Sigma's ExposéIn his search for the bloodworks Sigma found a rather, unwelcome guest instead. It was the man in the hawaiian shirt.
"Having fun Sigma?" The man was leaning against a wall, staring up at the sky, Sigma had half a mind to ignore him.
"Come now, all this and you can't even talk to me?"
"I do not wish to talk to you."
"What if I said you could join in?"
"And if I didn't want to?"
The man in the hawaiian shirt lifted off the wall and grabbed Sigma's shoulders. "You don't have a choice."
Sigma went to pull away, but as he did so his surroundings changed, suddenly he was standing on the arena floor, the sand sticking to his talons. But something was off, different. There were large sheets suspended above the floor dampening the heat of the sun, and thee crowd had changed to from people of all sorts to monsterous humanoids, all gnashing their teeth and cheering.
The man had not left.
"This isn't even..." Sigma started.
"I know, but that's busy so we're going to one of my own."
"Look, Ri-."
"Up-pup-pup," the man held his hand up, "you know very well to call me the Author."
Sigma started over, his voice in full contempt, "Look, Author, I don't want to fight, you remember what happens when I fight? Why don't you fight, give the crowd something to look at."
The author thought that over a minute. "You know that's not a bad idea, have to scale down what I could do though."
"Good, now let go of me, and let me go back."
"Oh no, you're staying."
Sigma merely growled at that remark and started to walk away from the man who harassed him so.
As a result this became;
The Author's Exposé.Round 1: The Risen
Rules:
No Magic
No Weapons
Drums pounded above the arena floor. Fires blossomed, monstrous humanoids gnashed their teeth and waved their limbs. Upon a dusty platform a robed figure walked out and held out its hands. The arduous, unintelligible language of the creature issued forth and the crowd quieted. It spoke for a minute and the monsters quiet, but as its voice rose, so too did the activity in the arena, before long, the monsters were cheering and screaming again.
And then, the figure snapped its finger, and all was silence. All that could be heard were the sounds of sands shifting as an unnatural wind stirred the arena floor. That shifting turned into shuffling, and that shuffling turned to rumbling, beneath the sands bones moved, clattered, and rose, giving the Author view of the fallen as their skulls ascended, followed by their bodies.
In the matter of moments, the arena floor went from empty to filled with the unholy. The skeletons did not screech or scream, they simply moved, all towards the hawaiian shirt-clad man who stood in the center, arms crossed, smiling.
"Ooooh, skeletons, I could be more original." The Author let his arms down and knelt to take off his sandals. As he rose the first skeleton was upon him, and to dispatch it the author simply smashed his sandal into the pelvis of the encroaching skeleton where it crumbled instantly. This earned a "hmph" from the man, who tossed the same sandal at another skeleton and it too crumbled.
Well at least it was not going to be too hard.
The author was about to repeat the same thing aloud when he was caught from behind by a blind swipe from a closing skeleton. Its finger bones caught in his loose shirt and tugged on it, the man's response was to whip around on the ball of his foot and smack the skull clear off the body of the skeleton. The skull sailed through the crowd and landed softly, the body, however, began to flail madly as the man dodged and made his way behind it only to have his shoulders caught in the claws of another skeleton.
It became apparent that the skeletons were hording like zombies.
The Author felt his shirt tugged at and pulled as they all closed in on him, within seconds the author was not to be seen as bones clattered over bone, and the slow shuffling of unfleshed limbs filled the quieted arena. It could not be over so soon, and the monsters were disappointed.
Of course, it wasn't over, the Author was simply picking shinbones out from underneath the skeletons, and as he did so they would fall and pile on top of him, until they formed a writhing shell of bone around him, which he propped up with his back. The man was surprised they weren't biting, or clawing, or even kicking, just moving....it was odd.
It might be because he was only human.
To the Author, however, this was nothing, so he started to move underneath the shell he had made, and as he did the skeletons would fall and crumble behind him. He stood powerfully thrusting the remaining skeletons off and what met his sight was disturbing; despite the fallen skeletons, more were rising. To the audience, this was a veritable sea of bones, rising and falling with every step, like a hollow broken tide.
The Author began to worry. He did the only thing he could think to do in a situation like this, he freaked out.
"BLAHAHAHAHAHA!" He screamed and ran around waving his arms crashing them into skeleton after skeleton and they, in turn, crashing to the ground. He did this unstoppably for a bit, but instead of thinning the ranks, it cut slowly closing currents in a slowly closing sea. The author saw now reason to stop.