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Ruuvan would find the swords surrendered with no resistance, the shadow liquid seemed to almost slither loose as if it had decided its time was at an end.

And as he recovered himself from the brink, and stood, Maximos would be behind him with nothing a grin from ear to ear. No he was not upset at the reset of there match, he was instead glad at the opportunity for a second round, and that Ruuvan knew how to accept defeat.

Maximos took a step back, suddenly without warning a purple-black glow overtook the shadow, it ignited runes across his form from head to toe, burning them bright and clearly visible even despite his clothes. The glow was present for an instant, and then in an instant it vanished.

The ground protested as new weight sunk into it. His hands reached reached up to his cracked faces, his fingers into the cracks setting free drops of black before he violet tugged, and ripped pulling chunks of the pale shadow shell off and sending them to the floor. Beneath the shadow lied something new and clean, flesh that was pale and yet carried a pinkish hue of health. Two mismatched eyes met Ruuvan, the left black, the white right with a odd faint glow slipping from it.

His hands quickened there work, snapping and breaking off chunks of the hollow form that coverd his face. He stomped on the ground, the sound echoing across the arena, shattering the loose pieces over his body off and dropping them to the ground where they instantly dissolved into a black mist. Which skittered at the suns touch.

This left Maximos standing before Ruuvan, with no hat, and no jacket. He wore a grey pinstripe vest with a black dress shirt beneath it. Its sleeves rolled up to about his elbows. His right arm was covered in white bandages that exited the sleeve and vanished under a full black leather glove. His left was exposed, making the black tribal runic tattoo that spiraled down it clearly visible tracing up into the fingerless black leather glove on his left hand. Matching his shirt, he wore black pants, and odd black boots with a runic design sewn into the leather. He was patting what seemed to be black powder or soot from his arms.

There were no words said, as none were needed. Maximos reached his right arm upwards, his fingers pinched around an imaginary thread and he pulled it, and there was an audlble "ding". The sun flew from the sky, darkness rush into swallow light, and the arena was now filled with the purplish-orange hue of Twilight.

Round 2 had begun.

An elderly looking man shifted about. His body shook with each step. His neck was bent back and veins could be seen pressing against the skin of his neck and fore arms. His mouth made gasping noises as he moaned in horrible agony.

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"What does he mean, wake up?" Rae glance at Hono with another frown.

Hono just shrugged at her double. She didn't really understand the void.. normally when she was here it was in a nice relaxing mood.

"I can't really believe that this is just a dream, I may not wake up full of stab wounds but I still remember the last fight I had here.. and it felt like I had been run over by a buss when I woke up!" xp

"Have you ever noticed how you can not heal the mind... I mean you can slowly work your way around a mental or emotional injury, if the person lets you, but it is not like you can just stick you hands in someones brain and make them forget the pain of loosing someone they love or make them suddenly forgive someone who has hurt them in the past." Hono looked at Rae and there was a shadow deep in here eyes that Rae realised she didn't really have. "I think that is why you hurt only in your mind when you come out of the void... because I think that it is only your mind that comes here!"

Rae was tempted to ask who had wounded Hono's heart so much that it stuck with her all the time. "So you think that we are really back in the hotel right now?"

"That is my guess, but I don't think this is really a dream either... When Ruu and Maxi leave here they will remember what they have learned in this battle...but what Ruu forgets is that in this place Maxi is truly in his element, with the darkness of the void all around him..." Hono turned her attention back to the fight and wondered what an old man was doing all alone in the void.

"But Maxi doesn't really use it like he knows that the void is the perfect place for him..."

"No, he doesn't, that is what makes him a good guy!" xd

Damrius hit the ground running... and then stumbling... and then rolling.

The last thing he expected was to be going for a daily run and then being teleported... to this place. The Void. And on top of that, while running and not paying much attention, he was unable to stop from falling on his face.

As he pushed himself up, he examined his surroundings. Long... flat ground, and what seemed to be dark, black, black edges. The ground stopped abruptly about a hundred yards away, swallowed up by the blackness.

Damrius looked around, his hand instictively dropping onto his sword hilt. He looked around, wishing he had his full suit instead of jeans and a black tanktop on.

Always with the hurling of good motivation, that man. Ruuvan didn't move though; like a statue, not blinking or his gaze wavering from his opponent, ready in some way.

Then the shadow rushed him, right arm out and palm open, all going straight for his head. Ruuvan stepped lightly, his left foot swinging out and back, his body shifting with it to bring him a pace back from the shadow's arm and facing side on. He shifted the blades, switching one into reserve and the other out front. One simple uppercut from its position at the Elfs side would be enough to severe the arm. Maximos could deal with such things, if he remembered correctly. So could Ruuvan when the Undead taint remained. Good times.

"EYAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

The man laughed maniacally for a second, and seemed to be trying his best not to fall over. Once he had regained his posture and his breath, he spoke through the mask.

"If you could see through this mask, you could tell that I find all of this extremely pathetic!" He shouted across the arena with a sick glee. "I've crushed the minds and bodies of countless warriors... indeed, it's pity your friend couldn't be here to see you die, only the brat is currently not in control of his body... The look on his anguished face would be..." He paused for a moment and took a deep, disturbing breath inwards.

"Delicious..."

He started to laugh again, this time quietly, but it slowly grew until he was laughing out loud with insane drive. He clutched his weapon in one hand tightly as the other gestured out in a flourish as he reared back his head and continued to laugh like the madman he was.

Clouds of dust and flashes of light blocked the arena from view as the man was presumably bombarded with electricity and utterly obliterated. Rock shards flew everywhere like privative proxy mines all going off at once. No normal human being would have been able to survive such an attack...

As the dust cleared, the charred and burning remains of the lamp post lay before Dames feet. Their was some blood on the ground, but otherwise no sign of the previous man standing there.

"Hmmm... it seems I underestimated exactly how pathetic you really are..."

The man was standing about 30 feet away this time. He had used the commotion as cover, though from the look of his right shoulder he took a nasty hit - blood was seeping from a gash that he had received, but instead of it being normal, it appeared to be a darker shade of red than usual.

His stance shifted slightly as he brought the blade in hand up as if intending to finally start fighting back. Before doing anything else, he muttered a few words - they were slow, deliberate, and touched on the epitome of the level of crazy this man resided in -

"...Death to all who oppose me..."

He wiped some of the blood onto his left hand, then proceeded to slide it across the blade of his weapon. He then brought it up in a block like stance close to his masked face and in a vile tone he said three words:

"Dies ist Mitternacht..."

The blade shone (for lack of a better word) with darkness for a moment before flashing with the same color as the blade extended out and changed from the normal color of steel to a black color, the hilt shifting as well as if to mimic a deamon's claw grasping up at the bottom of the blade. The bottom grew as well, creating what on a normal weapon would be a pommel, but instead of a round or square thing, it also became a demonic looking claw clutching a dark blood red stone.

He swirled the newly created abomination around for a moment, before looking at Dame one more time...

"... Prepare for agony... "