Colosseum - Quarterfinal - Shang Tsung vs Strazio Rockwell

[Shang Tsung]

With a long sigh, Strazio descended from his ascended state. His raw flesh burned red with his fury, and his clothes had been scorched to shreds around his muscled figure. Unaffected, his belt and the two books that hung from it drifted in the gentle breeze that blew through the synthetic cityscape. He felt some tension ease from his brain as the zombied troll let out a death rattle and crumbled into a pile of discolored ashes.

Somewhere in the distance, the Defender of Darkshire heard the cheer of the crowd, but before he could let himself relax entirely, he listened through his mangled ears for the source of the noise.

Not our section of the arena…

Whoever was cheering, they were doing so for other contests that were winding down in the other three battle zones.

Looking at the crumbled building, Strazio knew in his gut that he stared at the dust-coated crypt of Shang Tsung. The sorcerer could not have endured such a grievous injury…

Somewhere among the rubble, the white-haired man spotted some movement. A beat later, a lance of yellow energy tore through the stonework and slammed into the man’s handicapped arm. Already weary flesh burned down to the bone as the knees of the warrior buckled underneath him.

Strazio caught himself with his good hand, but try as he might, he couldn’t find the strength to force himself back to a vertical position. His dilated eyes glared angrily at the ground before him as blood dribbled down from various wounds on his visage. There was the echo of boots upon the cobblestone, and then the white-haired man was struck by a solid kick to his exposed midsection.

Rolling through the momentum, some mixture of grit and rage gave Strazio the edge he needed to get his feet underneath his battered carcass. As he rose to his feet, the Defender of Darkshire glared at his adversary. Shang Tsung looked like little more than a walking corpse—the sorcerer’s flesh was burned and flayed off in various locations. The blackened remains of his robes hung loosely around his mangled figure.

“You look like shit,” Shang rasped as he started to lurch toward his adversary.

Despite his mouth being little more than a pool of blood and shredded gums, Strazio managed a last, slurred remark. “Fuck you.”

The tarkatan blade slid out from Shang’s blackened forearm, and with a grunt, the sorcerer stepped forward and slammed the organic weapon into the other man’s ribcage. A deformed hand swiped at Shang’s face, cutting fresh lines in his already battle ravaged countenance. With a schnickt, a second blade loosed itself before being driven into the other side of the white-haired man’s chest. At that second, lung-punching impact, Strazio’s rasps were replaced with blood-laced gurgles as the blades slid out from his battered carcass.

As his balance eroded, Strazio made one last feral swipe at his opponent. In a flash of bloody bone-steel, Shang cleaved off the man’s hand. The white-haired man smacked into his opponent and dropped to his knees.

“I’ll have these for you in Darkshire,” Shang replied as he severed the chain that connected the pair of books from his opponent’s belt. Words tried to make their way out of the dying man’s maw, but his opponent drove a blade through his mouth and out the base of his skull. “Hush…” Shang muttered as he retracted the weapon back into his forearm and half-knelt, half-fell to his knees next to Strazio. “Your soul is mine.”

Shang: +1 Necronomicon, +1 Strazio's Journal (bohbohboh)