Snippet #6736

For once, this fight perked Alex's interest a bit. It wasn't as common to see women fighting in the arena, and these two were definitely skilled, especially the mage. He was also curious as to why the mage was wearing a mask. Was she a well known criminal in disguise? Though he hadn't heard of the name Katrina Yuned, it could have eluded him. Seeing the end of the match though, he mentally eliminated the criminal element. It could also be a pretty well known person, possibly with a false name, He thought to himself while going through several people in his head, but not able to match the profile to this fighter. Or it could simply be a stunt for the crowd.

While he was debating this and whether to look into it, rather than attend the matches, he heard the announcer's voice call out.

"Martin Dreynon, Cameron Dirgil. The time for battle is upon you!"

Martin stood up and left the balcony to enter into the stands. Alex watched as he left, and could tell the younger brother looked rather nervous. Alex couldn't help feeling nervous either. This was his brother's first actual fight, and a lot of the participants were ruthless and blood thirsty. But seeing his opponent stand and walk through the crowd, his blood ran cold. A necromancer...

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Since the gates were already submerged beneath the mass of water the gladiators actually had to enter through the stands. Cameron slowly and gracefully walked through the stairs beside the stands ignoring the cheering crowd. When he reached the edge he leapt down about ten feet, gracefully landing on one of the metal platforms directly below himself.

He tapped the bottom of the staff on the platform and the eyes of the skull lit up bright green. Some of the crowd actually gasped. After all under King Egan necromancy was outlawed, but Genox quickly lifted that restriction upon taking over the throne.

Martin waited a few moments as the necromancer made his way down before continuing down the steps on the other side of the arena. Waiting until he was at a safe height, he took a few running steps before propelling himself into the air and executing a flip before landing on the platform below on one leg and knee.

Pushing himself up he grinned at his opponent before unsheathing his sword. Eying his opponent he frowned slightly at the staff. A necromancer huh? I'm going to have to end this quickly. Stretching his neck from one side of the other, he watched his opponent carefully. Although he gave off the appearance that he wasn't ready, especially with his slight slouching look, he was quite ready for the necromancer.

The necromancer remained motionless for a moment and then took a few steps and walked directly on top of the water, he just stood there floating like a feather. A few in the crowd actually booed knowing that the necromancer now had a distinct advantage over the other warrior.

After a few more steps on the cold blue liquid he shook his staff and green balls began to emit from the skulls eyes and slowly form around Cameron, once around eight or nine had accumulated they shot at blinding speeds one after another straight for Martin.

Seeing the green balls flying towards him, Martin jumped backwards through the air, the first going dangerously close to him. Landing on his hands on the edge of the platform he swung himself down into the water, grimacing slightly at the iciness of the water as the rest of the energy balls went sailing over him. Pushing himself back up out of the water, he landed on his feet, his clothes now dripping with water. He shook his head slightly, his hair getting tangled a bit. Holding his sword out in front of him, he ran across the platform before jumping to another closer to the necromancer, all the while trying to formulate a plan.

"At least give me a challenge boy" Cameron hissed in a very supernatural voice. Many people in the crowd clapped their hands over their heads as his voice alone stung their ears. He reached out with his free hand and began to mumble incoherent words that pained the hearing of any who heard it. With each word he mumbled he attempted to drain the very essence of life out of Martin Dreynon.

Martin winced at the tone of the necromancer's voice, but continued towards the necromancer. Seeing the robed man raise his hand, he began sprinting in a zigzag fashion with various speeds, hoping to throw off what ever incantation his opponent might be trying.

Switching his sword to his other hand, Martin pulled out a dagger from his belt and skidded to a stop, his arm quickly retracting as if to throw the dagger. Instead, he disappeared from the spot he'd been standing in, appearing on a platform behind the necromancer, and flung his arm forward. He watched intently as the dagger sailed through the air, the intended target being the necromancer's heart.

The warrior seemed unremarkable, that's what the necromancer thought. But he quickly regretted underestimating him as the dagger sailed through his back and the tip of the blade appeared through his chest. He fell forward in to the water and sank beneath it. The crowd cheered as it had appeared that Martin had won. However things are not always as they appear to be on the surface. And not a single drop of blood appeared floating in the water.

Suddenly green tentacle like beams shot out of the water with a large splash. One wrapped tightly around each of Martin's arms and legs as well as his waist and throat. Underneath the water the beams were attached to the necromancer's staff and he was standing at the bottom of pool attempting to pull and drag Martin down with him.

The grin on Martin's face from his seemingly apparent win turned to shock as he was suddenly bound by the beams. To make it worse, the beams around his throat and waist were tight, forcing the air out of him. Gasping for breath, he twisted his wrist to bring the sword to the beam, before realizing it would do little good. Looking over at the next platform as his body gave way, he focused on the spot before disappearing and appearing on the metal. He fell to the ground due to being more intent on escaping than making sure he had a good orientation. Rubbing his neck, he stood up and looked down at the water.

"Are you going to stand down there all day, or are you going to come up here and fight me?" Martin yelled, with a slight taunting tone to it.

Cameron would have chuckled had he not been underwater but instead he slammed his staff in to the concrete which began to split in a zig zag pattern all across the arena. The water began to drain soaking in to the sand through the fissures and the metal platforms quickly became towers that started to crash to the ground including the one that Martin was on.

Through the fissures completely fleshless hands appeared frantically grasping on to the edges. Soon enough a dozen skeletons had crawled out from beneath the arena, reassembled from the bones of fallen gladiators. Each and every skeleton prepared to attack Martin though they had no weapons to speak of. However the Necromancer himself had fallen to one knee, his power was quickly thinning out.

Martin staggered as the ground shook, and the metal platform suddenly gave way. He could now see where the necromancer had been hiding, but he had to focus on making it down safely. The tower quickly made it to the ground and Martin jumped, short of either being thrown badly or falling with the tower, turning it into something of a roll as he hit the ground. Getting up, his hand instinctively went to his shoulder which had gotten injured in the impact.

Looking over at the necromancer, he prepared to attack, when he saw the skeletons standing up. Spinning around to see he was surrounded, he turned back to the necromancer to see his opponent was finally weakened. Tearing across the field, he put his shoulder down to slam into one of the skeletons, it's fragile frame knocked to the ground. Coming up close to the necromancer, he raised his sword in the air and jumped, bringing it down towards the robed man. Not waiting to see if it hit, he appeared behind the man, having changed his orientation by teleporting, he swung his blade at the man's head.

The blade sailed right through the necromancer's neck and his head came clean off, his body went limp and the summoned skeletons stumbled and began to crack and shatter into pieces.

Martin stepped back a bit as blood spewed from the man's lifeless body, looking somewhat disgusted as some made it onto his clothes. Martin looked up towards the stands as the deafening roar of the crowd followed, he raised his arms and yelled a victory cry as the crowd cheered. Turning back to the man, he took back the dagger before walking out of the arena.