Colosseum Fight: Gabriel vs the lot

[Rhargn Etn]

The chants and jeers of the crowd whirled and danced heavily through the cracks in the thick oak door, which led from the fighter's holding cell to the arena floor. Entwined with this wall of sound was the repulsive hacking sound of steel through skin, the sound that whoever was losing in the current fight, was certainly not going to live for longer than a few more seconds. Finally, there was the smell. The stench of blood and sweat, of ale and excrement, clumped together in a vicious assault of the senses; in all a most terrifying experience for even the most experience gladiator.

"Here is your winner... Orola the Bastard!" Came the bellowing sound from the commenator. Gabriel was next. In his cell there was nothing but simple stone. Simple stone walls, a simple stone ceiling, a simple stone (but bloody) floor, stone everywhere. However, at the opposite end of the room, furthest from the door there was a splintered wooden bench, one which had clearly seen the dark side of someones rage, before it was unleashed upon some helpless victim.

"The next fight is a four man grudge fight!" Came the announcement as the next eruption from the crowd was sounded. "This is a fight between men who all claim the same woman!" A joyous laughter filled the crowd, as sexist jeers were hurled forward. "Please welcome, Aled the Bold! Eon the Vicious! Tristan the Nimble and Gabriel the Terrific!"

At this, the oak door opened and in poured a strong concoction of candle light and the fading rays of a polished sun, blinding those who gazed upon it. After several seconds, the light would become accustumed to, and Gabriel would be able to make his way onto the pit of sand before him, which was splattered from a drying crimson from the match before. At this, he'd be greeted by a circular arena of stone, with walls too high to climb, and a simple floor of sand. Strangely, near enough to the middle of the pit was a simple wooden club, which one of the crowd members had launched in.

Facing Gabriel were the following:

Aled, a giant of a man in both size and weight. Simple clothes adorned his overweight bulk, as did each combatant. A thick beard hung from his chin, while his head was void of hair.

Eon, a very muscular Tigron who seemed ready to take every single member of the audience on.

Tristan, a simple skinny Elf who seemed extremely out of place and slightly afraid now the realism of the situation had kicked.

The fight was now...

[Gabriel Havisham]

"Sweet, bloody, Ioannes..." was all that could come from Gabriels mouth when he realized the truth of the situation. Aled and Eon looked like just about the most intimidating things he'd ever seen. It was different with these types of blokes down at the docks, he used to them there where he could intelligently avoid the fight or at least grab a piece of wood and crack their skulls open. Here there wasn't nearly so much to help him and he was trapped, forced to fight. The club was probably even far out of his way. Chances were that Aled or Eon got to it and murdered the next closest idiot. He was starting to wish he hadn't decided to be honourable to some degree and had, in fact, brought his dagger with him.

Tristan seemed the easiest target, but Elves were fast and lithe he'd heard. But then so were Katta, and they had claws. He was going to die. He was convinced he was going to die. His heart started to race and he started to get all jittery. He couldn't not move, he was energized by fear. Terror even. Part of him wanted to turn around and say, 'Umm, excuse me, I think there was a mistake. See what I wanted was to fight, say a little girl or something.' Not that he lacked courage, he just lacked a certain stupidity and bloodlust that was generally needed for such things. Intelligence was what had kept him alive for so long.

As he bounced around on the balls of his feet he took off his tunic in one quick movement. He figured that it would only get in his way. His body was defined and built enough to be intimidating he supposed. Ten years of work at the docks gave just about every blowhard besides the drunks, and the genetically unfortunates, a rock hard body. He did all that he could do and got his dukes up, keeping himself moving constantly with his bobbing and weaving and moved toward the Elf. Hopefully the bugger wouldn't be too much trouble and at the very least he could claim that he beat one of the fighters senseless. Part of him wished that the announcers hadn't said he was fighting for a woman though, he would never do that. Either she was his or she wasn't and if he had to fight for her she just wasn't worth it.

[Rhargn Etn]

"By the look in there eyes, all rules will be out of the window! It could be a fight to the death!" Came the sudden interuption from the commentator in an attempt to hype both audience and fighters into a sense of bloodlust. It appeared to be working, as no time was spared in getting to the action, Tristan quick out of the blocks and easily to the club before anyone else. Infact, no one else had even attempted to move for it, their little grudge enveloping them so much that the Tigron and fat man both charged head first at each other.

Gabriel was alone on the massive floor. At one side was the two hulks, scuffling on the ground after collideing together, the human taking devilish gashes to his arms, where as the Tigron continually got thumped in the face. Tristan however, just as he set off to dispose of both fighters, realized an opperunity to get the crowd and added confidence on his side, and so without another second passing, the Elf sprinted hastily towards Gabriel.

Now there was barely two ways to go for the loner; run or fight. With a kill happy look on his oncomers face, he had to think and think quick. Upon coming within striking distance of Gabriel, Tristan dove forward, landing on his feet and with the club swinging overly fast towards his opponents chest. Things were hotting up.

[Gabriel Havisham]

Well, he could mark off right from the start the other blokes fighting the match were idiots. Brute force certainly had it's merits, crushing somebodies skull in your hand for example, but it usually wasn't going to get things done the way one generally wanted. At least the way that Gabriel wanted. What he was after most of the time was maximum success with minimum personal risk. Even if that meant that his gains had to be small. He'd much rather be the man that slowly but surely progressed through life than the bloke who struck it rich on some wild gambit one brightening but the next was living in a gutter because he wasn't rational enough to think about what he was doing. There were all-or-nothing moments in life but most people didn't seem to realize when they were and that one must never over play one's own hand.

Gabriel's hand for the most part consisted of absolutely nothing. Even his dagger wouldn't have helped. He wasn't fast enough to get inside the Elf's guard and he didn't have the strength to power through his attack or the tools at hand to counter it. He did know one thing though about Elves, they didn't tend to last as long, at least not the ones at the docks, who by most accounts were better than the vast majority of their race.

Thus, as it stood the best plan was to outlast his opponent or hope that a member of the crowd would be so gracious as to throw him a club, or, preferably, a hacking implement of some sort to fight with.

Gabriel dove low to his right to avoid the blow, and God's willing that he did, rolled on his shoulder into a low crouching position, scooping up some of the arena sand in his right hand as he went. He fully intended to throw the sand into his opponents face and temporarily blind him. He'd find out how his hand looked then. The cards had only just been dealt, and the first player had raised the stakes. A game of Nexian Hold 'Em had commenced.

[Rhargn Etn]

The sounds of the crowd engulfed all the combatants, igniting them into a state of fury and passion, a state of anger and pride. Each fighter was battling for a prize that meant more to them then the two hundred crowns on offer, yet that'd surely pay for a fancy meal or two with the real target. Tristan was clearly hyped by the whole situation as he bounced forward, each foot leaving a sprinkling of sand in its wake as he hurtled towards Gabriel, content on smashing his rib cage with the huge chunk of wood he wielded.

As the Elf's attack whistled forward, Gabriel dove right elegantly, his movements almost cat like as he came back to his feet in a crouched position. A flurry of frustration welled inside of Tristan as he continued his raged assault, this time looking to bring his weapon vertically down upon his opponent's head. However, the under handed tactics of the human was enough to stop this attack, enough even, to cause the Elf to drop his weapon in a blind panic, in order to try and viciously rub the tiny rocks from his eyes. As he fought desperately to regain sight, he swung a kick in the direction of Gabriel in a desperate attempt to buy him sometime.

It seemed like a perfect idea by the human, for he'd disarmed his opponent and set himself up to take him out. However, those pocketfulls of people who watched the duo threw insults Gabriel's way, unhappy with the cowardice.

On the otherside of the arena, the situation seemed slightly more exciting as almost all eyes were diverted there.

[Gabriel Havisham]

Proud. That's what Gabriel was. Plain, outright proud of himself for being so smart. Some people called it dirty, he called it survival. Not of the fitest, but the smartest. He'd rather be the guy that walked away because he'd kicked somebody else in the groin or thrown some sand around than be the guy who couldn't walk away at all because he'd decided to fight fair and had lost a leg for his all his nobility and honour. Honour and nobility didn't have a place in combat. It was kill or be killed. A doggy-eat-dog world. Besides he wasn't there to entertain, or to win a woman's heart. He was there for the money, and he planned on getting out of the situation in a relatively good physical state.

He knew he had the advantage in the fight, his enemy was blind, his confidence shattered, and he was terrified. When one had the advantage, one pressed it. It was like trying to lift a crate to a high place. Once you got it at that critical spot where you have the chance to push and get it up there you didn't take a rest and risk having it slide down on top of you, you gave it a great big push with all that you had and you got that crate on top of that ledge. Gabriel smirked, the analogies were endless, it was brilliant.

Making an x out of his arms, right forearm on top of the left, he held his guard out to block Tristan's kick and push it to the left and at the same time launched forward off of his right leg, seeking to get inside the Elf's guard and drive his shoulder into his opponents body while simultaneously dropping his elbow into the mans groin. Gabriel's dirty and unpopular tricks weren't over yet. He'd do what it took to win.

[Rhargn Etn]

Unfortunately, the deviousness of Gabriel had earned him the stamp of disapproval, as the boo's slowly started getting louder as more people turned to see what the jeers were about. Silver coins and stone began to hurl his way, followed at irregular intervals by decomposing vegetables and fruit. This was most certainly going to rub off on his reputation out of the Colosseum. However, as things stood he was fighting for his life, and later consequences were bridges to be crossed when he came to them.

Meanwhile, the kick from Tristan was succesfully blocked, and Gabriel's shoulder barge was victorious over the moment, as the two tumbled to the ground. His elbow had missed by a long shot, the human had to work on the basics, for he was skillless. Gradually, after a fluster of blinking, the elf's vision started to come back, allowing his limbs to work for him better, and so with Gabriel on top, Tristan brough down his elbows to smash into the back of his opponent's head. A hopefully knock out was on the menu.

[Gabriel Havisham]

'Bloody aeternia', was the first thing to enter his mind as he hit the ground with the Elf. In his mind, like most men, he imagined himself somewhat God-like and invincible in combat. Who hadn't honestly, after all, imagined themselves fighting off twenty armed bandits with just their hands? Tossing them this way and that, breaking skulls and wooing blond-haired beauties? Gabriel certainly had, and in his mind things always went a good measure better than they did when played out in his brightening to brightening life. He supposed if he had things the way they were in his head he'd be spending his brightenings slaying orc and beast, although there wasn't much difference, in the colosseum and his darkenings would be spent in a bed, preferably not his own, with more than one maiden at a time. That would be the good life. Even Ioannes would have to be a little bit jealous of that.

Of course, that wasn't how things were. Things were that he did what he had to do to live. Right now, that meant being dirty and cheap. Boo all they want, they weren't the ones down here. Honour wasn't for the battlefield; any real soldier would tell you that. He was pretty sure anyways. Besides, fighting honourably and like a 'real' man got you beaten to a pulp. He'd experienced it. He had long since turned away from that path.

Thus he went on with his regular tricks. He reached out with both arms to pin down Tristan by his shoulders and Gabriel stuck his elbows out, generally a nice way to frustrate your opponent to no end and keep their limbs from flailing at you. Gabriel was a bit embarrassed that he hadn't gotten the Elf in the goodies the last time around, so he was determined to get the job done right this time. Even if the crowd didn't like it, the least he could do was do the bad stuff right. Bearing this in mind, as he tried to wrestle his opponent into submission he thrust his knee up toward Tristan's groin. At the very least he was sure it'd make the Elf a little bit easier to work with.

[Rhargn Etn]

Tristan's eyes filled hastily with water as grains of soden sand could be seen plastered to the actual orb. It was quite clear that throughout the rest of the scrap, he was going to have more then a few problems with his vision. Especially so, when pressure was put on his shoulders, and a solid rammed forcefully between his legs. At this his body shot up in agony, easily out powering Gabriel, concluding in heads colideing and both being sprawled out on the floor.

The crowd jeered and boo'd, while some of Gabriel's apparent friends cheered him on, whether friends or fan, it was surely nice to have someone enjoying the filthy tactics. As the pair laid out on the floor, a great wave of sand leapt from the ground and carpeted their whole body thickly, before a great furry body landed upon the human's stomach. Things had taken a turn for the books.

If the combatant thought to look about, he'd see quite clearly that an excessively spaced out Tigron laid upon his stomach. An Elf, a few meters away from his feet, groped his crotch with a look of defeat etched into his face, and a huge bloke bounding his way towards the commotion.

ooc: sorry about crap post. Had a 5 day binge drinking session and need to get back in to it

[Gabriel Havisham]

Short lived victory was no victory at all. He'd essentially defeated the Elf but in the process was sent sprawling backward, the world spinning and his head aching as he tried to recover from the force of unexpectedly knocking heads with Tristan. Still, at that point he had still believed things recoverable, after all his weakly opponent was defeated for the most part and he believed that he would be free to get a hold of the club and then have his way with the other two, who from what he remembered from seeing before, were far too 'honourable' to use the brilliant tactic he had previously employed against Tristan.

That, of course, was until he had the massive furball land on top of him. He greeted the unexpected hitch in his plans initially with a massive, "Ooof". Unfortunately he didn't have time to whimper over his pain. A stolen glance revealed a defeated Elf, a sprawled out Tigron and a great big mass of a man bounding his way.

'Sweet adorable Diana', was the first thought that came into his mind. His previous hopes of victory were quickly diminishing, like the dying embers of an abandoned forge in the depths of a Nexian winter. That was a bloody depressing thought.

With a ferocity bred of desperation Gabriel started to unleash a flurry of elbows on the pin-stripped mass of fur stretched out across his stomach. His heart was pounding so hard that he swore it would break through his chest with the fear of having the beast try to tear his flesh from his bones.

OOC: Your post was good. Besides, I've done a little binging myself lately.

[Rhargn Etn]

This was quite clearly the nexus of the action time, the moment when all carnage broke loose and someone would have their life extinguished. However, as the momentum began to erupt Tristan sneakily managed to push himself out of the fray slightly, allowing him time to regain compsure and try and walk off that agonizing stomach ache he'd just recieved.

Gabriel however was having much worst luck. His desperate attempts to break free from the Tigron were unwise as unexpected, fore in the start he'd seemed so intelligent. Instead of simply pushing the Katta away, he'd decided to leave himself a target and hammer elbows. There deadly attacks hit home time after time though, landing on shoulder, neck and head as conciousness became regained by the Tigron, who upon realizing he was in danger, dug his claws deep into the right bicep of Gabriel. At this, the bear like man who charged onwards came forth a planted a kick solidly into the ribs of the Katta, knocking him from his platform.

With Elf and Katta slightly away, the human winked in a suggestive way before heading over to land on the his Tigron nemesis. Now, Gabriel was bleeding heavily from his arm, yet everyone had their back to him and the club lay very near his feet. Things were getting strange.

[Gabriel Havisham]

Fair fighting proved as disastrous as Gabriel had earlier believed. His flurry of elbows only ended up rewarding him with an injured arm. He cried out as the Tigron's claws had tore into his flesh and muscle, it was not a wound that would quickly heal without the aid of a mage. He had never seen so much of his own blood before. It was something of an unfair advantage that one of the combatants should have what amounted to blades in a bare-knuckle brawl. Just when he thought things could only get worse the lumbering hulk of a man came and sent the Tigron flying off of him.

His eyes bulged with fear and his jaw tightened with the belief that he was about to have his skull stomped into the dust, but then the oddest thing happened. The man simply winked and went off after the Tigron. Gabriel couldn't believe it. Half of him wanted to simply lay there in amazement, he couldn't believe the luck of it. Arguably bleeding profusely wasn't exactly lucky but then, if one considered that he could have been killed, it was indeed incredibly lucky. But then he thought about it. It wasn't luck at all. Things like that didn't just happen. The match was rigged, it had to be. Part of him was furious, but the other part is what forced a grin to spread across his face.

He sat up rather abruptly, rather too abruptly and was slightly dizzy at first. He slid his legs under him and brought himself to his knees. With his left hand he reached out and grabbed the club. It would be his salvation. In some small way he began to believe that it was no small coincidence that the club had been thrown into the ring. He checked himself before allowing his thought's to go any further, it did one no good to see monsters lurking in every shadow.

Bleeding but emboldened he brought himself to his feet and ran for Tristan, club raised in the air with the singular purpose of cracking the Elf's skull open.

[Rhargn Etn]

The crowd gasped, some in suprise and some in disappointment; why hadn't the fat human finished the other? Human faces around the crowd began to light up as they apprently thought they knew what was going on. "Humans unite!" Came one call from the audience, as a young teen pumped his fists in the air, only for his embarrassed mother to drag him back into place. It did however, cause other older, more drunken humans to repeat the call.

The fight was hotting up for certain, this was what the people had paid their hard earned crowns to come and see. Blood. However, this crimson fluid that trickled from Gabriel's arm wasn't too hasty in its descent. Fortunately, the Tigron had only managed to puncture the skin and not tear his vicious blades down the vunerable arm. Sure, it was going to hurt like hell to use, but it wasn't immobilized and so taking advantage of this, Gabriel scooped up the club.

Upon closer inspection it wasn't just a wooden plank, more of a home made Morning Star type style, as nails jutted out here, there and everywhere. Some were bent, some were rusted but all were easily able to ram their way through bone, and that was just what happened. As Gabriel made his way passed the scuffling heavy weights, he saw Tristan, still downed and with both eyes being rubbed profusely as he desperately fought to see. Due to this, the Elf was unaware of the approaching human and so without knowing what was happening, his life was ended. The swing of the club came with enough force to insert several of the steel nails straight through the skull and into the brain, which caused an instant death. Problems occured from this though, fore now that the nails were firmly enplanted into bone, it'd take an effort to remove them. The others were rolling about all over the floor, thumping and slashing away, and then...

..."Grrrah!"

[Gabriel Havisham]

He had killed him. He had killed another man. But under the circumstances he didn't feel so bad about. Part of him was in shock, but most of him was ultimately fine with it. As far as he could figure it somebody had to die in this match, and better a weak and timid Elf than himself. He couldn't imagine that there wouldn't be some punishment for this action though, after all, it was meant to be a bare knuckle brawl. But then, it was the Colosseum, and entertainment was their business. The crowd was certainly entertained.

The chants of 'Humans unite!' reached his ears and he wasn't surprised in the least. Such sentiments weren't exactly uncommon in any way. Special hate was a common thing, but usually something that boiled under the surface. It was unwieldy to have it massively prevalent, such a schmorgasborg of races couldn't operate efficiently in such a melting pot society without tolerating each other and learning to work together. That was the thing though, it was essentially just tolerance. For the most part that was what he felt as well, he tolerated Orcs, he tolerated Dracons, he tolerated Rattas, and all the other dark races. But only if he was placed in situations where he had to. A dark Elf wandering the streets at darkening by themselves wasn't likely to stay on his good side for very bloody long. They couldn't possibly be up to any good.

All of the sound a singular sound teared through the air, "Grrragh!" and he didn't have a clue what it was but it made his heart jump into his throat. He immediately wrapped his other hand around the handle of the deadly club and firmly planted a boot on poor, foolish, dead Tristan's shoulder and yanked as hard as he could, spinning with the momentum if he pulled the weapon free, trying to find whatever it was that had made such a sound. It terrified him. He felt so close to that two hundred crowns, and ultimately to survival, and he didn't want to let it sleep between his fingers.

[Rhargn Etn]

Fortunately for Gabriel, he succesfully tugged the club from the skull of the fallen elf, concluding in a splattering of blood to pitter patter around the sand before the nails were released and a constant trickle ran free, soaking the sands in its crimson enamel. However, this was of little interest fore at the sound of the toe curling scream, everyones attention was catapulted. Gabriel stood frozen by curiosity, while the tigron and human pushed each other away before scrambling to their feet and gazing in the said direction, followed by the throng in the stands.

Suddenly, one of the gates open and out charged a beast unlike any other the combatants would have ever have seen. It scurried on all fours, its chocolate furred legs easily as wide as the fat human, and just as tall. Its body shared an uncanny resemblence to something of which had just crawled from the sewers as it was plastered from head to toe in a greast carpet of dark hair. It also possessed a long tail of around fifteen foot which worked its way in an almost serpentine manner, keeping the beast balanced as it scurried around the arena looking for a way out, herding the trio into the center. Finally, it stopped after catching glimpse of the corpse, of whom it'd originally paid no attention to. At this it became clear, it was a huge, filthy giant rat. One which stood at about twelve feet, probably more, when on its back legs.

The audience gasped in horror as the monstrocity skittered towards the walls, only to run with side against the stone. However, as they realized they were out of harms way, the eruption began. This was marvelous entertainment.

Without paying attention to the trio, the quite clearly starving rodent darted towards the corpse and split it in half with its huge incisors before gobbling down both parts, though then its attention shifted to the trio. Its crimson orbs glittered as light bounced off of them before it snorted and charged full throttle, straight towards them.