The fight had ended, with nary a sound the Xindhi turned and made his way from the arena. The one known as Onatah had provided a unique experience during the confrontation. The great dreamer would be pleased with the visceral understanding of the shape-shifter.

Quickly emerging from the tunnel into the main concourse, Skallagrim found a tally board and watched until his opponent had been decided. Spencer. The amethyst energies flared slightly casting a lavender pallor upon the board. As the rules and arena assignments tumbled into place, the skeletal being witnessed the number nine locking into place next to the tag “Spencer vs. Skallagrim, Skallagrim to enter first.”

Gauntleted fingers tapped the hilt of the war sword, the energies whorled and carried from the eye sockets, the next battle was to begin. Framing the board into the holon’s memory so that she who sleeps would experience this moment, Skallagrim turned his head slightly down two causeway entrances, towards the next encounter. Each moment resonant and pristine, clearly defined in time as the torso twisted and the legs began to motion. Each step taken was leading towards this arena, this man known as Spencer.

Emerging from the darkened tunnel the signs of combat were visible everywhere. The scorched earth and retaining wall indicated some great heat had been expelled during the fight. Stepping upon the marble arena Skallagrim quickly noted the diffused discoloration upon the white stone. The heat had flowed from a point ahead and careened and cascaded towards the wall. Thrumming the resonance as he surveyed the arena, Skallagrim reached out to understand.

There was a spot where the marble had shown an almost parallel cycle of combined effects. These effects were born of extreme heat and sudden cold followed by moisture, where it began to decay the marble, resulting particularly in a bowing phenomenon. This sudden hydrothermal metamorphism or intense heating-cooling led to a considerable inelastic residual strain on the marble floor. Framing this tell-tale event signature in the holon, Skallagrim focused on the bowing. This spot on the arena would have to be watched as the marble would have a loss of strength in relation to the rest of the arena. Thrumming the pattern once again, focusing on the bowing stones, it revealed that the stone had lost 40% of its natural strength due to the metamorphism.

Stepping around the spot, the Xindhi turned to face the tunnel where his opponent would enter, as he did so the swords Keefe and Rhiannon sighed as each slid with a subtle rasp from their sheaths. Even as the body moved to retrieve the weapons, each motion caused the chain mail to ripple and shift. A subdued metallic ring echoed and cascaded around the arena. The crowd having heard of the Xindhi had not expected it to advance beyond the first round, now stared in amazement at the skeletal being standing in the arena. Some averted their eyes in disbelief, others stared with mouths agape, through it all one though raced through their minds, “What the hell is it?”

With an ease that came from untold millennia of existence, Skallagrim assumed his stance with his back straight yet inclined slightly forward, the shoulders straight and not slouched, his eye sockets focusing on the opponent. His left leg forward and slightly bent at the knee the foot facing the opponent. His right leg back and also bent slightly at the knee, the foot at a forty-five degree angle, the bending of the knees allowed for sudden movement. The majority of the weight of his body on the balls of his feet, the heel of the right foot rose slightly off the ground.

The war sword in a deft move flowed around Skallagrim, the weapon held low and behind his body the tip of the blade faced backward. The hand that held the sword was palm up, the edges of the sword at an obtuse angle. The war sword hidden by his body from his opponent, while the left hand gripped the seax in front of him, the left arm bent slightly, loosely as the roiling miasma that enveloped the blade angled over his right shoulder.

Even as his body shifted and the weapons flowed to their position, the energies flared in the eye sockets. Wisps of the energy swirled around his head before being carried off by the gentle breeze that filled the arena. The dusky colored cloak billowed slightly before falling back against the mailed form, the edges dusting along the discolored marble floor. Each moment framed and recorded, the susurration of the grass as the breeze caressed it. The flapping of a banner held by a fan leaning over the retaining wall that proclaimed John 3:16. All captured and framed in the memory, all stored for the great dreamer. Now he waited.

Sounds like ripping sinew, heavy grunts of determination, and sharps clanks of alloy fill Spencer’s chamber subsequent to his match with Akira. Noises lasting well into the following day, when he sets a sweaty roll of duct tape atop a pile of screws and a greasy sock near his soldering kit, and assesses his crude repair job. “Can’t trust you like this,” he mutters irritably, taking a moment to glance at the digital schedule blinking in cobalt LEDs from the band around his wrist. His next match is already due. Brushing knuckles along a ridge of adhesive material binding the halves of the rifle, amongst other things not visible through the dull, silvery tourniquet, he says, “Well, with a bit more time you’ll be good as new, and definitely more manly-looking.”

Snatching up the wakizashi leaning against the writing table, he exits the barracks. Outside, the air is crisp, as on the previous day, and obstacles to daylight cast similar shadows over the meadow as when he hectically rushed, fly-down, to the concourse of his former match. The same arena he leisurely walks to now. Such imagery lends to his observation that today’s struggle may prove no different.

With a deep breath, his nostrils flare, and he steps from light, to shade, to light.

Chard, brown grass and dry soil abrade the rough soles of his feet as strides beneath the archway leading to the marble slab, which is as he left it. Slight ripples spread outward from a point of expulsion with increasing amplitude; the place he stood and fired a veritable tsunami of molten air at another person. That was enough to ensure victory, but he took it a step too far, and broke his weapon across the man’s back. Eyes tracing the wavy pattern, which fades before reaching the other side of the platform, rove beyond a solitary obstruction, choosing rumination over examination.

As soon as I step up, I’ll have to remain until the fight is over, he reflects, lifting himself out of the circumnavigating barrens and onto the stage of war. No curtains rush back as the tide, no lights gleam prismatically down on the cast, no applause erupts from an anticipatory audience, and no eagerness reflects from Spencer’s eyes. He is just going through the motions of fulfilling everyone’s expectations. Why isn’t even a memory, but motivation never granted time for real consideration.

Musings driven from his mind by contempt for the mob.

Evidently, it only takes once for something to become passé, as those in the stands churn meaningless conversation and young men in costumes hand out concessions and refreshments and accessories and change from paper boxes suspended at their waists by nylon belts. All to watch in relative comfort the destruction of a person. Most likely himself, Spencer notes, examining a creature several yards away that appears to be decades-old remains.

Scraping ricochets off the stone enclosure as his toenail grates along the pavement, not loud enough to draw attention to himself. Devaginating the wakizashi from a stiffly-suspended scabbard strung to his hip by an ornate belt of duct tape screeches much louder. He now has their quiet attention. Not that he even wanted it. He is here to … fight? Put on a show? Die? With his right palm forward and arm low, but still in before him, he points the sword’s nib down, where it glints forbiddingly and inconsistently, the only visible sign of anxiety. In his other hand is a another blade, one that is smaller, black, and jaggy, that doesn‘t glint at all.

It isn’t as smooth as last time is his last thought before strolling toward his skeletal opponent.

As his opponent stepped upon the raised arena, there was rustling of the grass, a sigh carried along the wind. The spectators, caught up in their own moment, their own lives were completely oblivious to the actual events transpiring on that damaged and discolored marble dais.

Both warriors, now similarly equipped had advanced beyond the first round. Each combatant had used their unique abilities to get to this match, to this moment, this next encounter of martial skill. A brief thrumming of the resonance told the Xindhi what apparently the spectators missed. The plasma spewing weapon would not be employed in this fight. Framing and understanding this fact, the skeletal being swung his war sword forward from its stance, and leveled the blade at the man approaching him. The tip of the sword pointing directly at the man’s chest, with a nod of his head Skallagim held it for a moment before the sword moved again catching the light as it flowed behind him, again resting in the favored rear-guard position that all Xindhi had learned long, long ago.

The amethyst energies flared slightly as attention was paid to the bladed weapons the man brought, one was a single-edged sword, slightly curved. The other appeared to be a dirk of some sort, evilly dark and foreboding. Quickly stepping to his right three paces, the swords barely moved with the shifting of position. Graceful and deadly were the movements. Precise and accurate, this allowed the smaller and darker blade in the man’s sinistral hand to be the closer of his weapons. This change of facing would allow Skallagrim an advantage with his much longer war sword. As his right foot planted to allow the clean positioning of the rear guard stance, the energies coalesced to pin points of amethyst light in the dark, empty eye sockets.

With a sudden explosion of power, the skeletal warrior moved towards his opponent, covering nearly four yards in a span of a second, timing his war sword to swirl and flow from behind him as his right foot planted at the end of the motion. Torquing his core towards his left the war sword came up and across the body of the Xindhi until it reached its apex, with the blade angled slightly over his left shoulder. Even as the dextral weapon rose to its position the sinistral weapon snaked back so that the pommel nuzzled tightly against the heavy sword belt that encircled the waist of Skallagrim. The black miasma of energy roiled and swelled, appearing as an orb surrounding the weapon, with wisps of the dark mist carried off by the gentle breeze.

As the twist completed, as the pommel touched the belt, the war sword began its swing downward. The left foot advanced forward, passing guard as the long sword arced out towards the left forearm of the man before him. Down and across the steel blade would fall. Even as the weapon descended towards the targeted body part, the left leg planted firmly granting more power to the swing. The sinistral seax swung forward and down, the tightly gripped weapon twisted as the hand that wields it rolled over. The arm shot forward along the angle of the now planting left leg. The darkly clouded weapon darted out to offer protection over the exposed left leg, edge facing outward, the tip of the blade extending over the knee ready to swing up or out in a defensive counter. The momentum of the precise movements were compensated by the adjusting of the Xindhi’s weight on the balls of his feet, heels slightly lifted as the subtle shift of his body allowed the legs to support the attack..

Clues fall from his opponent like an autumnal crown, spiraling with momentum to their final salvo. Each inflection of that mammoth sword logically fulminate in its downward streak, even before coming to linger above the skeletal shoulder. Cunning or falsity are not the modus operandi of this aggressor, but precision; crafting an onslaught that, while a thousand years in obvious preparation, is still as effectual as though it had only drawn recognition within the blink of an eye. Its resolution precurses itself for Spencer, the weighty blade striking just past his elbow, his protective sheathing resisting the edge, but raw kinetic force shattering flesh and bone with a potency that whirls him to a painful collision with unforgiving stone.

Confronting this nightmarish creature intent on shattering him, for even blocking such a cleave would prove ruinous, Spencer’s first instinct is to do what any child would do upon straying into the thunderous path of a bull. Yet pausing to scream, to drop his favorite blanket and mask his eyes with quavering fingers, is something me must forgo. Thrusting aside his dread, his imagination bustling with increasingly more malignant incarnations of this prowling carcass with a miasmic, pulsating stare, his right foot advances and its opposing flank drifts back like a sail caught in the gust of his enemy’s fury. Spencer’s bulk shifts onto its forward limb, the jarring motion accentuating the chilly platform’s contact with his bare toes. Meanwhile, dangerously skirting Spencer’s hip, the impetus of the Xindi’s immense weapon carries it off in a plummeting crescent that, save for remarkable strength, will scathe the luminous pavement in a sharp conflagration.

Writhing in their cerebral shackles are the subtle jolt of the shirasaya when its blunt extremity encounters marble, the wind of the errant warsword, and the burden of hair matting against his brow. Shunning these, he tenses in anticipation, then Spencer propels his right arm forward and down, his reach extending across his torso as Megumi grasps to bite beneath the nearest hock of his foe.

Yet, like a sightless, tasteless poison, a bitter thought presents itself, something seeking to throw him off balance. The transparency of the Xindi is astounding, not in its naiveté, but in its fastidious planning and coordination. Of course it will step forward, transfer its inertia, and wheel around to veritably cleave Spencer in two! With this folly enraging Spencer, instinct thrusts its claws into his mind. Instinct charges the adrenaline in his left leg, forcing him forward, off his feet, and toward his enemy’s side like a vicious feline. He cares not that the serrated edge of his black fang latches onto the seax, pinning the two daggers harmlessly between the mail of he and his foe, so long as the wakizashi buries itself in gore.

Deep in the broiling dungeons of his subconscious, he fears that if he misread the next step in this dance he will not live to see much more.

Second by second, movement by movement all framed and recorded in the holon memory for visceral review by the great dreamer. Subtle shifts of bodies in motion, adjustments made to positioning, steps taken to avoid catastrophic injuries. The keen edge of the war sword hungering for flesh and bone sailed on its plotted trajectory for the sinistral arm of the man. Yet that hunger would not be sated as the double-edged blade missed its prey. Instead the steel hammers and skids along the marble casting a minute cloud of shattered stone and metal flakes up interlaced with brilliant flashes of blue-white light as the heated plasma released from the collision leap and writhe before vanishing as quickly as they appeared.

Even as the momentum of the sword and body continue, the skeletal warrior is surprised at the speed of the man before him. Clearly this warrior had no dependence on the flame spewing weapon. As the man springs forward, his legs propelling him into the mass of mail and bone followed by the onyx colored knife, which pinned the equally dark seax between the two. As weight and momentum collided with weight and momentum, Skallagrim staggered and forced the right leg to brace and support them both as a great pillar while the left leg planted and strained to not buckle under the sudden strain forced upon it.

The finely chiseled point of the wakizashi meets the metal circlets of the dusky chain, sparks would fly as metal rasped against metal. Shards of twisted debris exploded from both blade and armor in a fine cloud that drifted between them. The savagery of the attack was evident as the blade forced its way through the metal.

A sensation long forgotten by the Xindhi cascaded through the holon memory, locked in and focused as tightly as possible so that the dreamer would understand it. Pain lanced through the skeletal body as the tip of the wakizashi protruded far enough through the mail coat to draw some of the pranic energies towards it, which swirled around it as blood would had the chiseled edge pierced flesh.

A dance of martial skills always had winners and losers, pain and suffering would be experienced by those of equal skill. This would be one of those dances. Even as the man had leaped and collided with the skeletal Xindhi. The war sword which had been so adroitly avoided was to come into play. Even as the point of the weapon had skittered along the pristine marble, the traces of its passing would be noted to any who looked, it would become a factor in this intricate give and take.

The legs strained and bent, and the war sword was again in motion. The torso had twisted towards the dextral weapon and braced to survive the collision between the two. Irresistible force met immovable object, the Xindhi failed to budge more than an inch or two. The length of the war sword would now come into play as it completed the natural course of its swing. Straightening as much as possible the skeletal warrior began his counter attack. Thrusting the left shoulder forward into the chest of the leaper, the right leg propelled force through the centerline of the mailed body to add momentum to the shoulder jut.

Just as suddenly as the force had been applied, the torso twisted towards the sinistral facing pulling back and trying to disengage the seax from the dark claw of the man. Even as this occurred, the rising war sword flattened a moment before the blade flashed out and down towards the exposed bare feet of the man. The length of the war sword would be used to strike the Achilles tendon of the man’s right foot. As razors edge would seek the large, strong fibrous cord that connects the muscles in the back of the man’s lower leg to his heel bone. If it connected, there would be a loud pop or a snap as the sword sliced the tendon in half. There would be an immediate sharp pain in the back of his ankle and lower leg that would make it impossible for the man to walk properly, much less continue fighting at any great effectiveness, it would feel as if he’d been kicked, or shot there.

If this attack succeeded as he hoped, the fight would be over, as the man would be too wounded to effectively continue.

I’m not in huge amounts of pain!

Not even a fragment of the thought shatters free of his subconscious as Spencer hangs by a sword’s edge, his body grating as tightly as a lover’s against the mail-clad, skeletal mechanization of damnation. Arousing him is a shudder, his lunge’s impetus sonorously manifesting via a soprano reverberation cascading through to the fringes of the cloak worn by his enemy as they sway from the impact. In that lull, that whine within the storm‘s eye where the bewilderment of collision is entrenching and concurrently waning, where the only surface Spencer feels is a steeple of glowering bones and metal grinding against his thighs and arm and chest, it occurs to him that they are not nearly close enough. A series of sensation barrage him. Not serially, but with a simultaneity that cannot be properly recorded, and only understood by the order in which his mind later captured them.

Strength. His virility roars, propelling him upward by the raw momentum of his bestial leap and by the leverage of his hungry, biting blades. Both taste metal, but one cuts in to what war truly means. Sakura Megumi savors the vitae behind the armor, and while it drinks, Spencer leverages it to complete his ascent. As the apex is met, an incidental is the weapon’s vicious withdrawal.

Intensity. He brings his knees up, his thighs scraping against buttocks and pelvis while his abdomen crushes two blades against a wrist. As his weight transfers to his legs, he leans forward, and his chest slams into the Xindi’s shoulder, successfully pinning its left arm, as well as his own, the terminal point of which continues vying for supremacy with the seax. A jolt of his hand and, at least for a little while longer, that particular threat remains caught in the miniature teeth of his combat knife. To maintain his advantage, he extends his lower legs, eager to bring them together and complete his embrace.

Smell. Intimately close as they are, the Xindi’s scent is not nearly as repugnant as imagination might concoct. Only the faint scent of death meets Spencer’s nostrils, defying a figment that, moments earlier, invaded his mind as they stood at opposite ends of the platform and first beheld each other.

Pain A burning sensation lancing across his left shin as the warsword strikes down, its edge fraying the protective cover of his pant leg on its errant descent toward the pavement; the force behind it such that, if the tip does not shatter on contact, it speaks to its superb craftsmanship. There is also blunt pain, from a shoulder striking his ribs and the conflict of two knives and two fists grating against the unforgiving surfaces of his protective clothing and the shielding of his enemy.

As those thoughts settle in Spencer’s mind, he senses his right arm above him and sees the blade it holds thrust between his and the Xindi’s visage. Megumi Sakura captures the firmament’s polychromatic ballad on its blinding, lustrous length beautifully, until he rams it down, straight down, and images of the jeering crowd dart across its reflective surface. In an obscure afterthought, perhaps of mercy despite the horror this foe emanates, he screams “GIVE UP!” into its ear. Otherwise, Spencer’s wakizashi won’t stop with a prick, but will rupture Skallagrim’s suprasternal barrier and bury itself hilt-deep behind ribs. That is, if he can stop it at all.

(OOC: Since Spencer's attack would be deadly, this is also my closing post.)

Spencer’s blade pierces its mark, ripping through the Xindi’s trunk with lethal accuracy and driving its knees mercilessly to the marble floor. From within its armor drips vitae, spilling like a waterfall of hidden origin to splatter upon the pristine masonry and spread as a quiet pool around the two embracing warriors. A gurgle erupts from its throat, but only fluid manages escape; the flood of rupturing organs, veins, and glands, if any exist within such a being.

Releasing Megumi Sakura, Spencer wraps his arm around the shoulders of the larger, fading form, and listens intently to its final breath. It comes out, like the wind in an ancient sarcophagus when breaching its ancient seal, then all that he hears is the sound of his own laborious rasping. The hush of the crowd accentuates the moment, but it cannot last forever. Before rigor mortis sets in, Spencer returns his knife to its scabbard and pulls from the Xindi’s petrifying fingers the warsword and the seax, the latter of which he tucks in his waistband. Then, relinquishing his enemy and standing upon his own feet and, he clasps the wakizashi by its hilt wrenches it from its fleshy sheath.

With two new weapons in his possession, Spencer departs, leaving behind the liquid impressions of his bare feet. Perhaps the fallen person - for despite their appearance, they were at least that - will be reborn into something less offensive to the eyes.