The Rend

A woman's scream broke the Figure's concentration, it's burning gaze shifting from the still nervous boy in front of them. Turning it's massive head, their single eye found the source of the noise, a rather furious looking woman. Spouting flames no less. The Armored figure moved to stand, casting a shadow back over the arena and drawing a massive polearm from its back. While not threatened by the newcomer's appearance, her seemingly unstable nature was a legitimate cause for concern.

Unstable people meant fighting. Fighting of course lead to death, and with no viable escape from the Arena they had found themselves landed in, bodies piling up before a plan could be made to grant their release was of course, and issue. Further still the figure had caught the boy's unease as he had first caught sight of the woman. His reaction led them to believe that he either knew her personally, or at least knew what she was capable of. If the boy was worried, then the figure would be right to worry too.

"Sneaky little Liberty fuckers!"

Charming, this one.

The burning eye within the figure's helm regarded the flame entrenched woman calmly. Magic was no good. Magic was nothing like a body, it could not be crushed or cut to pieces. As far as the towering figure was concerned, Magic was only a nuisance.

Hefting their Polearm, the figure edged forward, stance relaxed but their burning gaze unwavering. They would allow the Flaming Woman to calm herself if she was at all able. And if she was unable to, then a decision would be made for her swiftly.

Ezenvare Queem

---

Eze looked into the bag after Armory opened it for him, with a simple pull on a strange metal tab. Ignoring the outside world Eze shoved his head straight into the bag. A bucket. A spool of metal rope. Another bucket. The scent of salt water. SALT WATER!!!

Pulling his head out of the bag, Eze quickly placed the bag down and pulled out the simple metal bucket. As he peeked into the bucked, Eze found more than what he was hoping for. Sea water and fish, the two things he could possibly need when trapped in a desert. With little time to think, the half dragon shoved his muzzle into the water, biting at the fish that was swimming around to avoid the dual-toothed jaws.

After several moments of struggling with the fish, Eze just tilted the bucked into his mouth. Sucking in both the sea water and the helpless fish Eze quickly took deep breaths. The water was like heaven, but here it wouldn't last very long. He placed the bucket back in the bag and attempted to close the bag.

Pulling in the opposite direction that Armory had pulled on the small metal tab, Eze shredded it. His claws tore through the small piece of paper. With a sigh Eze pulled out the metal rope and used his claws to make a couple holes near the top of the bag. Within moments he had the bag laced up like a shoe.

"Sneaky little Liberty fuckers!" Came a loud voice from what was quite the imposing woman. Eze cowered back, sparks beginning to cover his body as he took a defensive posture. As he moved further back, the sparks moved towards his mouth where they seemed to be calumniating.

Wait! Wait, wait, wait- hold on, that wasn’t supposed to happen yet! The gates- the gates weren’t supposed to open yet! They were supposed to stay there for a while longer, get all friendly, and then I would pull the “all-omnipotent being” card and impress them all! This- this won’t do, no, not at all. It was supposed to be this grand event, not so soon! Uh, um, how- how will I fix this- how did this even happen- but, uh...I can make this work! Yep! Nothing is going out of plan! Just need to, uh,, make a few adjustments, make sure that this doesn’t happen again. I shall be the best Game Master anyone has seen. Right!

Alright, I think I got it. Yep, this will work! Ahem, let me just- just get my nice little narration going. Clear throat and all. Ahem. The gates suddenly closed once again, keeping everyone from leaving before they could escape. Yeah, no way of, uh, tunneling out or anything, or lifting the gates. Nada. Can’t do any weird super speed stuff either- just all stuck there for the time being. Forced to- well- sit tight. And it’s not like you’d even want to leave yet, either! Because there’s...spiders outside the gate! Really massive ones, I’m not kidding- and- and not like the ones the size of your little finger that get in your shower, and you think, “Wow, that’s a pretty big spider” before going ahead and crushing it- no. These ones are...they’re as big as the armored one, and as wide as three people of healthy weight. Yep. And, uh, there’s lava, too! Don’t ask me how the lava isn’t getting in through the grates, but there’s a whole mess of molten rock outside.

And the spiders, you ask? Well, they’re also lava-proof! Ha! Bet you didn’t expect that! And there’s...lightning, too! Granted, don’t particularly want to use lightning, but you should know how serious I am about this when I bring in the lightning! I’ll just add in a few goblins, too, for good measure- maybe a few rabid bunnies, a few lava-sharks…And...done! Yep! No way out yet, so they’ll all have to just sit and be cozy. I am going to be the best at this, I swear- Rend, you are a complete and absolute genius.

---

---

Having been peacefully asleep before this, Ocean woke instantly when she was transported from her bed to a hard packed floor. Assuming a kidnapping - common for her coveted position - she opened her eyes but otherwise lay still, observing her surroundings. Magic enhanced her senses so she could "eavesdrop" on the others in the arena, and soon she gathered that none of them knew how or why they were there. And from the discussions, it seemed they were all from different worlds.
She moved quickly but trying to avoid drawing attention, her hair falling everywhere because her clips had been misplaced in this summoning. Someone shouted they had found an exit and she looked over, only to watch through the grates as obstacle after obstacle appeared.

With the ease of long practice, she made her mind go blank of future plans, once again choosing to observe. Giving up on remaining unnoticed, she flicked out her wings to their full size, fluttering them until the magical field was strong enough to lift her into the air. She saw the grating above as well, and kept well below it, trying to see if anyone from her world had been brought along for the ride.

Sarah Ender was deeply tranced from the creatures around her. "I am way out of my world here." she said to herself, "I want to go home". She stood in the darkness trying to collect some power from it. it helped a little but not much. she strayed out towards the edge of the arena and watched the others with curiosity. she sat down, a mist of purple Ender essence trailed behind her as she moved. she pulled out a small cube from her pocket and fiddled with it as the others bickered.

The Knight straightened up and planted her feet, ready to release a burst if she needed to engage in any crowd control. She took a moment in order to survey some of the individuals present, a number of which seemed to be watching her with concern, or hostility. An assortment of people, and a number of things that were not people at all. Some of the things there didn't even really qualify as animals.

Experiments, she concluded, or possibly some of the strange things Marvellous Balthazar or Chancellor Azrael were likely to conjure up. However you looked at it, there were far too many freaks here for it to be Liberty. The whole thing lacked the kind of uniformity that she would expect from Libbers.

Aslanders?

That only raised another heap of questions though. Especially regarding how the masked one knew her name. She'd heard it mentioned one or two times from the direction of her, but she couldn't ever remember seeing such a creature in her usual career.

Kor was just taking a moment to think it over, when a blue glow caught her eye and she rounded on it, dark grey eyes setting on the form of Drake.

"You! What the hell is going on here?! Spit it out you grubby little terrorist or I'll try my very best to make sure that you stay dead this time!"

A few sparks fizzed between her fingers as she regarded him. Whilst she'd been hoping to see a familiar face, this was not at all what she had had in mind.

The armored figure tightened their grip on their Polearm, lumbering closer to the angry woman. Their sole eye focused on the magic bursting to life on her hands, and the briefly entertained the though of striking her while she was preoccupied.

But that would be rude.

But it'd be even more rude to let her just start killing people. Arena or not, there were still RULES that needed to be adhered to.

It was precisely at the moment the figure was trying to determine if decapitation or simply punting the woman across the arena would be the best way to silence her, the disembodied voice from before began speaking again. This time the figure had the decency to listen to it, and almost immediately regretted doing so. Something about spiders rivaling their own size, not a serious problem. Though the smaller ones had a habit of climbing inside of them and making nests. A swim through lava was quite a pleasant thing, the Figure could not understand why that would be so awful until the recalled that less sturdy things would surely die. They had no clue what Lava Sharks were, much less Bunnies, but they could not be so awful.

What truly worried the armored figure was that the owner of the Voice confirmed their suspicions. They were in fact, a powerful being plucking individuals from their homes and dropping them in an Arena for amusement. This in an of itself was not a complete surprise. The powerful tended to enjoy Arena games, and nothing was more entertaining than watching complete strangers kill each other for amusement.

What worried the armored figure was the Voice's entire demeanor. They obviously did not want anyone here to leave, that much was obvious. But their manner was like that of a child wanting playmates, not such much an angry God demanding blood.

And while on the surface it seemed like a small issue, what would happen if the Voice did not like how the people in the Arena 'Played'?

Worse still, what if they became bored of them all?

Khojin through up her hands in resignation, turning away slightly and muttering something indecipherable. At least the warrior seemed open to conversation. She turned back, slapping Drake on the shoulder as she did. "Go get her, buddy. See if you can manage not to get torn in half." Leaning in, she added, "If you can slip my name in I'd appreciate it. Khojin Malqir, strong 'e' on clan name's second syllable, silent 'h' in the first name if you try to spell it later."

She took a step to the side to give them space, clapping the winged boy on the shoulder once more for luck and flashing him an encouraging, toothy grin.

Enter Adira, rising to the occasion and stepping forward in defense of the kid. Khojin couldn't help but be entertained as the Shao girl tore into the larger woman verbally, reciting almost exactly the same thing Khojin had whispered to the boy just a moment before. The girl was tougher than Khojin had given her credit for; she wondered what she'd look like in combat. Maybe the two Shaos would enter combat against each other. Khojin couldn't help but feel herself get a little giddy.

Armory stepped back as Eze began to explore the contents of his newly opened bag. The dragon man almost immediately grabbed a a bucket from out of the bag, an greedily began to consume what looked like fish, and water. Great, not only did Eze seem to be a physically powerful dragon creature but it appeared he was some kind of water loving creature. Water. John was not a fan so he stepped back lest the hungry man accidentally got even a drop of water on his sleek metallic frame.

Just then he turned his attention away from Eze back towards Stride, and Madison who had just posed an interesting question. Where did the other come from? He watched the strange mask creature, now dubbed Oliver, who evidently had very little in the way of memory. John then opened his mouth to answer the pale woman's question when several other odd characters made themselves known, and gathered near the girl with the strange lizard, and another female creature that he couldn't place. One of these new figures, was a massive ratehr imposing set of armor, John was not quite sure if anyone was even in the thing. The other newcomer, a girl who seemed to fit many definitions of the word "fiery" who illicited quite a lot of attention from some of the others.

Armory however was not really concerned with her, at least not compared with what happened not too far from the cyborg. Eze had suddenly began creating sparks from his body, an action which illicited an immediate reaction from John as he quickly jumped back from the dragon, his hands making a not very subtle jerk towards his side arms. And now it seemed he could produce lightening. John was rapidly beginning to dislike the man, and he tried to bury the fear that began to rise in the back of his mind. Eze could quite easily kill the cyborg, so he wanted to keep his distance.

It was the the mysterious voice had decided to address the them again. It was clearly a being of great power, though not one of nerve or decisiveness apparently. The being described quite a few obstacles, many of them ranging from dangerous to outright ridiculous. Though nothing beyond the gate frightened John more than the promise of lightning. He made a quick decision that he would not be the first one to step foot outside that gate.

It was at this point the fiery girl had started to cause some kind of commotion with many of the others. A fight seemed to be on the verge of breaking out between the fiery woman, and the girl with the strange pet. John let out a sigh. Maybe they'd kill each other and John would just have less problems to deal with. The notion of a bloody fight breaking out let a small smile come to his lips, and a chuckle escape his mouth."Well looks like some of the others are in the mood for a fight. This could get interesting. He spoke to on one in particular, though it was quiet clear he was looking forward to a fight. He was eager to possibly learn about the combat abilties of some of the other people trapped here.

Ezenvare Queem

---

Things were escalating quickly since this new woman appeared, and Eze knew that a fight would not be the best thing at the moment. Still in his defensive posture he mental went over everything that he could do. Just clawing one of them would only make things worse. Talking obviously wasn't working. There was no water to throw the woman in to try and cool her down, though Eze doubted just how good of an idea that was. Then one idea that might work came to mind.

Slamming his staff into the ground, he leapt upon it even faster than when he first woke. He was hydrated, hopefully enough to knock one of them out if they retaliated for what he was going to do.

Suddenly the sound of a voice like lightning originated from the half-dragon, the sparking in his mouth seeming to help with it. "No one will fight here so long as I stand!" Boomed his thunderous voice before a massive bolt of light blue shot from his mouth and over those near him. It landed between the would be fighters, kicking up smoke and dust as well as punching a half-foot deep crater into the area it landed. With singed sand and all.

Eze remained balancing on his staff with a single food and his claws obviously at a ready position. If it came to fighting, Eze wouldn't go down without one hell of a fight.

Xinder Ouquid

---

Xin had been focused on the flaming girl when suddenly some voice that sounded like lightning with words hit his ears like a cannon. Turning to the origin of the sound all that he saw was the bronze colored lizard man with sparks jumping all around his head and mouth. Then something Xin didn't believe could happen did. A perfect bolt of lightning flew from the damn thing's mouth.

Electricity just didn't work like that. It just didn't. It jumped in arks. It followed paths of least resistance. It spread to other things. That was why plasma and slugs were so popular when electricity itself was the best counter to barriers was because they could be controlled and electricity always found a way to disobey.

What was even more surprising was that the landing zone of the bolt didn't just heat up. It fucking exploded. No. No way. There was no water there. Nothing to expand with enough force to do that. When the dust started to settle, Xin spotted singeing along the crater and what looked like some flash formed glass.

Okay, the lizard/dragon man gained some respect. Xin may not have heard what exactly he was shouting about, but a display like that was impressive. Perhaps it was a simpler mind dumped into a body from a place even more advanced than Alphadine, or perhaps it was some natural thing that a whole species adapted. Whatever it was, it was damned impressive. And threatening.

Mixing force and electricity might actually be able to over-power Xin's barriers. While this marked the lizard as a valuable ally, it also made him the priority target of Xin. If that thing were to ever try that with Xin, it would quickly find a fresh bullet right between the eyes.

Upon seeing that Eze was too preoccupied to notice the gesture, Madison pulled his hand back, folding it neatly against his chest before letting it fall to his side. It seemed that the being was happy, at least, draining the bucket as if it contained the nectar of the gods. And, as far as the researcher was concerned, a happy stranger was a peaceful stranger- and a stranger far more willing to establish familiarity. He paused, dusting off his sleeves, and then turned away to better take into view the youth from earlier, who had now hid himself under the umbrella with obvious gratitude.

“It’s no problem, really. With how hot it is in the shade, I can only imagine how it must feel out there.” Madison then smiled brightly at the other- although his expression once again shifted upon seeing the man’s hand suddenly fly from his wrist, wrap about the handles of his bag, and drag it back.

Madison blinked. Then blinked again. Then again, for good measure. After the third and final blink, he gave a small shrug, instead glancing back over to his own bag as if suddenly reminded that it existed. Considering his company- especially with the revelation of them all coming from different worlds- he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to take a look. Dropping gracefully to the floor, Madison opened up the metal teeth and began to rummage inside. There was a sun hat and a pair of sunglasses within (which, to his delight, went wonderfully with his current outfit), various other pieces from his wardrobe, and even the notepad he had thought missing. After putting on both hat and glasses, and tucking his pocketbook back into his pocket, Madison resumed his search, intrigued by the contents lying inside the carry-on.

Beneath the neatly folded clothes, and beneath the small makeup kit that had been nestled up to the fabrics, were more...useful (not that what he had discovered earlier wasn’t useful, of course) contents, to say the least. A rifle was tucked neatly at the bottom of the bag, along with a basic handgun, and a pair of knives. While Madison was curious to explore more of his little weapons’ stash in the way that the others had, he thought better of it, instead turning to the rest.

Other than the same weapons-care items and customary bullets his coworker had, there was little difference between his pack and the basic items of the others- although there was no food or water whatsoever. Instead, his collection of medical items contained a basic blood transfusion kit, and a few plastic containers to go along with it.

Well, that was certainly thoughtful of their captor to include.

Suddenly, a girl’s voice rose above the clamor, calling out that she had found an exit. Intrigued, Madison looked up, only to find that the way out she was gesturing at had been closed off. And, in addition, there appeared to be...spiders? outside. From where he sat, he could see the creatures clawing at the metal, hissing at those who lay within and attempting to slide their fangs through the gaps.

While the girl certainly hadn’t lied, it seemed that, at the moment, any way of leaving was blocked off. Frowning at the thought, Madison decided to turn his attentions onto something more positive- such as the youth who had joined them. He was clearly uncertain about his origins, hinting at amnesia, but Madison continued to smile placidly at the other- Oliver, or so he had said.

“That’s fine, Oliver; you’ve still helped with what you’re able to remember. Thank you.” A short nod, sending what hair was left uncovered by the hat swaying lightly with the movement.




While Madison had been far more lax about the prospect of an escape, Stride had already begun to make her way over to the iron gate, having heard both the shouts and whirring of metal from where she had been standing. However, before she had even reached half the distance between her “starting point” and the gate, it had shut- with what visible land that could have been seen from through the bars quickly being hidden from sight by...lava?

“Well,” Stride suddenly drawled, gaze shifting to the one who had cried out that she had found an escape. “That’s a real interestin’ way of gettin’ out you were thinkin’ of, but, y’know, not all of us can swim through lava, kid.” Before she could even get a proper reaction to her words, however, the situation had suddenly taken a rather interesting turn. The Kora-doppleganger had suddenly started shouting at one of the younger-looking strangers gathered, calling him a terrorist, and- from the looks of it- preparing to fight. The kid didn’t look exactly happy about the redhead’s presence, either, hands flaring up with visible blue light.

Even during such a scenario, Stride couldn’t deny her interest in what was most likely a potential fight. She crossed her arms over her chest as she approached, hoping for a better view, although a scowl quickly overtook her expression at the intervention. Fights were always fun to watch, after all- especially when it was some weird emo kid versus an angry Norwegian. Nevertheless, she refrained from speaking at first, listening to the various back and forth for a while between the groups.

That is, until the Eze creature suddenly shot a bolt of fucking lightning out of nowhere.

“The fuck, Godzilla?” Instinctively, one of Stride’s hands flew to her submachine, preparing to draw it if necessary. “Ya know, when ya rant about not fightin’ then go and shoot fuckin’ lazers everywhere, that kinda defeats the damn purpose!” Squinting at the lizard for a while, she cast a glance over to Kora-Ganger, what familiarity that would have inevitably managed to slip in cast away from the previous surprise.

“You’re sayin’ that kid’s a terrorist?” Stride paused, peering over at Drake skeptically. “Looks like he could barely lift a stick ‘fore breakin’ his arms.”




Almost immediately upon seeing the fight brewing, Madison had practically flown from the ground and onto his feet, staring towards the little gathering with a deep frown. While he truly didn’t know many here asides from Stride and Kora- and even then, the latter wasn’t of his world, by the looks of it- there was still the matter of a godlike being watching over them. Of course, what the being even wanted was up for a debate, but Madison had a strong gut feeling that it wasn’t for everyone to get killed off so quickly. He hurriedly slipped a pair of gloves on from the bag and jogged over, taking care not to use ]too much of his own skills so soon- and casting a friendly nod in the direction of the fairy floating above the arena, hello there, good to meet you and all- and stopped some distance away from the actual fight.

“How about we all just calm down and don’t use any sort of weapons or magic or anything in this situation?” Madison offered. “It won’t do any good here, aside from potentially letting in those.” Almost casually, he gestured over to the gate, where some sort of vibrant red shark was baring its teeth against the grate.

Sharks. Wonderful creatures, really, but not something he exactly wanted flopping about and causing even more havoc.

And the lava also posed a problem, too.

((Not sure where that other post by me came from. Probably when I was checking the board on my phone. Anyway!))


The small people were becoming more and more of a nuisance. It was apparent that they could not hold a conversation without flinging insults and threats. Another time and in another place, the armored figure would have simply let them all kill each other and gone about their business. Here however, they had the misfortune of being stuck with all of them for the forseeable future, and their patience was a touch less sturdy than the armor encasing them.

The figure hefted their massive polearm, a metal claw tapping impatiently on the wooden handle. The Fire Person was undoubtedly causing the most trouble, her demeanor was obviously beginning to wear on the patience of everyone else.

And so it was without the smallest bit of hesitance that the figure determined she'd be the first to die.

Lifting the heavy bladed weapon over their horned head, the armored figure prepared to bring it down on the irritable woman. They were vaguely aware of the other girl's presence, and hoped she had enough sense to get out of the way.

It was about midway through their arc that ANOTHER person started yelling.

The armored figure would have simply ignored them too, however the shouting came with a bolt of lightning and an incredible amount of force. The Figure was promptly thrown of balance, the blade of their polearm hitting the ground a few feet off target and shattering the tiles lining the arena floor. The cloud of dust kicked up by the lighting strike was big enough to obscure the armored figure for a moment, though their voice cut through it plain as day.

"That was completely unnecessary."

"What are you doing?!" Ocean was decidedly unimpressed with the behavior of most of those in the arena. A flick of her wings brought her closer to the group, where she turned slowly, taking them all in. "She's clearly fire bound, and if I know anything about fire, it's that it's volatile. You can't subdue fire with fire! That's how you make it worse!"

The expression on her face said she would very much like to facepalm, but years of being a perfect lady at court stopped the exasperated reaction. "Stop showing off. All of you." It had to be showing off, because who tried to claim they were protecting peace while shooting at those who were already high strung.

She called on her magic as she spoke, weaving layers and layers of shields and other protective devices because the ones here with the most power seemed the least rational. "You, with the black hair and wings. Move from her sight? Miss?" she turned to Kora while opening weaponless hands. "Despite their actions, no one wants to hurt you. And we've been transplanted, your old enemies are not here."

She then nodded back at the only person in the arena to acknowledge her existence outwardly, just to be polite, while carefully, trying to not make it obvious that it was her doing, she began to encase the giant armour suit's weapon with ice, growing by the second and becoming heavier and heavier, layering it with reinforcement and trapping it against the ground.

Everyone was being very noisy, now. It was sort of ruining the fun of Adira and the larger woman's confrontation.The Hei-Senn could apparently shoot lightning out of his mouth. Evidently not a Hei-Senn. Khojin had never encountered one who could pull that off; she was fairly certain she'd remember that. She'd also seen the Armored figure move to raise his... what was that, a halberd? Regardless, it was covered in ice now, courtesy of the... actually, she severely doubted that was a Shao. She made a mental note to start asking before she assumed these things.

She scratched the back of her head, eyes flicking lazily between those who had involved themselves in the affair. Considering for a moment, she decided it might be wise to separate the two parties. Casting one last look at the warrior woman's biceps, she tapped Adira and the boy on their shoulders, tilting her head toward one side of the arena to indicate her intention.

Kora was busy glaring at the form of Drake, in case he was about to try anything, when she was confronted. Far from being much deflated or wounded by Adira's comments, the woman laughed, causing the messy ginger strands of her hair to tremble in response. She took a step forward, having nearly a foot in height on her opponent, and responded.

"What? Are you trying to tell me off? That's pretty funny considering you're launching your squeaky little defence for a violent anarchist whose friends have tried to murder me three times and took my six year old daughter hostage. I can't help but feel like you're the only one working with no understanding of the situation, kid. Now pipe down and piss off. Grown-ups are talking. "

She had already finished and was about to turn her full attention back to Drake when she heard movement behind her, and turned in time to see the metal abomination about to attack her. It was just at that point that the lightning slammed into the floor right next to her.

For whatever the creature responsible had intended to do, this had the opposite effect, of making someone who was already rather on edge seem under attack. Kora sprang out of the way, into a clear space, and the power that surrounded her hands flared out around her in order to definitely claim the territory as her own.

A searing red-gold glow burst from the woman's chest to cover all her skin, and the air around her began to warp and dance with an intense level of heat. The stone beneath her feet started to blacken. Steam drifted up our from her mouth and nose as she spoke.
"BACK. OFF."

Her gaze then set upon Ocean, somewhat suspicious, though this was probably the most reasonable thing she'd heard so far.
"People are most certainly trying to hurt me. " she responded, her hair dancing in the wavering heat.
"Even though this is none of their business. And there is an old enemy here. I have some scores to settle and I don't think this is a 'bury the hatchet' sort of thing. If people're ignorant enough to strike at a person with no idea what their vendetta is then all I can say is they got a pretty twisted set of priorities."

The Figure set his single burning eye upon the winged woman, their voice echoing from inside their helm. "When there is a Fire burning out of control, wisdom dictates that you put it out immediately."

The Armored figure was beginning to lose patience at an increasing rate. These small creatures were making a simple problem even MORE complicated, and it did not bode well for the future of everyone present. Currently only one person was making a fuss. So it stood to reason that that one person should be silenced. Simple really. The Figure moved to stand, voice still echoing from their Helm. "And Rasteva does not show off, Tiny One. Rasteva simply does-" The Figure now known as Rasteva stopped speaking suddenly, their single glowing eye moving to stare at their Polearm. A Polearm that was currently encased in Ice, something they were SURE they did not allow. "Rude."

Rasteva tugged at the Polearm's shaft, attempting to pull it loose. The Ice groaned in response, cracking in some places but otherwise did not budge. The armored figure stared down at the weapon for another moment before leaving the weapon as a lost cause, and deciding to equip themselves with a new one.

And they did so by opening their mouth.

The snarling helm that made up Rasteva's head parted its jaws, black smoke coiling from between them. Wider and wider the jaws opened, until smoke was pouring out in great clouds. The armored figure lifted a guantlet and promptly shoved it into their still gaping maw. Rummaging around inside for a moment, the giant grabbed hold of something and began to pull it out. Foot after foot of double edged blade was pulled from the figure's mouth and eventually freed altogether. The black smoke dissipated as Rasteva snapped their metal jaws shut, and the slung the newly acquired sword onto their back. "Better."

Rasteva turned their gaze back onto the flaming woman, who had at some point while they were distracted, started kicking up an literal Firestorm. The armored figure mulled over their thoughts silently. She would not go down without a fight, and she clearly wanted to do the boy not far off serious harm. The figure decided, that she was more trouble than she was worth, and something had to be done about her.

They only hoped that she could be dealt with quickly before she burned the entire Arena down.

Many things could easily be said about Stride.

Aggressive, mainly. “Snarky” would be another proper word to describe her with, along with “rude”, “loud-mouthed”, “annoying”, and “a general bitch”. There was a very long list, after all, brought upon years of working under SCION, and working with a group just as volatile as she. It was part of the job description, just as waking up in abandoned alleys was.

However, for all that she could be called, one thing was for sure; she at least had morals, and she was damn well sticking to them.

“Okay, I don’t know what the fuck all of your deals are, but where I’m from, ya don’t really solve violence by tryin’ to electrocute someone, stab them, or whatever the hell you’re tryin’ to do there.” The woman’s scowl was very much audible in her voice as she looked around at the group, glaring at the majority from beneath her mask. “Cause, ya know, that’s fucking redundant you asshats.” She went silent, taking a moment to devour a few gulps of air, and allowing Drake the perfect window of time to give his little speech on how they should all be buddy-buddy and get along and dance in the meadows of joy and friendship. Granted, Stride was currently trying to lower conflict herself, but she wasn’t being a hippie about it at least.

“Hey, kid!” By this point, she had raised her voice to better be heard by the other- even going so far as to cup her hands around her mouth in an attempt to raise her volume. “We don’t know what the hell ‘Your-esco’ is, or why ya hate the U.S. so much, but are ya a terrorist or not!” Fucking hippies; always complaining about how America was doing things wrong.

To the fairy woman, she only gave a salute at first, grateful that at least someone wasn’t attempting to decapitate everyone for no reason at all.







“Well.”

In comparison to the half-breed’s rather...loud outburst, Madison’s voice was just as calm and affable as ever. Peaceful, albeit with obvious tones of concern as he glanced about at his company. “I have to say I agree with everyone on that trying to fight really isn’t the best thing to do at the moment. While I may have my own bias, she,” a gesture towards Kora- couldn’t exactly give away that he “knew her” just yet- “never actively attacked anyone. To my knowledge, she just cursed for a moment, called our young friend a terrorist, and you all assumed the worst. I’m sure they both have their reasons for reacting this way to each other, but death isn’t the way to resolve this.”

Offering up a faint quirk of the lips, Madison clasped his hands together, continuing to observe the majority carefully. “Now, we’re all very different, but given that the voice hasn’t all told us to hack off each other’s limbs, I’m sure that starting now wouldn’t be a very good idea. And, at any case, he told us to all introduce ourselves to each other, correct?” In a more jovial manner, he then added, “While I’m sure you all have unique customs, I do hope that none of you have greetings that involve sudden brawls or anything of the sort?”

An attempt to lighten the mood, even if not as strongly as he would have liked.

Ezenvare Queem

---

Eze ignored those attempting to harass him about his actions. He guessed he had at least 200 years experience over nearly every single one of them, and almost all of them look human enough to not get run out of every town they go to. Through all the other tries to diffuse the situation Eze was still balancing on his staff and glaring at the loud woman. She reminded him of many, many problem causers from Eze's life from soldiers to criminals.

After what seemed like the longest few moments the half-dragon ever had to go through, Madison proposed an actual idea. Introductions. Taking a quick breath, Eze spoke with his deep hiss of a voice once more. "I'm Ezenvare Queem, I hail from Da'vier, and I have had more unprovoked bad experiences with military and guard types than I have scales on my hide."

Eze wasn't too terribly interested in making friends, as he could see those that were too far along the path of evil being protected by those who didn't know better. Besides, his friends had a tendency to die in the most... depressing of ways. Allies, on the other hand, where a different story.