Colosseum - Round 2 - Okor vs Monkey D Luffy

[Storyteller]

Okor shambled out for this second bout. The plague marine stared back at the armory filled with weapons and noticed a few things that were familiar to him. A glance around revealed that he was actually high above what had once been the floor of the Colosseum. A glance down revealed a foreboding gray fog.

On the other side of the battle zone, Luffy grinned as he poked at a red morning star on a rack of weapons. As he giggled to himself, Baron Victor von Magnus hit the gong and round two began.

Judge – Gildarts/Caira

Okor posts first and may do so at any time after 10 PM CDT.

Description of fight area and other information can be found here - <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://omniverse-rpg.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4362">viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4362</a><!-- l -->

Please refer any questions to that thread.

Word Limit: 750
Posts: 3
Time Limit: 48 hours
SP use is enabled. SP does not regenerate between rounds. Injuries may occur. Neither injuries nor SP use are factored into judgment, only the quality of writing.

[Okor]

The marine breathed deep, savouring the acrid taste of chemicals and toxins that infused his ravaged lungs as the gong rang, echoing around the forest of steel and chrome. His lone eye sighted his opponent, a seemingly unarmed youth looking over the array of mortal weapons with rapt interest, a not-quite mad smile etched upon his scarred face, topped by an ostentatious straw hat. The millennia-old warrior wasted no time with taunts, war cries, or threats. The Gods favoured those who were known by deed, rather than by word, after all. Cloven hoof and steel boot stomped across the chrome surface of the platform, as he raised rusted weapons in necrotic hands, rotten fists closing around the trigger of bolter and pistol. With dull thumps, they spat their shells, rocket-propelled slugs screaming through the air towards the lean figure, howling a wordless serenade of death and fury that had brought the end of countless worlds. They brought with them a promise of death and pain, eager to create a demise so violent that even the immortal denizens of this accursed realm would think twice about daring to oppose him and his masters.

It was at this point that the pirate, rather than being simultaneously shot, burnt, irradiated, partially exploded, and acquiring tetanus to boot, cartwheeled away from the incoming hail, limbs stretching impossibly to carry him out of harm's way. Shouting a string of curses (A dangerous thing when you devote your life to a Dark God fond of laying a malediction upon an entire bloodline), his weapons barked again, a trail of shrapnel and fire following his agile adversary. Okor grinned as he kept up his fusillade, sending the grinning brawler closer and closer to the edge overlooking the toxic miasma covering the floor of the arena. Just a few more steps…

His opponent once more chose to defy the universal concepts of entropy, decay, and the inevitability of death. Using the absurd elasticity of his limbs, the straw-capped fiend launched itself high into the air, a manic grin evident as he put his sandaled feet together, angling his body towards the chosen of Nurgle. "Gomu Gomu Spear!" Yelled his opponent, as he descended on his foe like the fist of Khorne himself. What did this fool hope to do to him? He was a veteran of The Long War, son of Mortation, bringer of death, and herald of plague. What threat did this youth pose to hi-

Okor's ancient breastplate cracked under the blow as the titanic warrior was sent flying, his bulk crashing through a flimsy metal shed. Shrapnel spun away from the impact, as the marine groggily forced his eye open, noticing both the spear of jagged metal jutting from his stomach, and the rapidly approaching youth, who shouted something about a "bullet", despite his obvious lack of ballistic weaponry. He could feel his blighted life force slipping away, seeping onto the ground surrounding him. Are you reclaiming what is yours, my Lord? He wondered, his opponent closing in as his limbs began to melt away, turning into a virulent slime. I can still fight. Let me fight. Am I not worthy to bear your gifts? As his flesh rotted and liquefied, the pirate swung his rubbery fist, its momentum carrying it towards Okor's horned helmet.

It joined the rest of the marine's corporeal form on the floor as the blow struck, Luffy's clenched fingers meeting the steel wall of the dwelling place, demolishing the fragile architecture of the structure, and bringing it down on the pair.

After a brief lull in the action, dust and powdered metal spreading from the collapsed ruin, an elastic arm protruded from the remnants of what was once a hovel, followed quickly by the malleable body of its owner. Laughing, he spoke: “Well, that was easier than expected.” His fists rested on slim hips, as he boasted to the crowd. “Who’s next? I think my warmup is just about done!” While the insufferable youth taunted and crowed, the amorphous form of Okor coalesced behind him, returning from his state of primordial ooze. In his still-dripping hands, he clutched the rusted blade, preparing to swing its heavy edge towards the strange, infuriating youth. His armour was still dented and cracked from his first blow, a feat that only a handful of entities could replicate.The child may have been strong, but Okor was eternal. He swung his blighted blade, tearing through the air, destined to connect with the pirate’s neck.

749 words according to wordcounter.net

[Monkey D. Luffy]

-----
Swoosh!

The oxidized hunk of millennia-old steel cleaved through a waft of noxious air, yet nothing more. Certain to claim yet another soul for his memorandum, the heretic chose to forego proper footing. As the rustic headhunter swung with intent as grotesque as his form, Straw Hat fortuitously zipped his rubber dome down beneath the toothy blade's pathway, leaving his aesthetically infamous headwear a mere hairline above the flesh divider as it carved steadily under. The pirate's acclimated Observation Haki proved fruitful once more.

"Ksh!" The champion of nurgle clicked beneath waning breathe, stumbling ever slightly from the hefty meat-cutter's recoil. Luffy snatched his beloved cap from aerial stasis and planted a stalwart rear kick to the space marine's abdominal region.

With a wrenching gnarr, Okor blundered while his ferrous plates of odious mail faltered, now decorated by a shallow imprint of the sea captain's sandal, a sigil he wore with irked vexation. His wretched deities would surely hold no reverence to this mark of ridicule.

"Kahahah, woo hoo hoo that was close!" Luffy cackled whilst patting the aft of his slender neck, if only to make certain it was still intact and flesh-eating-disease free. Though muscular by his own right, in comparison to someone of Okor's stature it was little more than a sprig, effortlessly snapped under the smite of his boot. Dethroning his patented cap from the crest of his noodle, Mugiwara gazed merrily at it.

Heh, boy am I sure glad those arena bosser guys magically brought you back to me with that glowing, rainbow stuff! I thought I lost you forever to that cloaked creepo. What would the Straw Hat Pirates become without a straw hat?? Hmm, but I wonder how they did that? Ah well, it's a mystery! Kehehehe, 'least now I don't have to worry about letting Shanks down afte—

RATATATATAT!

The shriek of ballista fire clapped the pirate from his lucid thoughts, ripping him back to reality with a roaring battalion of nefarious pellets. Drawn into a frenzy of laborious shuffles and shirks, Luffy exploited his superior agility and spunk. Akin to a monkey swinging from branch to branch, he danced elusively along the chromatic raftors. Though Okor was relentless, persisting the assault with ardent focus, grinding away at footholds until the captain inevitably slipped up.

Alas, fate would see it so.

Shunk!

"Gack!" the squirrely combatant quailed.

A stray slug whizzed true, gouging a superficial dollop of muscle from his pliable tricep. Wreathing pain gnawed at Straw Hat's nervous system as his dangling extremity fell limp, plunging him into the necrotic abyss below. A mere glancing blow, though it may as well have been a point-blank of buckshot as seething pain leaked from the virulent flesh wound. His veins pulsed and purpled near the cauterized entry point, evidence of myriad infections seeping in.

With a clack, the warmonger retracted his aberrant firearm. His lonesome eye scanned the field, searching incessantly for a boiling corpse. Even his trained, cyclopian optic found the blanket of fog troublesome probe. Clamoring out from the death shroud, a shrewd battle cry snatched the marine's attention with haste. How any living being of flesh and bone could survive in such a visceral cage of gaseous contagions even he knew not of was a baffling mystery.

"Gomu Gomu no . . . " The pragmatic youth bellowed from beneath the layers of stagnant fog as a swirling cyclone amassed, churning the septic stew like a witch's boil as tendrils of elastic limbs disentangled like knitting yarn. Okor lurched ever slightly at the display before him, mulling over his limited options, prepping experienced defensive measures.

FWOOOM.

"AIR GUN!!" he cried out fervently as a contrived, whirling spiral of toxic wind swiveled forth, funneling out from Luffy's twirling tornado of unraveling limbs taking form reminiscent of a conic windmill. As the youth unfurled, his concocted assault enveloped and trapped the heretic within a prison of pestilent haze which disintegrated his fortified bastion. For the average mortal, such a corraling swamp of baleful miasma would secure sweet demise, but what of Mugiwara's hermetically impermeable foe?

-----

[Okor]

A toxic miasma enshrouded Okor, gases swirling around his bulk as he stumbled backwards, the ferocity of his opponent throwing him off-balance. His guns fell and affixed themselves to his greaves, the possibility of flammability not entirely discounted. It was nigh-impossible to think. The youth was a constant blur of motion, striking with impossibly powerful blows. Better than you. The thought seeped into his mind like a subtle poison. There was no denying it. The Plague Marine was up against his superior, a mere whelp granted power beyond reckoning by the whims of a mad godling. He began to take a step forward, when the shrieking of sundered steel came from beneath his feet.

With a screamed curse, the pestilential paladin fell, dead claws scrabbling at the rapidly corroded floor he once stood upon, desperately seeking for any hold, no matter how tenuous. The gods graced him with a spear of shattered metal, which promptly scratched against his ceramite gauntlet, scoring gouges in the fog-afflicted material. With a grunt of effort, be began to haul himself over the lip of the newly appeared chasm. Unfortunately, this endeavour was cut short by a cry of “GOMU GOMU AXE!”, and a foot crashing down on his skull from on high. Decrepit vertebrae cracked under the force, the absurd strength of his foe causing him to spiral ever-downwards, his fragile handhold shattering under his weight. He flailed wildly, sinking into the deathly miasma. The pirate’s mocking laughter became the only sound as he plummeted, as even the bastard’s youthful face became obscured by poisonous gas.

Nurgle’s chosen son slammed onto the harsh rockcrete,cracks spinning a haphazard web across its surface. Warnings blared in his helm, cautioning him that his ‘air’ supply was breached. Accompanying it were sigils Okor no longer recognized, lost to the rotten recesses of his mind. A skull and crossed bones. A circle surrounded by three warped squares. Snarling, he rose to his feet, the dark figure of the pirate barely visible through the murderous mist. Flesh and bone knitted itself back together, but his machinery was more stubborn. His helmet was shattered beyond repair, the cracked lens unable to do anything more than blare its strange warnings.

With arms sizzling from the hostile environs, chemically-induced lesions spreading across his bare flesh, he removed his helmet, raising its damaged construction over his horn. Through black, broken teeth he breathed, magical death flowing past his lips. Just like home. Now, there was a problem. His foe danced in the sky, while he was relegated to the ground. Home. How did we solve this on Barbarus? The answer was simple. If your foe was atop a spire shrouded in lethal miasma, you climbed the tower, and watched them squirm as you crushed their throat beneath your boot. Ruined claws grasped at the surface of the pillar, acidic fog burning away at his thin veneer of life. Pistons snarled in protest as their workings suffered under the noxious touch of the gas. But he moved, hauling himself ever-upward, towards his doom.

He impaled his naked palm on a brutal spike, solidifying his grip. Hang on, even if only by a thread. Never fall, never surrender. A blur of movement was visible out of the corner of his fevered eye. An elastic fist careened towards him, impossible anatomy carrying it from atop the pirate’s perch to Okor’s face. Grim determination set on his face, the marine braced, his malformed maw opening, ravenous tendrils sinuously snaking towards the approaching arm. The awaited blow connected, splintering Okor’s nose even as horrific teeth opened in a grin. Barbed tentacles wrapped around the rubbery appendage as it retracted, his foe’s titanic strength carrying the Plague Marine along for the ride, mists blurring below as he accompanied the fist on its journey to the platform. To battle. The journey of Nurgle’s chosen was interrupted by a sudden whipping motion from his foe, and the unforgiving steel of the arena. He skidded across the surface, sparks stemming from the friction of metal on ceramite. Laughter filled the arena, both from the audience and from his opponent. He slowly rose to his feet, spitting out rotten teeth from his shattered mouth, as his opponent taunted. “Cor, ain't you an ugly one. Didn’t think I hit you bad enough to give you a mug that bad.” Okor’s cyclopean, hateful eye fixated itself on his foe, as he drew his pitted blade, necrotic slime dripping from his blackened teeth.

747 words according to wordcounter.net.

[Monkey D. Luffy]

"Erk!" the overtly resolute pirate cringed, slumping to a knee as he clapped a palm against the gangrenous cleft of ruptured flesh upon his blistered tricep. Crippling pangs of caustic death nectar slithered throughout the seafarer's veins, ravaging his central nervous system and fuddling major motor functions.

Though brief, the rubber prime's exposure to the moor of purgatory's embrace below proved fruitful for his malignant adversary. The fuming extraterrestrial relished at the sight of his eccentric foe lying pacified, writhing on the frigid, metallic scaffolding like the worms that fed on his withered skin.

Okor catapulted himself from corroded panel to panel; his stripped ceramite armor truly devastating to the heretic's defenses, though proved advantageous for maneuverability. Brandishing the putrefied bisector which had tasted the innards of foes by the hundreds, he divided the air and zeroed in on an immobile Straw Hat, primed for maiming.

Klang!

The dull-edged blade dug into dank alloy, sparsely missing its prey as the captain sprung free from danger by slingshotting himself with an extended arm acting as a grapnel. However, his reprieve of safety was a scant recess as his beastly foe pulverized the handhold with a well-placed spatter of gunfire.

After tumbling along the platform like a gummy rag doll, Luffy recovered with a clumsy skid along the stage, only to be rewarded by a ferocious boot from the garish goliath. Slamming the youth against a battle-scarred perch, Okor placed a parasite-riddled hand upon the prime as the scent of seared flesh leaked out from Luffy's shoulder, invoking screams of agony from the pirate.

"AGH . . . GYAAAA!!" Mugiwara squawked as his decrepit enemy's clutch grew ever firmer, further degenerating layers of dermis and muscle tissue alike. In a moment of desperation, the captain reached his free hand for Okor's sidearm, planting it against his exposed chin and tugged the trigger.

Bang!

Rotten flesh and browned teeth decorated the metallic plane as the behemoth jolted to the floor in a flash of gunfire, freeing Straw Hat from impending doom. The pestilent devout's constitution shattered all laws of logic; miraculously, he wriggled to his feet once again, stained by inky ooze with a gruesome hole punctured through his lower jowl.

"Guhhh, iz zis whad Zoro feels like da day affer he guzzles down all zat booze?" Mugiwara leisurely secreted from his dribbling maw, summoning every morsel of gumption to rise up and steel his mettle. Pantomiming a labrador, the goofy captain rabidly shook his rubber dome from left to right and smacked the shilly-shally from his cheeks.

The prickling anguish flashed memories of that horned bastard Magellan, ex-warden of Impel Down. Feared by even the most vile of criminals whom garnered bounties of up to nine figures, the devilish jailor drew dangerously close to terminating the whimsical pirate with his atrocious Logia-level Devil Fruit ability— Poison.

Against appalling odds he surfaced victorious from that rancid hell, and this gauntlet of grisly might would be no different. This deathly bog would not be his grave; not today, not ever. Just as with the briny deep of the arduous grand line, Luffy would triumph over doubt and emerge a medalist. He tirelessly sought the title of "King of the Pirates," but for now would settle for "Champion of the Colosseum."

"Guess it's time to take this serious an' raise the stakes up a notch. Get ready big ugly, I'm gonna' thrash you!"

[Okor]

Warped claws clenched in anger as the pirate postured and boasted, undoubtedly summoning some kind of inner strength from the ineffable human spirit, and the love of long-off friends. Acidic bile dripped from the gaping wound in Okor’s cheek, sizzling on the platform far beneath his damaged skull. A desiccated tongue was visible through the ragged hole, stewing in a noxious mixture of disease. The fact that the whelp had been able to fire the pistol without shattering his wrist was another testament to the runt’s absurd vigour, another validation of this realm's madness. “Gomu Gomu Bazooka!” screamed his opponent, flinging his abominable limbs towards the resolute revenant, the fists hungry for his pale blood. Effluence ran over his gigantic form, unholy filth swirling and coalescing over blasphemous flesh, solidifying into armoured plates and synthetic muscles even as the death-bringing appendages approached.

With as much haste as the half-dead marine could muster, he grabbed the two fists, wrapping the rubbery extremities in rusted iron. Pistons screamed like murdered men, struggling to keep the bastard’s strength in check. In a voice like a hanged man whose throat was still throttled by rough hemp, he spoke. "No.” With this declaration of defiance, he pulled with mechanically-aided strength, sending the pirate flying towards his hulking frame, pestilential fumes escaping the warped and twisted mechanisms of his terminator armour. His foe’s flailing limbs were a stark contrast to the slow, implacable motions of the marine, a single fist grinding towards the approaching adversary’s infuriating face, black eyes widening in surprise, and, perhaps, just a tinge of fear. With the most satisfying sound Okor had heard in decades, his destructive digits connected. They cratered the pirate’s face, tanned flesh wrapping around verdigris-coated knuckles, his neck and body flying out behind the impact, only to rebound backwards a second later, flinging the pirate away from further damage.

The plague marine’s armoured foot had barely left the surface of the platform before the pirate sprung back into action, his malleable nature meaning the chosen’s heavy fists were little more than temporary annoyances. “Gomu Gomu whip!” cried the youth, a rubber foot colliding into Okor’s skull. Staggered only slightly by the blow, he snarled as he swung too late at the retracting limb. His baleful gaze settled on the ineffable pirate, a look of determination on that far too young face. Oh, by the Gods. He began to laugh, a gurgling, rasping noise stemming from parts unknown. “Huh? What’s so funny?” Queried his opponent, the onslaught stopping as he sought to sate his curiousity. Wiping brown slime from the ragged hole in his jaw, he grinned at his foe through blackened teeth, and answered.

”You really think you’re the… newcomer here, don’t you? The underdog, the… clever gladiator, here to trick and overcome the reigning champions.” He hacked up a gobbet of corrosive phlegm, its gelatinous mass streaked with translucent blood. Peals of warped laughter preceded his next bout of verbosity. ”How long have you languished in these… tides of power? The very essence of victory suffuses your being. You are an abomination borne of a godling’s warped whims, catapulted to the highest… echelons of strength. You are the champion, the monster that must be slain. I am naught but your next…victim.”

A grim chuckle leaked from his shattered mouth as he advanced forward, his antique blade scraping across the platform, creating sparks in its wake. “But I’ll be damned… again, if I don’t leave my mark.” He rasped, spitting his defiance. If he could endure this onslaught for a few minutes more, Nurgle would take the fool. Gears grinded as he began his charge, a veritable stampede towards his agile opponent. If.

1 SP used to activate Grave Warden (+2 ATk, +2 DEF, +1 TEC). 1 SP will be used to sustain it on Luffy's post. 2 SP remaining, 1 SP remaining after Luffy's post.

[Monkey D. Luffy]

Doom–doom–doom–doom.

Drumming gallops of semblant cannonade blossomed as the densely fortified juggernaut thundered forth with steady jaunts, Mugiwara centered amidst the crosshairs of his begrudged ferocity. Every titanic stomp scarring an imprint into the battle-marred platforms, Okor snarled through degenerated chompers. Not one to frighten easy, Luffy stood his ground with visage veiled by a menacing shadow of spite.

". . . Languished?" the youth protested, puckering his digits into veiny fists and narrowing his brow upon the blood-hungry soldier blitzing toward him. "Ya' think I was just given strength? Born with conviction? . . . Ya' think I haven't endured hardship?!" he sneered, grating his meat grinders whilst his fighting spirit bubbled to the surface.

"You assuming I haven't experienced the agony of loss? The shame of failure? The sorrow of watching friends suffer? Never forced to crawl through grit and muck?! Never witnessed true devilry of the world?! . . . YOU THINK I HAVEN'T FELT PAIN?! THAT I–"

Pakoom!

Straw Hat's heartfelt declaration unceremoniously fizzled out beneath a blustering blare as what appeared to be a shriveled tsantsa vaulted along the girder near his feet, rupturing into a salvo of infective bone fragments curtained by a shallow shroud of, what a surprise, toxicity.

Pelted by viral remnants of scalp shards, the afflicted captain hobbled rearward out of the nebula's venomous reach. Grotesque contagions seeded beneath his bronzed epidermis, further devolving his corporeal integrity and forcing a wince from the pirate's gullet.

Damn it, that was close! Inwardly celebrating his small feat of eluding the horrific malady of disease that was sure to follow becoming engulfed within the meddlesome plume, Luffy failed to recognize the tactic for what it truly was: a diversion.

"No, THIS is pain, boy!" the devout macabre interjected, plunging through the concealing cloud and hoisting his carnal reaper with far greater ease than previously capable, briskly rending the caustic air on its hungered path for the enemy's guts. Pressed for time to rebound, Straw Hat meagerly avoided death via bisection, instead procuring a gnarly laceration along his toned abdomen, adding to his collection of cankerous lesions.

"Ergh! I wasn't finished talking you gloppy goober!" Luffy lashed out, zipping clear of the armored husk's lonesome optic. Scanning the field incessantly, he spotted the stretchy scrapper above him in the nik of time, just long enough to see a mighty fist barreling toward him like a spiraling drill.

"Gomu Gomu Rifle!" The captain exclaimed as his corkscrewing mitt bore into the heretic's chest plate, his gnarled ceramite vestment crumbling against pulverizing gyrations. Amidst the heated onslaught, Okor managed to snag ahold of his assailant's whirling arm to halt its motion. Making use of his hulking figure, the space gunner swung his limber nemesis 'round and 'round before ultimately hammering the lad into the steely terrain.

"You're ten thousand years too early to lecture me about inner strife you doltish pup," he barked, casually awaiting his foolish adversary's riposte.

Shoveling himself back up, the hexed pirate caught a whiff of his own curdling wounds, vitality steadily dissolving. Peeyew! Is that me or him? "Oi oi, did you fart smelly?!" The rubber fool chuckled. His vision blurred and the racket of Okor's screaming gears regressed to muffled whistles. Not good. I'm starting to see double, no, triple of his fungal fanny.

It grew more and more apparent that Luffy was the impetuous hare in this voracious relay of wits and wills, and Okor the cleverly tempered tortoise. Nurgle's chosen had patiently worn Mugiwara down, whose tremorous blows proved effectual but held no significant value against a warrior lassoed by the threads of death itself. The longer this progressed, the further his odds depleted. The walking aegis needed to be felled now.

"Huff . . . I can't see . . . can't smell . . . huff . . . can't hear. Ugh, can barely stand to boot," Luffy pondered, amassing the likelihood of victory and failure alike. But I've still got a chance . . . If I have no way to know where he is, I'll just hit everything!

Inhaling the distasteful air around him, Luffy swelled up like a fleshy blimp and proceeded to twist his torso around with several motions, striking curiosity in the marine standing idle. "Gomu Gomu no . . . " he incanted with a murmur before exhaling a torrential gust from his lips and uncoiling to propel himself forth at grand velocity.

" . . . STOOORM!! RAHHH!!!" He shouted with finality in his tone, delivering a wicked maelstrom of rabid fists akin to a gatling barrage of doom.

Using Tier 1 Super Move: Gomu Gomu Storm, -1 SP.

Word Count: 750 Exactly according to Wordcounter.

[Okor]

”No.” Came the septic snarl from the scarred visage of the ancient warrior. His rotten twin hearts hammered in his decrepit, dented chest, reaching a frequency as high as a beat every other second. He raised the corroded mass of his bolter, and it spat death, barking a finality to the seemingly eternally vigorous youth. The coming storm of fists ceased as suddenly as it was summoned, a bloody tunnel carved into Luffy’s abdomen. Obsidian-pupiled eyes looked up at the indomitable titan questioningly for a brief moment, as a hand went to clutch at the wound. It was decidedly a mistake, as the shell detonated within the pirate’s innards, unleashing a spray of gore and mutilating the hand that sought to delay the grand inevitability. The audience cried out, exultation at bloodlust tinging their cries of despair. Their champion had fallen. Weak, bandy legs advanced forward, a heroic spirit propelling Mugiwara forward. A once-exuberant face was set into a mask of agony and failure, desperately trying to find the strength to take one more step. ”Tell your.. peers that your reign ends. Your works shall crumble, and your… dreams shall turn to ashes in your mouth. The stasis ends. Death begins.” He raised the simple, stubby form of his pistol, leveling its open barrel at the face of his defeated opponent. ”And you are granted the honour of the first… to fall.” Dramatic convention demanded that this would be when the click of a safety pierced the silence. Unfortunately, such a device was deemed largely superficial millennia ago, and was removed from the corroded bulk of his weapon.

It fired a single shell, screaming through the silence as it detonated against the youth’s face, engulfing what little life remained in searing phosphex, rubbery flesh melting from a blackening skull, the grin that once adorned the pirate’s face reborn in the green flames consuming him. With a dull thump, the ravaged corpse fell to the ground, rebounding slightly, a hollow reminder of the rubbery gladiator’s powers. Heavy steps brought the last killer standing to the remains of his foe. A lone claw reached down, plucking a vulcanized skull from the remnants of what was once an insurmountable obstacle. His infernal hat was only scorched from the encounter, a lone fragment of shrapnel embedded in the weave. ”Alas, poor.... Pirate, I knew him hardly. A whelp of ill-timed jest and infinite strength. And in the end, carrion.” Mused the postmortem marauder, a hacking cough stopping the start of his laughter. Carrying his trophies with him, he began to shamble off of the platform, a wide grin spreading across his face. Was this what the Slaaneshi felt? The razor’s edge between life and death, the borderline addictive thrill of dancing so dearly with death. The damnable crutch of Omnillium flowed through his veins, calling out to the strength-steeped skull he had taken.

I’ll have to do this again sometime. He thought, as he left the jeering crowd behind him, the broken and mutilated corpse of the hero cast aside on the cold steel of the platforms. The Banner of Diablo’s Legion fluttered over it, the daemonic sigil emblazoned upon it watching over the scene of carnage left behind.