeding, smoking opponent crumpled over on the ground. Through his connection to the world's elemental energies, he vaguely felt a large, unfocused release of power into the air; in the back of his mind, his psionic affinity told him that the only sentient mind nearby was beginning to shut down. From the looks of it, the battle was over. Ooooh, man, that was horrible, he thought. Here's hoping I'll never have to go through that again.

A flash of white-blue light, closely followed by a deafening crack of noise, caught his attention; several blocks away, a fairly tall building, its sides marred by ice spikes and enormous amounts of heat, had been struck by lightning. Another last ditch attack, he assumed. Well, as long as they don't hit me... Or anywhere near me... Or the dead guys don't get to me...

Grimacing, the crippled Forged relaxed, then tensed up again. He'd need to charge up a lot more to get enough power to even sit up, much less start walking again. He'd heard what had happened when the winner of a fight ended up unconscious when the world reset, and although he was pretty sure staying awake wasn't impossible, even in his current state, he was far less certain if the arena discriminated between "knocked out" and "mostly immobile"...

Victory

Endless Sea

Winner by K.O.

New Champion

Player teleported back to Observation Deck

Arena Reset

A few blobs of ink seemed to flow down the streets of the dead city. The darkings didn't quite know where they were, but it promised to be exciting finding out, and if there was one thing darkings liked, it was excitement.

A zombie shambled over, and lifted one of the dark blobs up, in the vague hopes that it would have brains he could eat. Leaf, made as it was of Stormwing blood and divine magic, could not oblige; instead, it oozed up the zombie's arm and shoulder to gain an excellent vantage point on the creature's head. "Funfunfun!" exclaimed Leaf.

A number of the other darkings, seeing Leaf's admirable position, followed suit, hijacking their own zombies, who seemed to accept this relationship on the grounds that the darkings, being more intelligent than the undead, might be able to form a symbiotic relationship with them, by which the zombies may yet be led to brains that they could devour. The darkings, for their part, were enamoured with their biped assistants, forming themselves variously into the shapes of crowns, caps, earrings, and other assorted ornaments on the zombies' heads.

The new zombie-darking horde continued along aimlessly down the diseased streets, until at last Leaf, in the lead, spotted a figure at the end of the street. "More funfun?" enquired Secret, one of the younger darkings, who was too far back to see for itself, but could envision that which Leaf observed.

"Maybe funfun," cautioned Leaf, before turning to the newcomer. "Hello! I Leaf! Leaf darking. You darking friend?"

Norelei looked at the puzzling creature. She noticed it was imitating the zombies, although quite amusing to her, she felt insulted.

This? This what I have to fight? After waiting and waiting to finally take my revenge I end up in a battle with this mongrel!? RIDICULOUS!

Norelei's anger was obvious and she felt a surge of anger within her, even through her anger however she realized there was something about this series of creatures that was dangerous. She quickly felt that the best course of action was a good old fashioned goose chase. She immediately opened up a wormhole and began to step inside of it.

Goodbye vermin.

She fell through the portal and landed on the top of a skyscraper exactly a half of a mile away from the enemy. What she didn't realize was that a horde of zombies were wandering on that same roof. Her mistake only irritated her more.

Out of my presence parasites!

Using a Nexus ball of a 30 inch circumference, she blasted the side with the zombies and the entire infrastructure of the already dilapidated building collapsed as the entire building crumbled to pieces. Luckily before it fell, Norelei had jumped in a wormhole and landed about a quarter of a mile from her main enemy. Zombies then began to gather around her, which made her even more angry and frustrated.

You had failed my brother and yet you beasts have the nerve to show your faces!?

Norelei unleashed a volley of wormholes with spears jumping off and decapitating hundreds of zombies. It wasn't productive to the fight, but it calmed her tense senses.

If Leaf had eyes, it would have blinked; as it was, it felt momentarily confused. Only dragons and gods could disappear like that, in its experience, and this newcomer, whether friend or foe, was surely no dragon. Was it a god, then? Leaf trembled, knowing firsthand the amount of damage even a minor god could do when angered. No matter, though; After all, it thought, we not human mages. We be darkings. And the darkings, Leaf resolved, would win this day.

"Jelly, Trick, Lace, Peony," Leaf squeaked, calling to four of the more experienced darkings. What one darking knows, all darkings know. Acting on an unspoken command, each of the four darkings Leaf had named led a small group of zombie-mounted darkings, steering their undead companions to split off from the main group. In five teams, they would spread out through the city. There was nothing so well-hidden that a darking could not find it, no cranny so small that a darking could not access it.

Remembering little Secret's question from before, Leaf formed a head-shaped blob long enough to imagine it smiling. "Plotting. Plotting funfun."

Trick saw the figure appear, and the darkings with it spread out, surrounding the odd creature. Leaf, seeing Trick see this in its mind's eye, called mentally for Jelly's group-- the next closest-- to fan out behind Trick's darkings, but Leaf's and the other two segments would hold their places, occupying nearly all of this city. If their opponent chose to vanish again, they would be ready for it, whenever it appeared. For now, the ball was in Trick's court.

Trick kept its head-blob focused on the enemy, but it was seeing what all the darkings with it were seeing, as well, and darkings being curious creatures by nature, they were looking around, and seeing quite a bit. There were hundreds of bodies around, bodies much like those that they now rode, only prone, many of them missing a head, or a limb. There were also spears littering the ground amidst the bodies. Trick had the darkings in the enemy's direct line of sight hold their positions, waiting, but Jelly's group, behind them, it instructed differently.

As Trick watched the figure before them intently, the darkings with Jelly quietly encouraged their zombies to lift the weapons from the ground--ignoring the bodies as, for the moment at least, irrelevant-- and raise them, readying to strike at the foe when Trick or Leaf gave the silent command.

From its vantage in a different part of the city, Leaf watched through Trick's metaphorical eyes, judging the moment to be right, then... "Now," it squeaked, and Jelly and its companions, hearing Leaf in their minds, oozed down the bodies of their mounts to guide the zombies' hands in aiming through the gaps between the zombies of Trick's group to launch the spears at the figure in the centre of their circle.

What is this sorcery?"

Norelei had only just finished off the zombies when she saw a volley of her own weapons coming straight for her. She attempted to jump through a wormhole and dodge the attacks, but a spear fell through the wormhole and cut her across her arm. She landed on the roof of a building right above her enemies. She looked at her arm, which was oozing white blood. She grabbed her arm and tried to put pressure on the wound.

She then jumped into the air and activated ten wormholes which dropped swords onto her enemies. Her opponent or zombies, she didn't care as long as they were dead.

The figure disappeared again, immediately to be re-spotted by Peony's group, far above, as Leaf directed them to close in. As they did, swords seemed to fall out of the sky at the darkings with Trick and Jelly.

The little inky blobs slid out of the paths of the blades easily enough, but their lumbering mounts were not so maneuverable. The blades plunged into the zombies, embedding themselves in diseased, decaying flesh. After living in the Dragonlands, the darkings weren't particularly prone to being surprised by things; therefore, for all they knew nothing of zombies, they weren't surprised by the creatures' failure, overall, to be majorly set back by their wounds. Neither were they surprised by their opponent's lack of foresight, in apparently attempting to kill that which was already dead-- after all, they, too, had no prior experience with the undead.

A few zombies, those unlucky enough to be beheaded by the rain of swords, fell, unable to continue even their undeath without a head. The darkings who had been riding those ones flowed off them, swiftly finding new individuals to continue their symbiotic relationship. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the undead simply shrugged off the attack, walking ever forward without minding the swords impaling their rotted bodies. Some of the ones who still had some amount of conscious awareness pried the swords out of themselves, cradling the weapons in their grey-fleshed hands; the rest simply proceeded, looking like grim pincushions.

Having seen an example of what their opponent could do, this time, Leaf did not call Peony any backup after they had ranged around the enemy; instead, it ordered Jelly and Trick to separate once more and fan out, making sure that every part of the city remained in range of the darkings' ever-watchful gaze.

Drome reset. Battle Canceled. Both characters live.