Avatar Arena: POS Industries vs. Arhra

[Raiden]

The two fighters stand in their arena. They were standing atop a series of rooftops, beams of light being shot up between the cracks and making countless shadows.

Raiden and Rhiya were many rooftops away, dressed as super heros. Why? Because we can, bitches. :P

(This is the City Rooftop arena. POS won Arena Advantage. Spotlights cause shadows for his use.)

[POS Industries]

Pedro O'Sullivan found himself on a rooftop, somewhere in downtown NPF city. Judging from the abundance of spotlights, he gathered that this had to be the entertainment district. He took in his surroundings as a cool breeze blew past him, causing his overcoat to billow a little. Looking up, he had just the right amount of moonlight to work in his favor. Yes, this would do just fine.

Stepping out of the light, POS crossed his arms and leaned against a wall, awaiting his opponent. That tournament official he paid off had informed him that his randomly selected opponent was Arhra of all people. He had to admit, the two of them made a hell of a team. He could only imagine what they could do as adversaries. This should be interesting...

Gazing out into the distance, he noted two heroically-dressed figures standing atop one of the other buildings a way down. A sly grin crossed his face upon the recognition of their presense, and he suddenly felt a song coming on.

"Somebody saaaaaaaave me.... I don't care how you do it, just saaaaaaaaave me......."

[Arhra]

It seemed someone didn't care for his singing as there was suddenly a symphony of gunfire. All around POS the tiles and roofing beams beneath suddenly burst apart in a storm of broken tile and splintered wood. Thankfully, not a single shot touched him. Aside from a few chance impacts from the flying debris, he was fine.

"Hmm, missed." the voice came.

Turning around to where the sound of the voice and the gunshots had come from, he could see Arhra dramatically silhouetted against the dark sky, spotlights conveniently lighting her up and glinting off the odd metal of her psuedo-armour. Seeing his eyes settle on her, she smiled, ejecting the two spent magazines from the pair of handguns she held. Her emerald eyes flashed wickedly as she continued.

"Have to reload too." Arhra said, a fake sulking tone in her voice, "What a pity. I was hoping to finish you off immediately, but it seems you had to be little Johnny Live-a-lot."

[POS Industries]

"What a pity. I was hoping to finish you off immediately, but it seems you had to be little Johnny Live-a-lot."

POS chuckled, "Gosh, I could say the same for you. How many times have you died and reincarnated since we've met? C'est la vie." He balled up his right fist and aimed the ring it bore at the would-be gunslinger. "HEAR--"

He stopped himself before he could finish the word, as a thought had occured to him. The heart ring's normal function is to fill the target with an irresistable urge to do as much good as possible. This, it should be noted, did not necessarily guarantee passifism, nor did it mean that he could manipulate the intended target's newfound nobler instincts as he would a common noob. No, with a person as intelligent as Arhra, the likelihood of them deciding that eliminating something as evil as Pedro O'Sullivan ultimately made the world a better place was high. It's also not too far out of the realm of probability to assume that the rest of the NPFers would react similarly.

Yes, it seems that the Heart ring is pretty much out of the question for this tournament.

As Arhra hurried to reload, POS reached into his coat and pulled out what appeared to be a magic wand, altered with advanced technology and illuminated with a bright violet glow, and raised it into the air while yelling, "NEGATIVE KAMEN POWER.... TRANSFORM!!!"

In a flash, Pedro was enveloped in darkness, initiating what appeared to be a long, drawn-out transformation sequence that, in reality, didn't last long enough for Arhra to react and ventilate him thoroughly. No, by the time she could take aim with her guns, the transformation into Negative Kamen was complete, and she was only able to catch a glimpse of the exquisitely dressed, white-haired, masked stranger before he seemed to sink into his own shadow on the ground beneath him.

"And now the fun begins," his voice announced, seemingly coming from several directions at once, "I guess you may have missed it the last time I used these powers, what with powering an energy absorbing shield and then being dead. Yuri might have seen it, but I guess that doesn't help you now...."

As Arhra did her best to keep Negative Kamen from getting the drop on her, the masked one arose from a dark portal in front of one of the spotlights several meters to her left. Quick to take aim, Arhra was just about to squeeze the trigger when the long shadow cast by the Kamen in the spotlight rose from its two-dimensional state and well into the third, taking on the form of its creator and knocking the weapons from her hands, one gun to either side. Fully formed into a humanoid shape, a nearly exact copy of the original in almost ink-black monochrome, the shadow puppet readied to attack Arhra as its master dropped back down into the portal at his feet.

"Ready for an appetizer?" the Kamen called out from the darkness as the shadow puppet pounced.

[Arhra]

"Oh dear, without my precious guns whatever am I to do?" Arhra's voice radiated such sarcasm that unshielded life forms would probably have died within seconds. This kind of thing was why nature, in its inifinite wisdom, had given most living things a resistance to sarcasm.

"Ready for an appetizer?" Negative Kamen yelled from the shadows as his puppet leapt to attack.

Arhra laughed, "Hah! I eat appetizers for breakfast!"

She flicked out her leg, kicking up a bunch of roof tiles that flew at the shadow puppet. If the puppet actually had a mind, it was probably a bit confused by that. Roofing tiles were hardly the most deadly of weapons Arhra might try and use against it.

The puppet nimbly twisted through the disparate cloud of tiles, a three dimensional maze that changed with each passing moment. One tile it couldn't quite dodge, it punched out at, a solid blow that would shatter the ceramic tile harmlessly.

The tile decided it would have none of this. It instead violently exploded.

While not a particularly large blast as these kinds of things go (it didn't even wipe out a city block! Probably grenade level at best), it did something else important. The other tiles, caught in the explosion, also detonated, turning the small cluster of flying pottery the puppet had been weaving through into an incandescent wall of fire.

"Explosions fix everything!" was Arhra's comment on her solution to the problem of POs's shadow puppet, now wiped off the face of the earth. Before taking her potshots at POS, the splodomancer had taken the precaution of transmuting several of the tiles on the roof in her immediate vicinity into bombs, giving her an unexpected attack that would be a nasty surprise for anyone trying to sneak up on her. Having your own personal mine field was always nice.

Spinning around with a low sweeping kick, she sent the rest of her bomb tiles flying merrily into the shadowed corners around her, guessing POS couldn't be too far away, and collected the pair of glocks that she had dropped.

[POS Industries]

Arhra was, of course, quite correct about Negative Kamen being close by. Attacking blindly into the darkness is never a terribly effective strategy, but you had to admire her spirit. As the splodomancer reached down to pick up the first of the Kryloguns, she looked up to see the Kamen appear from one of his portals a few feet in front of her, standing once more in front of one of the spotlights, his glowing red eyes locked with hers.

"Go ahead," he said calmly, "pick it up. I have no intention of stopping you. After all, your only real enemy here is yourself." At that, the masked figure grinned and glanced past her, behind her. Keeping the pistol trained on her opponent, Arhra cautiously looked back to see...

...herself. A darkened, colorless duplicate, wearing a faint grin and holding the second of the Skull Mod's pistols aimed straight at the original.

[Arhra]

"Hmm..." Arhra mused as she saw her monochrome mirror image behind her. "It appears I am going to be shot at with bullets. I think I will ha -"

"FLASH OF LIGHT!" Arhra suddenly yelled.

"Son of a...!" POS yelled. Surely Arhra hadn't just... The light was too bright, the female splodomancer a bright figure whose radiance stabbed at the eyes of anyone who let their gaze run over her. The shadow duplicate of Arhra instinctively flinched back from the blinding light, squeezing the trigger of the handgun as it jerked back. The shot went harmlessly high. Well, not harmlessly. A great distance way, by some freak chance as the bullet came back to earth, it hit a squirrel, blowing the little rodent's brains right out. But who cares about that? It was probably an evil squirrel anyway.

Arhra's flash having proven to be very effective, she rushed her duplicate. It stumbled clumsily, making some unintelligible noises as it tried to come to terms with the temporary loss of its eyesight. Arhra on the other hand was fine, covering the distance in seconds, a look of eager anticipation on her face.

Not being one to believe in being unnecessarily honourable, Arhra laid out the shadow puppet of her with a sucker punch. Slipping the second handgun back into the convenient holster at her waist, she grabbed the puppet and pressed her open palm over its face, calling up her splodomancy.

Brief streamers like lines of smoky fire momentarily flowed through its body from her hand and then vanished. With a neat action, Arhra spun on the spot to help get her some momentum, holding onto one of the puppet's arms. Spinning a half circle to slingshot it, Arhra then released, hurling her newly made puppet-bomb right at POS.

[POS Industries]

"Son of a....!"

Negative Kamen stumbled backward slightly as the blinding light hit his eyes, and yet, like an alzheimer's patient, he couldn't help but look back over and over again. Yes, it was horribly painful and potentially permanently damaging to his eyesight, but still... what a remarkable view!

Soon, however, the light began to fade and the Kamen squinted to notice the Shadow Arhra hurling toward him, and at the last possible instant he dodged to the left, just in time to get knocked into the air by the explosive force of the puppet's impact into the spot light behind him. Sparks and flames shot up from the point of the explosion, and drowned the immediate area in light once more.

Regaining his composure somwhat, the Kamen produced 4 more puppets from the array of his own shadows around him, though die to the light created by the spotlights explosion, each of these shadow puppets was far more faint than their predacessors, and therefore not as powerful. However, the quickly moved to surround Arhra as their master quickly ducked into the nearest creatable portal to safety. Standing around their prey, the pack of shadow puppets addressed the girl as the light in the area faded back to normal, sans one spotlight.

"That was a neat trick you pulled there, Arhra."

"Definately. I have to admit that I hadn't countered for such a brilliant... display."

"And pulling a Gambit with your own duplicate? Priceless!"

"To be honest, I was hoping I'd get a chance to finally start fighting you myself, but I suppose I'll have to toy around with you a bit longer while the skin grows back on my eyeballs. Pity..."

And with that, the four shadow puppets leapt upon their target from all directions, with full intention of spilling blood. Lots and lots and lots of lovely crimson blood.....

[Arhra]

"No, I think I'd rather fight the puppet's master." Arhra said cheerily as the puppets fanned out to surround her. She raised her arms out and energy suddenly crackled around her, several small orbs appearing out of the jagged streams like beads of dew. They seemed tethered to her by the lightning arcs, straining to lift her off the ground.

A kick off the ground and Arhra sailed into the air, rapidly slowing as gravity, her ancient foe, sought to drag her back down. It seemed gravity had made an unholy alliance with the shadow puppets as they watched her rapidly increasing rate of descent with a certain predatorial hunger.

But Arhra had foreseen this treachery. The spheres flowed together, swelling into a much larger orb even as Arhra generated more of them. The splodomancer did an impressive blackflip and landed neatly atop the orb, arms outstretched to help keep her balance. Nine small spheres orbited her at just above head height.

Her smile was very wide as she looked mockingly down at the four shadow puppets, hovering above the height they could jump to, even with Kamen powers. "Do you like my blazekite?" Arhra asked, blithely disregarding the fact it was nothing like a kite. It was a big ball of magic, easily a meter across with strange, half glimpsed patternings in the air around it.

"Anyway," she continued, "I think I'd better track down that Negative Kamen. You can go now." One of the spheres hovered out of the orbital ring and dropped where the shadow puppets stood. Arhra just smiled as the blazekite slowly drifted away from there, feeling the sudden rush of wind and the flare of light at her back as the dropped globe detonated, turning the rooftop into a smouldering ruin.

"POS, POS, POS" Arhra murmured to herself. "Where could you be?" Eyes alighting on a large open window where she thought perhaps she'd seen a movement, the splodomancer sent another of her orbiting blast globes hurtling in there. As fire plumed out of the gaping hole that had been the window, she muttered, "No, not in there."

[POS Industries]

As Arhra hovered in the air above atop her blazekite, looking down upon the wreckage she had just created, scouring the area meters below and searching for the first sign of movement on which to unleash her next blitzkrieg, suddenly one of the spotlights pointed directly at her, the bright light catching her in the eyes.

Moving to shield herself from the offending illumination, it was only a split second later that she was caught by a sharp elbow to the back of the neck, her vision whiting out and her body going momentarily limp as Negative Kamen emerged from the shadow cast behind her by the spotlight.

"You and your pretty little orbs... You're all just begging to face the moose!" the Kamen hissed into her ear as he locked the stunned splodomancer in a sleeper hold, pulling her away from the blazekite and down toward the blasted building below.

Down they fell, into the building through the crater caused by the latest explosive attack, Arhra struggling to maintain consciousness as she was used by her opponent as a meatshield, softening the impact for him as they seemed to hit every solid object on the way down. After a floor or two, their descent halted as he drove her into the floor, then jerked her up and, curiously, released the sleeper hold only to deliver a swift kick to her back an instant later, sending her back to the ground.

"Figured I should let you go before you got around to turning me into your own personal incendiary device," he growled, red eyes looking down upon her coldly, "You wanted to fight the puppet master? Well, here you go. I do hope you were enjoying your little light show while it lasted. I sure was. Looked just like the Fourth of July for a while. But all that's over now. Now, it's just you and me, and let me tell you something, this whole get-up I'm wearing? During our previous adventure, I designed this as a way for me to go up against a god and stand at least a halfway plausible chance of surviving. And I'd say it worked well enough, what with me standing here."

He noticed that Arhra was starting to recover from his last attack, which was good. She was as resilient as she was clever, which is why he was happy enough going up against her than any of those other brain trusts out there. Incidentally, he realized then that she had somehow managed to get him to start monologuing, the downfall of many a famous villain, but his curiousity had once again gotten the better of him and he was more than interested to see the extent of what this new form of hers could do. Just playing the role that suited him, he supposed. Either way, it was about time to wrap this up.

"So tell me," he said, readying himself to dodge, duck, dip, dive, or dodge however became immediately necessary, "Knowing all these fun facts, just what is it you expect you can do against me?"

[Arhra]

That fall had really, really hurt. Falling from a great height with the only thing to slow her down being the collapsing floors of building whose roof they had hit and various other rather painfully solid objects tended to be a reasonably traumatic experience. Having a capitalist land on you every step of the way didn't help either. Thankfully POS wasn't too much of a fat cat and thus it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Arhra also felt lucky that she had her splodomancer armour to protect her. If not for the protection the light armour - designed mainly for protecting splodomancers from their own splodomancy - had given, she'd have been in a whole new world of pain.

Then once hitting the ground, POS landed on her a final time and kicked her away. With her ears ringing and vision blurring in and out of focus, she tried to figure out what had just happened and then registered POS was speaking to her.

"So tell me," POS asked, ready to react to whatever move Arhra made, "Knowing all these fun facts, just what is it you expect you can do against me?"

Arhra crawled slowly to a more upright position, striving to conceal the movement of one hand grabbing a rock form the debris strewn floor and beginning to transmute it into another bomb. Her mind had raced over the options available to her. It seemed there was one best option for what to do. She resolved herself to carry through her decision.

Painfully, the splodomancer clambered to her feet, her new bomb clutched firmly in one hand. Every single shred of her body language spoke her intent - when she stood up, someone was going to die. "You'll be begging for the Lord's Trousers by the time I'm done with you!" Arhra muttered viciously as she began to straighten, beginning to spin around and hurl the explosive at POS.

POS however had seen this coming. A quick lunge and he planted his fist firmly in Arhra's gut, kicking the rock-bomb harmlessly out of Arhra's hand as she fell again.

"Do you really expect me to fall for a cheap trick like that?" the Negative Kamen asked. He was quite certain he'd have time to interrupt any spell she had time to cast.

"No Mr O'Sullivan, all I expect you to do is die. And have a very cheap funeral!" Arhra had a odd defiant edge to her tone, despite how bad the situation looked.

He saw Arhra concentrating and lunged forwards, kicking again. Arhra looked stunned, not moving out of the way but her hands seemed ot instinctively grab at POS's kicking leg. POS looked down at her, trying to shake her off, "Big words from someone who -"

He found himself suddenly interrupted by a massive explosion.

Arhra had used the classic feint. It was the purview of magicians to distract with one hand while the other pulled out rabbits. POS had been quite right that Arhra would be vulnerable to having her spells disrupted while she was trying to recover. However, that didn't stop her exerting control over spells already in effect.

The blazekite had still hovered high over where POS and Arhra currently stood, a dark orb with strange fires in its depths. Admittedly, Arhra could have dismissed it, stopping the effort of maintaining it from interfering with her spell casting. However, that would mean sacrificing the large amount of energy she had invested into it.

Arhra had a much more simple solution. The blazekite was a product of splodomancy and essentially a more complex utilisation of the same principles that created the blast globes she had used while riding the blazekite. However, while they had been the size of a grapefruit perhaps, the blazekite orb was much larger, over a meter across.

It was, in essence, a gigantic bomb.

Thus, Arhra had used her attempted spellcastings as a distraction and simply commanded the blazekite to stop hovering, arming it so it would explode on impact. The blazekite had simply fallen out of the sky, practically right on top of POS and Arhra.

With the arming command given, it instantly volatised on impact. The destructive forces contained within it were released, engineered by splodomancy to cause the maximum possible damage. It was quite a blockbuster. The noise and the shockwave were incredible, tearing the roofs off buildings and sending unsecured object tumbling away. At its center a pure white dome of devouring light swelled, lighting up the night sky.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f362/Arhra/f161c1b8.jpg

That couldn't possibly be good.

[POS Industries]

And then there was Armageddon.

NPF's entertainment district was there one moment, only to be replaced in the next by a horrible, swirling hellstorm of fire, ripping through every building in sight in an instant, shredding and vaporizing the massive structures down to their very foundations and beyond. The destructive effect of the blazekite's detonation only lasted a few seconds, but it almost seemed as if time slowed down during the course of its explosion. As the conflagration died down, a very content looking (if charred, bruised, and bloodied) Arhra stood several stories down from her previous location from a few seconds before, chuckling a bit as she surveyed the smoldering debris around her, before collapsing to the ground.

Yes, with that attack it could only be assumed that the Negative Kamen was very cleanly vaporized. After all, his shadow portal powers can't allow him to magically exit a room that he's in, what with being line of sight. Granted, he'd managed to kick Arhra in the face with his other foot in order to get the splodomancer to release him, but there was no way that he could have possibly summoned enough power to defend against the awesome force of the blazekite's destruction.

Arhra was quite content in her clear victory.

It was then that Arhra vanished in a flash of blue light, teleporting her away from the post-apocalyptic nightmare that was the destroyed city. An instant later, the splodomancer found herself in what appeared to be the Mojave Desert. Looking up to catch a glimpse of the setting sun, Arhra suddenly felt a hand begin helping her up and a familier voice greeted her as she rose to her feet.

"Congratulations!"

Arhra had only a split second to react before the shadow puppet landed a sharp jab to her nose, knocking her backward to the four other puppets behind her who instantly swarmed the stunned splodomancer and throughly restrained her. The perpetually setting sun hovering on the horizon to her back, a long shadow was cast in front of her, from which Negative Kaman slowly rose into view, altogether undamaged.

"Howdy pardner," he greeted her, grinning and taking on a thick southern accent as he tipped his top hat to her, "I suppose yer wrackin' that pretty little brain o' yers, wondrin' just what in tarnation's goin' on 'round here, ain'tcha?"

Dropping the act, the Kamen continued his exposition, "You see, as I'm sure you're aware, we were each given a randomly assigned weapon for our fight. Yours were a pair of very lovely high-calibur handguns. Mine was something more... gamebreaking. My weapon was simply the one-time ability to change the field of battle to however I saw fit, a little gem that allowed me to teleport away just as you decided to go Hiroshima. Though I didn't quite get to see your masterpiece in action, I did manage to get away from it unscathed, though it appears I can't say the same for you...."

It was around this time that the five shadow puppets began brutally assaulting Arhra. If there was a prettier way to write such an ugly display, I would have done so.

[Rhiya Ravenwing]

"Awww, he used the ability so early on in the game too," Rhiya clucked as she and Raiden both materialized - wearing arab clothing to keep out the sand - a little distance away.

Raiden turned over to his fully-clad fellow judge.
"You're thinking about doing something mean to them, aren't you?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmaybe?" Rhiya made that into a question. Raiden rolled his eyes.

"Look, you've already interfered with two other arenas. This one's already screwed up as it is."

"Will screwing it up some more matter then?"

"Well... not technically--"

"Good! More screwing around coming up!" Rhiya grinned and clapped her hands. She sent a sharp, guttural bark of command into the howling desert wind.

A moment later, the ground beneath both Arhra and POS heaved and buckled, sending both attackers and attackee tumbling. From beneath the sands of the grainy desert rose...

Pillars. Massive, twisted shapes spiralling out of the earth, sand pouring off their surfaces as they writhed upwards. The earth grumbled and complained as the hard rocky surfaces took shape and became leviathan structures of twisted buildings - beautiful and dangerous in their individual ways.

Arhra and POS (and his minion of shadow ninjas) found themselves separated from each other by mile-deep chasms. Each clung onto their respective pillars as it shot upwards to halt them at such a height death would be certain should one step falter and plunge them down into the darkness below.

There was some luck though. As the two contestants tried to figure out how the HELL to continue fighting, they noticed links between the large pillars - brief bridges of sand that materialized between pillars and linked one from another.

What they also noticed was the fact that some pillars are higher than others, casting long silhouettes upon the selective earth.

~~

".... You're evil, you know that?" Raiden said after a small astonished interlude, "and how the FUCK did you manage that?"

Rhiya chuckled evilly, steepling her fingers conspiratorially, "Pact with the Earth Gods. Did a favour for them."

"Cleared out some wurm infestation, I take it?"

"Yeah. Dirty job, but it was worth it."

[OOC: the pillars are wide apart from each other enough so that jumping the gaps is a difficult feat, but not completely impossible. Later on, you'll see a respective pattern to the linking of the respective pillars, and use that to your (dis)advantage.

Oh, and... TWIST!]

[POS Industries]

"Goddammit!! You can never trust a god, I fucking tell you what.... Paid that blighter good money and he turns around and pulls this garbage! 'Ooh, look at me! I'm Raiden! I like to prance about with no shirt on because me socks keep getting stuck to it from all the static cling! Whoopdee-freakin-doo!!' Man, I am so signing up with Mesden when this is all over...."

The Negative Kamen cursed and ranted at the top of his lungs as he clawed and struggled to both hang on to the newly formed pillar and maneuver his way atop it. It should be noted that, along with what he could only assume was the entirety of his shadow puppet force, his top hat had fallen into the bottomless pit below, which upset him because, really, what's a Kamen without the trademark headgear? Just a maitre d' in a party mask, that's what. Nearing the peak of the earthen protrusion, the Negative one suddenly felt a hand grab his and hoist him to his feet at the top.

Taking a moment to get his footing, he looked to see one of his shadow puppets standing before him. Sadly, there was really only room for one up there, and the Kamen quickly shoved the puppet, making sure to grab the top hat from off its head and place it on his own as it fell backward into the abyss.

"I REGRET NOTHIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!"

Now more secure in his stance, the masked man decided to see why he was still there rather than being teleported to the winner's circle or something. "Hey Arhra," he called out, voice echoing throughout the chasm, "I'm guessing you're probably still alive, what with the fight not officially being over. Holla if ya hear me!"

[Arhra]

Arhra had been surprised, to say the least, to have two sudden changes of scenery occur so close together. Still, there was a bright side to this happening, she thought as she perched on top of a pillar that shot skywards. It would give her some time to devise a Cunning Plan.

Seeing her current spot was well shielded from sight from most directions, she considered her resources. Guns, splodomancy, chaos magic and what else... Ah, yes, the shapechanging. That fickle ability which had been nigh useless so far. An idea struck her, the thought of shapechanging slotting in as the one final dramatic touch. She turned the glittering thought over in her mind. It was risky but the potential benefits decided her. A synthesis of abilities would be the core of her plan.

Chaos magic was a fairly uncommon school of magic. It was capable of doing almost anything but its greatest flaw was the fact it might do anything. By its very nature it defied prediction and order. But Arhra was one favoured of Chaos and its magic was in her very blood. She understood its nature very clearly for she and it were of the same source.

Raw chaos was useless. Its infinite possibilities rendered it too unpredictable to be able to get any sort of useful result out of it. But perception shaped reality ad by retricting the possibilities, it could be encouraged to do things more useful. Most of Arhra's chaos magic worked with but a single word, that word setting out a general effect and the magic allowed to choose the exact form of its manifestation.

And now Arhra applied her magic again, weaving her splodomancy into every fibre of the spell. She choose to use a more traditional elemental transmutation. Air and earth she had in plenty, fire easily produced by her splodmancy. But for water she used blood, also knowing the affinities blood would give.

With that spell-form taking shape, she turned her attention inward, building up her own self image. She considered her armour, how it would have to be reshaped for what she intended and then carefully constructed her additions.

The splodmancer let her work come together, looking upon upon what she had wrought and finding it good. She smiled, feeling the silky smoothness as she ran her hand over the soft edge of a feather. Then she gathered up her chaos magic again and whispered one word, "Veil." to hide what she had done.

POS cried out for Arhra to make herself know and was surprised to find she did. No surprise attacks, no underhandedness, no shooting at him. However, when he saw her cry out in reply, dramatically atop a pillar he was surprised to see something different about her.

Wings, great feathery pinions were neatly folded upon her back. Her armour seemed to have been modified to fit them and thankfully she seemed to have lost her twin pistols at some point. Still, her mocking smile and the merry glint in her emerald eyes seemed to show she was certain of her victory. Certainly, with the perilous footing of this new battleground, flight would be a tremendous advantage.

Arhra's voice rang out as she spread her wings, pure white patterned with bloody red that matched her fiery mane of hair. "And now it is time to end this POS! Goodbye!" She leapt out into the void.

Arhra sailed gloriously across the empty expanse of air, her eyes focused on POS. But then her untested wings failed her. They buckled under the strain and Arhra plummeted. A single flash of surprise lanced over her features and then dissappeared. Arhra let out a single high cry, curiously devoid of fear, and then fell silent, becoming a speck in the stygian depths below. Then darkness swallowed her and she vanished from sight.

OOC: Sometimes I do have to wonder if I'm crazy.

[POS Industries]

"And now it is time to end this POS! Goodbye!"

A moment later, Arhra plunged screaming into the void below.

"Sometimes, I do have to wonder if she's crazy," Negative Kamen mused to himself as he stared down at the blackness into which his opponent had oh so gracefully disappeared. Shrugging to himself, he closed his eyes for a moment as a winged female figure swooped up and hovered behind him, swaying up and down gently in the canyon's breeze. Not opening his eyes, a warm smile crossed the Kamen's face as he addressed the visitor. "Hello, Arhra."

"Hello, master," the Arhra puppet replied as she grabbed him under the arms and hoisted him into the air, and carried him to a safe altitude overlooking the whole of the battlefield, the setting sun once more to his back. While whatever abilities the original Arhra had used to summon wings had failed, a shadow puppet's physiology was a tad bit more cohesive. All that was necessary for the masked man to create one was for Arhra to have cast a shadow on a surface while in flight, and she had effectively done so.

Once again, the Negative Kamen was still here, at this battlefield, meaning that the fight wasn't over just yet. Noting that the Shadow Arhra wouldn't be able to support his weight for much longer, the Kamen took the moment he had to summon 4 more shadow puppets of himself, which spread out among the pillars as best they could given the maneuverability of the current area. And with that, he had the Arhra puppet set him down atop the highest spire before it set off to patrol the area. His opponent was out there somewhere. Either she would show herself or he would find her anyway. Either way, it was all a matter of time.

The waiting game continued.

[Arhra]

A faint light appeared in the sucking darkness of the sandy ground far below, the diffuse radiance banishing shadows from within its area. Within this patch of whiteness was sprawled Arhra's supine form. Her wings were outstretched, the pure pale illumination ending a silvery tint to them. She looked like a fallen angel, perhaps ironically appropriate for one who had tried to fly. Barely moving, she looked utterly defeated.

The tower POS was standing on choose that moment to violently explode. At its base, an explosion went off, ripping out its supports and the splodomantic energies burrowing into the tower with a voracious rapacity. With a ponderous grace, the great, monolithic tower that strained at the heavens slowly, but with increasing speed, began its inevitable reunion with the earth it had risen from. While this happened, further detonations raced up along its length from the base, like the outbreak of some virulent plague.

Arhra had destroyed the tower POS stood upon, willingly taking the risk of exposing the part of her plan she had carefully hidden away. Appearances may decieve but it could only be taken so far. The splodmancer had chosen to gamble, salvaging what she could of her plan. A fall from a great height had not been part of it. Unable to fly, the wings had still been able to help slow the rate of fall and buffer the impact. Even so, the damage was considerable. But pain was something that could be ignored - Arhra would allow no broken and unwilling body to stop her.

[POS Industries]

This.... is unpleasant. Manageable, predictable, pretty much saw it coming from a mile away, but still quite unpleasant....

The Kamen gritted his teeth as the spire beneath him rocked and gave way, looking down to see a chain of explosions working its way up from the base. Taking the obvious approach, he jumped. There was nothing stable within reach to grab on to, but it also meant that he just managed to get far enough away from the tower's blast radius to remain unharmed. Still, looking down at the approaching abyss below, the Kamen had only one option available and focused his intent as much as he could given the sudden rush of adrenaline. This would need to be timed just right...

As the light from the final blast from the top of the monolith receded, Negative Kamen disappeared into the pitch blackness of the pit.

A split second later, he ascended from the same spot, carried upward by the redirected momentum of his fall. Using his shadow portal abilities, the masked man had created a portal in the same space, with the entrance and exit facing the same direction. Falling into the portal made him almost instantaneously fall out, but upward. He fell in, and out, and in, and out again, each time his ascension reduced by gravity's obvious decrease of his momentum.

Now immensely more safe than before, this current position left him more or less a sitting duck, and so he summoned the winged Arhra puppet to him, having it grab ahold of him during one of his ascensions and the two slowly rose into the air. While the Kamen had managed to better streamline the flight capabilities of the puppet over the original's, there were still limitations, most of which revolved around being able to fully support the weight of a passenger. Countering for this, the puppet and its master flew up to the nearest spire, where the Kamen grabbed the nearest handholds and footholds and combined it with the puppet's wing flapping to bound up to the top.

Finally on a stable base, the puppet released the Kamen and moved to take up a position overlooking the whole of the battlefied. If anything happened, the master would see it through his puppets eyes. Coincidentally, the four duplicates of himself that had been leaping around the different spires had allowed him to deduce the patterns and logistics between the sand bridges that linked the great earthen structures, and so he too began moving. He now knew the whole area like the back of his hand. In an instant, he went from sitting duck to wild goose, moving about the battlefield randomly and practically fully protected from surprise attacks.

Whatever his opponent was up to, she wouldn't catch him sleeping on the job.

******************************

Down at the bottom of the pit, Arhra remained laying in her fallen angelic position. Faint light from above reflected a dull silver glow from her wings, but the environment around her was pitch black, silent after the roar of explosions and falling debris. Silent but for the muffled scraping of something, or somethings, dragging down the spires before hitting the ground with a dull thud.

It was quiet again for a moment, until Arhra heard the sound of footsteps in the dark. Three sets of footsteps, in fact, approaching her from three different directions. All around her now, they suddenly went silent. It was deafeningly silent again, but only for a moment.

"It seems we've gotten to the..... 'bottom' of this," a voice to her left growled, then sighed, "Eh, that was a lousy pun. Oh well, they always say comedy is hard. Death, on the other hand..."

Arhra immediately felt a pair of hands wrap around her head and neck from the right, before suddenly twisting her head with a sharp jerk.

[Arhra]

Whatever Arhra was up to seemed to involve lying on the ground, barely moving. "Anticipated," Arhra murmered almost inaudibly to herself as the shadow puppets closed in. One puppet muttered a lame joke, another one wrapped its hands around her neck and then... burst into flames?

A pulse of heat came off Arhra, a serpentine tongue of fire leaping out of her and stabbing through the first puppet. The puppet jerked on it as the spear of flame continued through it before coiling around and neatly impaling the others upon its lengths, causing them to immolate. Seemed Arhra was too hot for the puppets to handle.

"I dearly wish that had been POS." the splodmancer murmured as the shadows disintegrated. The fire spell was hardly the most powerful of attack spells Arhra possessed, but it would have given POS a nasty surprise had he been the one to set the spell trigger off. Though it was likely it had insufficient power behind it to do any truely serious damage to him, it had been more than enough to deal with his puppets.

It was then Arhra seemed to call upon deep, untapped reserves and do something incredible. She stood up. Wobbling slightly, she said, "Now all I have to do is fight on with the strength of a thousand men." Arhra still had the energy for sarcasm at least.

Her wings hanging limply from her back, Arhra called upon splodmancy again, a tiny ball of energy appearing between her two cupped hands, energy crackling off her fingers and feeding into them. The pale diffuse light that scattered shadows to nothing still floated in the air around her, giving an otherworldly air to her. The light played curious tricks, its banishing of shade almost making it look as if Arhra glowed from within.

Time was to her advantage. Mana would regenerate with time and she felt confident of her chances against the puppets, despite the extensive injuries. The damage would not be worsened if she was careful and she still held her hopes of salvaging her scheme. But she couldn't be entirely passive.

She knew more about the battlefield then POS might have believed. Arhra had used the time not spent in battle well. And she knew there was one shadow unaccounted for in addition to any replacements for the ones she had destroyed Negative Kamen might create. She would not be caught off guard.

The ball of energy split off into half a dozen tiny globes, a tiny spark dancing in their hearts. Each was no larger than a grape. She opened the cage of her fingers and two of them streaked upwards while the other four adopted an orbit around her. They were not particularly powerful, but they would seek their targets unerringly. One for POS and one for the shadow copy of herself. That would give him something to think about.

[POS Industries]

"Well... that certainly is something to think about...."

The Shadow Arhra hovered high above the battlefield, noting the two tiny orbs of energy the came shooting out of the darkness of the pit below. Their faint glow was almost like that of fireflies in the light of the battlefield's perpetually setting sun, but the intent in their movement was much more sinister. The puppet watched as the two projectiles seperated, one moving toward it and the other toward Negative Kamen. Shadow Arhra took immediate evasive action, dropping altitude dramatically and ducking and weaving through the spires, doing everything possible to stave off the attack for just a little longer.

Elsewhere on the battlefied, the Kamen bounded from spire to spire across the tenuous sand bridges that formed only to degrade into nothingness mere seconds later. His connection with the Arhra puppet had alerted him to the approach of the deadly manifestations of today's splodomancer nemesis. He took a moment to create three new duplicates of himself as the sunlight caught him momentarily, two sliding down the nearby spires into the abyss while the third moved off in a completely different direction.

The orb nearly upon him, the Kamen landed upon the top of one of the obelisks and crouched down, springing forth from it as another figure somersaulted over his head, landing where he had been standing a split second before. The fourth Kamen duplicate held his hand out in front of him at the speeding projectile, not unlike a crossing guard, before authoritatively shouting, "Halt, sinner!"

The tiny globe collided squarely in the puppet's chest, enveloping it in a burst of flames. Despite the orb's size, the force of its explosion was enough to cause the Negative Kamen to nearly lose his balance on the sand bridge, but he was able to right himself before plummeting into the void below. Quickly forming a replacement puppet in the light of the explosion, the Kamen continued onward as his latest creation slid downward to join its brethren.

Meanwhile, the winged Arhra clone glanced behind her, seeing that she, too, was about to become quite intimate with an explosion quite shortly. A split second before impact, another shadow puppet leaped between the two with a blood-curdling, "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

As her savior was consumed by the fire, Shadow Arhra ascended sharply into the high altitude of the arena once more, continuing to survey the field in its entirety for her master.

*************************

Sliding down the spire to the bottom of the pit, one of the Kamen duplicates bounded of the rock and rolled on the sandy ground and rose to its feet, looking around at its surroundings. Two of its brothers were already down here, winding through the stone forest while he could feel a fourth one being born above at that very moment. He grinned and joined the other two, eventually spotting the target.

Arhra stood at the ready, orbited by the dim twinkle of four more of her deadly explosive charges. Yes, this wave would surely be no more than fodder for her little Orbs-O-Doom, but it was no matter. As each of these four would fall, one more would rise and, more aptly, descend upon her. For as long as she remained in this pit, the closer it would become to her grave.

At that moment, one of the puppets sprang from the darkness to her left, then another from behind, and another in a direct attack to her front, all doing their best to swarm their victim.

The grave was calling to her.

[Arhra]

Fortunately Arhra was screening her calls. She didn't know how the grave had gotten her number in the first place anyway. It was probably Pyros' fault.

The explosive beads spun around the splodomancer and launched themselves at their targets. Four brief blossoms of fire bloomed and four puppets were destroyed.

"As much as I would love to stay and chat," Arhra said clearly, knowing it was only a matter of time until more puppets started closing in around her, "I really must get going."

A dramatic sweep of one arm and the winds suddenly picked up, lifting the fine grained sand of the desert's ground up into the air. Evidently Arhra had been casting some sort of spell, although she must have concealed any arcane mumbling and hand waving that she'd been doing somehow.

With a mocking smile, Arhra vanished behind a rapidly thickening screen of wind-bourne sand and the light about her winked out. The sirocco stirring the sands into a swirling brown storm, it was the next best thing to being invisible. Fortunately, she had enough subtle control here to weave a bubble of stillness about her, stopping any sandy problems she might have.

Thinking about her desert environment, another possibility occured to Arhra. Something quite impressive that would take very little expenditure of magic. One she could do even with the restrictions upon her spellcasting her current situation placed. Who knows, she might even be able to get something out of the Cunning Plan still.

After reconstructing her defences, Arhra fused some sand together and set a certain vibration in the glassy ceramic blob she'd created. It sat there a-thumping, as she limped a safe distance away, gathering up some more sand to transmute with her magic as she went.

[POS Industries]

"Whew!"

Negative Kamen needed to catch his breath. Even with enhanced abilities such as his new powers gave him, having been running and leaping all about over the gaping chasm still took its toll on his endurance eventually. Arhra had once more blasted away some of his puppets, but four more had already been summoned and dispatched in their place and were keeping a close eye on the mini-sandstorm that his opponent had created in the pit below. Similarly, the Shadow Arhra flew high above, keeping sentry over the whole of the battlefield. Now was as good a time as any to take a break.

Perched atop one of the spires, the Kamen took a seat, looking down toward the general area where Arhra most likely stood, doing her voodoo that she do so well. A quiet moment passed, before a metal pedastal burst forth from the ground behind him. Not that he wasn't expecting it to happen eventually, but it still made him jump a little, given the circumstances. He tried to calm his nerves as the sound of a ringing telephone echoed through the canyon.

Rising to his feet, he looked over the small call-box that had appeared, a cordless handset mounted to the base of the satellite phone that connected to the POS Industries cellular network. Picking up the handset, he spoke to whoever was on the other end of the line as the ringing immediately ceased.

"Hello?"

"Pe-chan!" a female voice exclaimed through the earpiece, "So it is you! Our network technicians were curious about all these new systems and protocols suddenly connecting to our mainframe. We were worried that we had a hacker problem. What's going on? How's the tournament?"

The Kamen smiled slightly as he turned to look over the arena once more. "Hello, Rei. Sorry for the alarm, but luck of the draw afforded me quite the awesome little weapon. Have you figured out all the new systems I've introduced?"

"Affirmative. Is there anything you'd like me to bring online for you?"

"Not yet," the masked man said, shaking his head, "I'll let you know when it becomes necessary. Not sure which program I'll need first. I'm sure it will become apparent very soon, though. Hang tight."

[Arhra]

Negative Kamen was right. To say Arhra had him in her sights would not be far from the truth. He had finally stopped moving around. Like a duck! One that had ceased to waddle, and swim and fly and such and instead sit down.

Deep in the pit, the splodomancer cloaked in a veil of shifting sands paused from forming some long, hooked rods out of fused together sand. Arhra's eyes went unfocused, curiously lifeless as the majority of her attention went elsewhere.

The pistol meticuluously lined up on the Negative Kamen's head, just below his top hat. The aim was carefully adjusted for the distance and wind. The bullets of the handgun had been imbued with splodomantic energies. A direct hit would not only kill the Negative Kamen, it would remove his entire head.

It was a perfect solution, a fitting end. So the match had started, so it may end. The shadow puppet of Arhra slowly circled, the threat to its master hidden from its sight. The gun remained unwaveringly on target, POS chatting into his telephone as the puppet flew around, its shadow occaisionally sweeping massive and dark over the spires and thin spans of sand linking them. Finally it turned away.

The trigger was pulled, the bullet sent on its errand of death.

[POS Industries]

...and if the Kamen hadn't crouched down at that very moment, it might even have worked. Tricky thing about going for headshots: sure it might be the quickest way to get a kill, but it's also a difficult target to hit, regardless of skill in marksmanship. It's for that reason that firearms training typically teaches one to aim for the body.

In this case, Arhra's little gun trick managed to shoot off the Negative Kamen's hat.

"What in the.....!" the Kamen shouted as he quickly snatched his hat out of the air and inspected it, noting the bullet holes on either side. Looking around him, he could not see a gunman anywhere in sight, so there was clearly something more ridiculous afoot.

"Rei," he said into the phone which was still at his ear, "I think I've decided on my first system command to activate: all of them. Engage protocal POS0928-Alpha5. Authorization: Plum Pudding."

Rei acknowledged his order over the phone, "Aye aye, captain! Opening the main hatch!"

The Kamen summoned his winged Arhra puppet to him as the very earth itself began to tremble beneath him.

*************************

Back down in the pit, surrounded by her little sandstorm, Arhra was just finishing up making her magical glass souvenirs when suddenly the ground started to shake. All around her, the rock spires began to crack and crumble, crashing down as gravity took hold of them. Beneath the splodomancer's feet, the sand began to shift, seeming to sink deep into the cavern floor and dragging her down with it. It seemed as if the mouth of the planet was opening to swallow her whole.

Ha ha ha, don't be silly, dear readers! The planet doesn't have a mouth! If it did, do you think it would ever shut up? No, the global pie-hole is forever shut. This is something else. Something else entirely....

....it was a giant mechanized hatch!

As Arhra, the four shadow puppets, the sand, the crumbling spires, several cacti, some scorpions, and a couple rattlesnakes plunged from the darkness of the pit into the even darker realm beneath the hatch, one certainly had to wonder where all this came from. Those in the audience who are asking now are impatient children who don't know how to wait for exposition instead of interrupting the narrator while he's trying to tell a damn story! Don't make me take the belt to you, just like I used to do to your old man! Grew him up in a hurry, it did and..... wait, where was I? Oh, right. Arhra's landed now. Anyway......

As Arhra laid in the darkness, grains of sand still dropping down from who knows where, she heard the sound of the massive doors grinding shut once more. It was pitch black for only a second before a series of overhead lights clicked on, revealing a hangar of sorts, apparently empty aside from her and all the desert debris. Just then, a voice echoed through the chamber.

"Welcome," the voice of Pedro O'Sullivan boomed, "to the real battlefield! Honestly, did you think that the best I could come up with was some big crappy desert? When I use bribery to bend reality to my will, I go all out! What you see around you is the latest addition to the POS Industries corporate empire, a secret base located deep with in the Mojave Desert! It is here, in this lair specially created for this fight, that you will meet your doom and soforth..."

POS yawned lightly over the intercom, "All this villainous monologuing gets tiresome, doesn't it? Anyway, a few things of mention. First of all, the walls are constructed using an alloy that, while you may be able to blow it up, it would take so much time, energy, and concentration that it wouldn't at all be worth it. My suggestion is that if you want any chance of beating me, don't try that. You'll just get frustrated and tired. Secondly, while I am right here waiting to fight you, it's my secret underground evil villain's lair, so you'll have to dodge tricky traps and fight my eight robot masters before you reach me.... or something....."

There was a brief pause as a dead silence hung over the air.

"What? I'm not telling you! Get a move on and find out yourself, already!" Pedro gumbled as the intercom connection cut off. On the far wall facing Arhra, a series of lights lit up around a doorway, which itself wooshed open invitingly. As there were no other doors around, it appears that this would be the way to go.

Or it would have been the way to go, if the four shadow puppets hadn't decided to burst out of the sand beneath her.

[Arhra]

Falling Rule
An RPG character can fall any distance onto anything without suffering anything worse than brief unconsciousness. In fact, falling a huge distance is an excellent cure for otherwise fatal wounds -- anyone who you see shot, stabbed, or mangled and then tossed off a cliff is guaranteed to return later in the game with barely a scratch.

Now, if you are some sort of illiterate, you might... no, wait, that's no good. If you were illiterate, you wouldn't be able to read this little exposition either. Let's try again.

Now, if you are the kind of person who misses the obvious, you might be wondering what the relevance the Falling Rule is. Quite simply, Arhra has quite recently been subjected to it. Of course, since you likely already know this, that makes this explanation largely a waste of space.

Arhra crawled to her feet. She felt like she'd been falling for a week. Everything was surprisingly pain free though. Well, after the hitting the ground part that is. Fortunately the sand had helped cushion her fall.

She listened absently to Pedro's monologuing as she dusted herself off and checked that everything was intact. Then the four shadow puppets dug themselves out and attacked. The splodomancer really couldn't say she was that surprised by it.

Arhra summarily defeated them and raced into the maze of the POS Industries base. She solved devious puzzles, pulled switches, found keys, dodged fiendish traps, collected the five mystical thingies of great plot significance and fought eight robot masters, defeating each one in a battle more spectacular with each victory. Then she fought POS in an epic three day long running battle before finally collapsing his own control room on him.

At least, that's what Arhra would have liked to have happened. Needless to say, it didn't go quite like that. One and a half short, violent and messy battles later, Arhra dusted her hands as and then noticed something buried partway in the sand. She picked it up and brushed the sand off it. Yes, this could be very useful indeed. Sudden bouts of paranoia being one of Arhra's character traits, she checked it over for any possible traps and then the splodmancer added her own little surprise. Satisified, she set off into the corridor, wearing the Negative Kamen's lost tophat at a jaunty angle.

[POS Industries]

"...So you see, this arrangement would be benefit all of us. I can assure you that any contract between us would invariably be recognized by my premier backer, and having him on your side can be very, very useful..."

The Negative Kamen sat in a darkened control center, a large monitor displaying Arhra's fight with the four shadow puppets, as he addressed what appeared to be a bobblehead doll of Billy Dee Williams in a bear suit that sat upon the console in front of him. At that moment, the doll's head began to bobble up and down, almost as if it agreed with what the masked man was saying. "Good," the Kamen continued, "Then we have an agreement. All I need from you now is to temporarily suspend her subscription for the duration of this fight and we can get down to business after the tournament is over. Sound good?"

Suddenly, the doll shot into the air, transforming into box of Cheerios for a split second before exploding to the tune of Bach's "Fugue for Lute in G Minor". Several thousand lightyears away, the entire population of the planet K'Hemrizzzet was suddenly transformed into appoximately five and a half billion clones of William Henry Harrison, Ninth President of the United States.

Content that all had been sufficiently arranged, Negative Kamen turned his attention back to the task at hand, noting that his puppets had been vanquished and Arhra was now making her way down the corrider to her next challenge.

*************************

Arhra exited the hallway into a darkened room, which suddenly burst into life as she entered. Bright lights flashed about, and the sound of cheesy music and cheering fans filled the room as Arhra wandered into what appeared to be a studio for a television game show. On the far wall were three doors, appropriately marked "1", "2", and "3". As she took it all in, a holographic image suddenly faded into existance on the soundstage, appearing to be Rei's android form dressed in a somewhat tacky suit.

"Hello, Arhra!" Rei greeted her excitedly, "And welcome to everyone's favorite game show, Win, Lose, or Choose!!"

The canned audience cheered even more loudly as the hologram made her announcement. Walking up to Arhra, Rei held a microphone up to the her "contestant" and turned around, gesturing broadly toward the set. "The rules are simple," she explained, "There are three doors, each one leading to a different challenge that you have to complete in order to continue. Now, not only can you choose one of the doors, but you can choose to walk away now and receive either $10000 or.... the mystery prize!!"

Assorted "oohs" and "ahhs" echoed from the recorded voices of the audience as a podium rose up out of the soundstage floor, bearing a large pink box with several yellow question marks painted on it.

Rei turned to address the imaginary audience, "So, what will it be? Will our contestant choose Door #1, Door #2, Door #3, the cash prize, or will she choose.... what's in the box? Stay tuned!"

[Arhra]

As much as a mysterious box and the thought of using some complex sophistry to continue onwards anyway tempted Arhra, she decided she should play it straight. That only left which door to choose.

It was a choice of Door #2 or Door #3. Door #1 clearly wasn't even worth considering. She was wise to its tricks. It thought it was sneaky, but she could out-think an inanimate door any day of the week. Door #2 was an even number, but then again, Door #3 was the third number. Then it struck her. Door #2 was the middle door. It was obviously planning something. That left her with the only logical choice.

"I pick Door #3!" Arhra cried.

[POS Industries]

"Do you hear that, folks?" game show host Rei announced to the viewing audience, "She picked Door #3!!"

The nonexistant crowd cheered excitedly upon hearing the news, as several spotlights swung about and finally pointed themselves directly at the appropriate door. As the holographic host led her contestant down to the main stage, Rei suddenly stopped as a thought occured to her. "Wait a minute... Hey audience, I bet you're all wondering what was in the box, aren't you?" she asked as the crowd predictably cheered their approval, "Well, I guess it's too bad Arhra didn't pick it. Now we'll never know!"

Suddenly, a wave of boos, hisses, and other various jeers erupted from all about. The crowd didn't like this one bit, and neither would the producers. The box provided viewer interest, and not revealing the mysterious contents of the box left the viewership feeling disappointed. Disappointed viewers are not repeat viewers, after all. Sensing her job on the line, Rei turned to the contestant. "Well Arhra, I think the people have spoken. Wanna take a look inside.... the box?"

"Oh, I don't really...." was all Arhra could say before the show carried on anyway.

"Okay!" Rei continued as the audience chanted along with her, "What's in the box?!"

The box itself suddenly raised into the air, revealing a crown, a scepter, and what appeared to be a very official-looking deed of some sort. The crowd gasped as the sound of a muted trombone came from nowhere to play a very disappointing "wahhh-wahhhh" sound.

"Oh... oh dear, that's just too bad," Rei said, feigning sympathy as she turned back to Arhra, "It seems that the mystery prize was complete autocratic sovereignty over the whole of existance. Oh well! Thanks for playing, and we here at Win, Lose, or Choose wish you the best of luck with whatever lies ahead of you behind Door #3. Buh-bye now, and don't forget to spay and neuter your pets!"

In a flash, Door #3 flew open and Arhra found herself whisked into it just before the entire room was filled with concentrated chorine gas. The door slamming behind her before the gas could eat away her flesh, Arhra found herself in yet another dimly lit corrider that, curiously, bore a much more welcome light at the end. Moving in the only allowable direction, the splodomancer exited the corridor into.....

....a food court. A shopping mall food court. There was a Chik-Fil-A, a Sbarro, Taco Bell, Subway, Orange Julius, Panda Express, and Burger King, all open for business and bearing fast food at exorbitant mall prices.

It would appear that the challenge behind Door #3 was, in fact, to successfully buy lunch.

[PyrosNine]

"Ooh oooh!" Pyros yelled enthusiastically from his viewspot. "Go Arhra!"

"Pick the Subway! All the other restaurants are manned by Orcs in human disguise! Even that one that looks Puerto Rican and is too big chested for her shirt! Also, you could probably find use in the Subway Diet!"

[Arhra]

OOC: Well, in an attempt to acclerate things along a little, ka-post! Would have liked time to ask POS a few things, but time is ticking away. TICK TOCK TICK TOCK! Incidently ka-1000!

Arhra couldn't say that she was that unhappy about missing out on the mystery prize. There was probably some strings attached and besides, it wasn't like the universe was going to be around for that much longer anyway. Soon she'd be up against POS, seeing if her tricksiness was enough to take out the Negative Kamen. And if not, falling in this base would mean little in the scheme of things. Mere momentary pain.

And so Arhra began her epic quest to gather the swift comestibles of terrible expense from the bowels of the dread mall. In times like this, what was needed was a burger. And so Arhra journeyed across the perilous distances to wrest one from the King of Burgers.

A few seconds later, she'd reached the counter, "Hi there," she said, "I'd like a burger. Do you take threats of terrible and violent demise?" A tiny, bright spark of magic like a miniature sun was already cupped in one hand.

"Sorry miss, it's against company policy. We're out of patties anyway." the unfortunate server said.

Arhra slumped, "Ah, sorry to have bothered you then."

"Weeelll... if you're that desperate for a burger, I suppose I could make one up for you if you bring me some meat."

The splodomancer thanked him half heartedly and wandered off. Where was she supposed to find meat in this bustling mall? She wasn't feeling particularly cannibalistic today.

She intercepted one shopper passing by, hoping to see if she could convince him to part with some spare change only to have him turn to her and say, "Well, if you're looking for meat, I happen to have some on me. If you can find me an umbrella I'd be happy to give it to you." The man then continued on his aimless wander.

Feeling faintly bewildered, Arhra wandered off and grabbed another shopper, "An umbrella? Goodness no, I don't have any on me." Eventually, Arhra found someone who did have an umbrella and was willing to trade it for something else. A little while later, the splodomancer had come to the end of a long string of people, one of the cleaning staff offering to give her what she needed if she would clean out the toilets.

After being led to the toilets, Arhra was mildly horrified to find its current state. Calling it a urine soaked, filth smeared quasi-swamp wouldn't do it justice. The mould and the slime seemed to be fighting a pitched battle for rulership of the bathroom. Previously unknown forms of life had probably been spawned out of the mess. The cleaning staff were probably afraid of going in there. No wonder they'd roped Arhra into doing it. As the cleaning lady bustled off to get the cleaning gear, Arhra came to the inescapable conlusion that there was only one possible solution to this problem.

Fire. And lots of it.

She conjured up a bomb, tossed it in there and slammed the door shut behind it. A muffled boom was accompanied by a chorus of tiny, high pitched screams as Arhra whistled nonchalantly. Bright light flared out of the window in the door while Arhra leaned on it to keep it shut against the force of the explosion.

The cleaning lady came rushing back, glaring at Arhra. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Why I'm cleaning the toilets," Arhra said, projecting an air of injury at all these unwarranted accusations. Smoke began to waft out from underneath the door.

"Well you'll have to clean up all the mess you..." The cleaner stopped speechless, having pushed Arhra aside and opened the door. The sheer spotless whiteness of it all was stunning. Even the smell was gone. Looking at it, you'd have to wonder if you'd wandered into a completely different room than the festering pit from before.

"Explosions fix everything." Arhra declared happily. And who knows, perhaps she was right. All splodomancers thought she was. Then again, of course those maniacs would think so.

The cleaner wordlessly handed over the rubber duck Arhra had been seeking. She went and traded it for the shovel, then went through the inflatable matress, large and impressive hat, vial of purple goo, tombstone, weird mask, misplaced letter, dream pillow, canoe and deku seedling before finally getting the unmbrella.

Presenting it to the first shopper she'd spoken to with a flourish, he smiled and handed over a briefcase filled with slabs of meat.

Handing over the steaks at the Burger King counter, Arhra achieved her goal. A few minutes wait and then the momentous event she had been waiting for happened.

Arhra got the Burger!

The splodomancer flipped open her quest log and ticked the latest quest off, feeling the warm glow of accomplishment. Time for lunch!