literature

Round 2

Deviation Actions

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Literature Text

To measure a man by the vows he makes is a fallacy.
To measure a man by what he would break those vows for, is truth.


He flails against the darkness.  It has wrapped itself around him yet again, restraining his pure and joyous light.  "Soon," he rages. "Soon I will not have to just sit and watch!  Soon will be the time when I am the actor and HE will be the audience!"  
He calms himself, letting the peace of his inner thoughts drown out the paradox of logic and panic that is the darkness.  "Soon" he says one last time, as he watches, ever watches, and waits for the times when logic fails and panic causes his bonds to loosen.
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He breaths heavy, his every muscle screaming in pain, but he ignores it.  Call it showmanship, or pride if you like, but either way he is not going to walk away from his first real battle with a limp and a groan every step.  
As Lukas approaches were he left his coat, he catches the eye of Fenrir, his faithful hound, as he chews on his prize like it was a new toy.  "You do realize that was in that thing's head?" Lukas asks pointing over his shoulder at the body of the beast they had just killed.
Fenrir pauses in his chewing with a contemplative look on his face, and then promptly goes back to gnawing on the giant, leathery eyeball.  
With a sigh and a shake of his head, Lukas completes his journey and bends over to pick up his coat. He stops when he realizes that he was about to do so with his primary hand, the left one, the one that he just stabbed his hopefully future comrade with.  
Wiping off some of the blood in the dirt of the arena floor, he grabs the overcoat with his right.  Trying not to groan too loudly as he stands back up, he reassures himself for the hundredth time in as many paces that he did not hit anything vital.
Draping his coat over his shoulders and pocketing his hands, he whistles to his canine partner and they both start walking towards the arena entrance, Lukas forcing himself not to look back to see if Radimir is getting medical attention and Fenrir towing along his new plaything.
In the tunnel leading to the exit door, Lukas finally allows himself to break with the air of a cold killer and slumps against the tunnel wall.  "I can't believe I lost control like that," he says, panting heavily. "My muscles always hurt like a One God-er's hell after over exerting them that much."
He remained there for a time, leaning against the cool stone wall, letting it sooth his pain some, trying not to fall all the way to the ground.  Eventually his breathing slowed and he was able to pick himself up. Nodding that he was alright to Fenrir, who had been patiently sitting nearby, he continues on to the exit, the demeanor of a cold killer about him again, and this time, not one completely faked.
At the door his quartet of guards were waiting for him. At least, he thinks it's the same guards. Difficult to tell when they all look like the same blue haired woman.  Either way, they assumed the familiar escort formation without a word, one in the lead, three in back forming a crescent and pointing their short barreled shotguns at Lukas in the middle.
Fenrir at his side toting the eyeball along, Lukas seemed to relax a bit as they walked, regardless of the shotguns, and even began to whistle tunelessly.
After a minute, they reached the elevator doors that would take them back down to the cell block that had housed Lukas and Fenrir for the past three weeks.  After the guard in the lead pressed the button to summon their lift, they all waited in formation. They were in a rather unadorned hallway, with nothing to it but a large vent opening, the elevator, the doors leading back to the last hallway they were in, and a bay window showing all of the Labyrinth in its splendor.  
Lukas had stopped whistling and was admiring the view while he taped his foot, as if impatient for the elevator.
"The time alone would be ridiculous" he thought to himself, 45, 46, 47. "Forgetting the resources and man power and lack of a reason, the sheer amount of time it would take to build an underground city, big enough to harbor what was left of the population, would mean he would have had to of started building it well before the virus started to sweep across the above city." 56, 57, 58.  "Not to mention the extravagance of the entire place; artificial sun, giant building housing at least one gladiatorial arena, a towering hospital... and that's just to name what is most obvious at a glance." 79, 80, 81. "What kind of resources or tech or magic or whatever does this mad man Minos actually have and why does he keep hiding it from the world?" 88, 89, 90.
And on the ninetieth count of his tapping foot, exactly one minute and thirty seconds after the leading guard pressed the summoning button, Lukas said aloud, "You really shouldn't have let me whistle."
With a shrill whistle, many things happened in a very short time.  Lukas's right hand shoots to the back of his neck, grabbing the collar of his hanging coat. He throws it up with just enough force to remain roughly where his back once was.  A blast, the ceiling is pelted with shot from the gun of the maiden on the right, her neck being torn back and forth in Fenrir's vicing jaws.  Legs split out to his sides and stedying himself with his right hand, face next to the floor, Lukas launches a knife into the face of the maiden on the left with his free hand.  The maiden to the rear lets loose with her weapon, eviscerating Lukas's coat and the maiden in the lead, her blood spraying against the elevator door.  As she slumps against the steel doors and the coat hits the floor, the last standing maiden adopts a surprised look as she realizes that her target wasn't behind the now ruined coat, and is instead growing out of the floor right below her, or so it seemed. She barely has time to cock the gun in her hands before he is at eye level with her. He flows around her, and in the time it takes her to blink, her hands are empty and she feels the mouth of the barrel pressed between her shoulder blades.
"Seek Valhalla," Lukas whispers to her, as the third blast in as many seconds sends her falling into darkness.
The elevator doors open, and the body of the guard that was in the lead falls half in.  She is quickly joined by her fallen comrades as they are dragged in by Lukas, the sounds of Fenrir ripping off the ventilation shaft in the back ground.
Using he teeth to toss aside the grate, Fenrir picks up his eyeball trophy, blood from the guard's neck now staining it, and proceeds into the ventilation system seeking out an exit that way with his keen nose as per the second part of his whistled orders.
Lukas lets the elevator doors close, encasing the four bodies like a communal casket, having decided against sending the bodies to a different floor. "Let them panic after the next person summons it," he thinks to himself. "That might buy me some time to get away, depending on how long it takes for that to happen."
He picks up one of the shotguns, and pauses. "Ridiculous resources, unknown tech level, possible harsh gun control over the populace…" he mutters to himself, and drops the gun.  Better to assume that it is bugged or able to be tracked then to be surprised later.
Lukas walks over to the bay window, forms a two-handed war hammer along the way, and smashes the glass outwards.  As the hammer melts back into his bracers he takes a look out the now open window to confirm his suspicions.  The building he is in is indeed a dome, at least as far as he can see.  "All the better for me," he mutters as he throws himself out it.
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Athene couldn't help but feel slightly shocked.  She switched spider cams to get a better view of what was happening on the outside of the Phro-Domes.  She zoomed in on the comet of sparks that was descending it, leaving a scar behind in its wake.
It was a contestant, the one that had just slaughtered four of Artemis's nymphs.  He had formed that strange metal into two long, bladed hooks and was using them to slow his decent down the side of the building. They were digging into the metallic siding of the dome and producing the sparks that announced his descent.  Every now and then the sparks would stop as he pulled the hooks out to avoid them intercepting a seam in the metal or a window.  Almost as if to further add to the fiery cloud around him, he had formed more of the metal from his leg bracers into metallic knee and shin guards, so that he may slide on them as a counter weight to keep him against the wall.
He hit the ground hard, but rolled off most of the momentum.  Not even pausing for breath he dashed off towards the Enchanted Gardens.  
Damning that ever changing place, she resigned to not even bother trying to follow him there.  Its constant remodeling makes it near impossible to follow even a person casually strolling through it, let alone someone that doesn't want to be found.
Grumbling and shifting in her throne of information, Athene shifts perspectives again to one of the spider cameras in the ventilation system, deciding to watch the contestant's pet instead.
As an afterthought, she informed Hestia of the new, ugly addition to the Phro-Domes, and took some delight in the soon-to-be-forgotten anger of Aphrodite as she informed her as well.
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"Follow the dog."
The voiced surprised Arron so much that he hit his broken arm against the side of the large vent he was in.
Cringing in pain, he forced himself not to pull his eyes from this new resident of his hiding space.  The new man was wild haired and dressed like a hospital patient, this look all the more accurate with the medical equipment he was dragging behind him.  Although it was the wild look in his eyes that made Arron pause in his reactionary assault of this strange man, it was the two small horns protruding from his tangled mass of hair that made him forgo the idea all together in favor of a more cautious approach.
They sat there for a while, eyes locked, an expectant expression on the face of the new stranger.  All the while Arron was trying not to show how tense he was, how ready he was to do his damned best to take this guy's head off within the confined space. Better off not startling the off-balanced horned man while one has a broken arm and God knows how many bruises and cuts, he reasoned.
"Well, follow the dog!" the strange man demanded energetically.
"Wha-" Arron tried to ask, almost losing it at the loud demand.
"Dog, the one that my love who is not my love told me to tell you about so you can follow the man to find the dog… er, I mean follow the dog to find the man."
Arron could barely keep up, having a hard time following the fast paced speech mixed with the inanity of what was being said.
"At least it might help you find the man if there even is a dog but I'm not sure if there even is a dog or a man because though my Ariadne wouldn't normally lie to me it wasn't my Ariadne that told me this so I don't know if it was a lie or why the Ariadne that is not my Ariadne would lie to me so I can lie to you if it wouldn't even accomplish anything and I don't even know what her left side looks like unless it looks like Ariadne also but then why not show it to me and instead talk to me…"
He went on like this for a while, getting quieter and quieter but never once stopping to draw a breath.  Finally, when he was barely audible, Arron asked him, "Sooo… why the fuck would I follow a dog?"
The strange man snapped back to attention and replied, "Why, so you can find the man that you are supposed to find."
"And…" Arron talked slowly, not even sure why he was continuing the conversation. "Why would I want to find this man?"
The stranger suddenly switched to a dead serious demeanor. His voice portrayed nothing of the rapid rambling it had but a moment before. "Because, he is your next opponent in the tournament."
"But I escaped the tournament!"
"No!" The stranger stated, locking eyes with Arron yet again. "You have only escaped your cell. You are still in the tournament until my master Minos declares that you have lost a match. So far your record is one win and zero losses."
Arron couldn't reply, all he could do was continue to stare into this mad man's eyes.  As he watched, he saw the stranger's demeanor change again, this time more slowly, until he was back to staring off into the distance and muttering to himself.
"Unlike my record with the jam, it always has the advantage in hide and seek." The strange man crawled by Arron, dragging the medical equipment behind him, acting as if he had completely forgotten Arron's existence.  "I told it that I didn't want to play hide and seek again. I told it that I wanted to play Patty Cake Patty Cake."
With that, that strange man was gone.  Arron decided that it was time to go as well and so he did. In the opposite direction.
After crouch walking through the vents for a time he couldn't even beguine to guess, Arron stopped to rest for a bit.  Sitting with his back to the metal wall, he gingerly rested his throbbing arm across his lap.
He was at an intersection with paths going off in five different directions, excluding the one that he just came from.  This was the first time he got a choice of which way to go and was now trying to decide.
Using the low light coming from a nearby grate he tried to make out something, anything that would indicate that one of the paths was a better choice than the others.  After a few minutes, he finally had to admit that he could find no such sign.
His head thumped back against the wall, the hollow sound of it echoed up and down the various tunnels.  Eyes closed in an attempt to help him think, he tried to figure a better way of deciding where to go, or for that matter, what to do.
Arron's thoughts went back to that strange man he had met earlier.  "What was it he had said?" Arron thought aloud.  "'Follow the dog to find the man'?  What dog?  Fuck, what man?  And why the fuck am I even thinking about this!?" In frustration he slammed his good hand against the wall.
"What was that?"
The voice startled Arron. He quickly scanned the vents, looking for the source of it when he realized that it had come from the grate. He slowly inched his way over to get a look.
In a hallway that was undistinguishable from the rest he had seen were two men.  The first was a blond in a sleeveless black shirt with simple brown pants and looked as if he hasn't shaved in a while.  The second, the one that was looking at the vent and had heard the noise had black hair pulled back into a ponytail, also hadn't shaved in a while, and was wearing what Arron could only describe as a white, red trimmed costume strait out of some anime.  The most noticeable feature of both though, was the wings.  The former had ripped holes in the back of his shirt to make room for a pair of small white wings, and the latter's outfit was bare backed and allowed his large black wings to move freely.  
"Probably nothing," said the blond.  He started to walk off.
After giving one last look at the vent grate, the black winged one looked over his shoulder and said, "Come on Pegasus," and fallowed after the blond.
The words "winged zombie donkey" were the only three that Arron could think when just exactly that trotted past his field of view.  Clasping his good hand to his mouth was all that he could do to keep himself from making more noise and keeping his meal down.
After their foot and hoof steps faded from view did Arron realize he wasn't breathing and drew a large breath.
"What the hell is wrong with this place," he said aloud, and as if in response, he heard a small wet thud behind him.
Spinning around he was met with the sight of a large dog, German Sheppard he guessed, with its jaw covered in drying blood and an over large, leathery eyeball at its feet.
Arron started to back away until he realized that the canine's posture was less threatening and more one of curiosity.  
After sniffing in his direction a few times, the dog seemed to give a "whatever" shrug, grabbed the eyeball by a well chewed and slightly protruding chunk, and turned to go off down one of the ventilation ducts.  
Stunned for a moment, Arron watched the unexpected dog start to walk away.  It seemed rather confident in its choice of direction.  The memory of the stranger form before danced at the edge of Arron's thoughts.
"What the hell is wrong with this place," he said again, picking himself up to follow the dog.
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Radimir woke up in a hospital bed.  He recognized the clean smell, the faint hum of medical equipment, and the soft, light tones of the wall paper, all of it similar to every hospital worthy of the title.  It brought some comfort to him, touching the doctor at his core.  This comfort was tainted however, by the pain in his gut.
"So you finally decided to wake up."
He looked around for the familiar, feminine voice.  After a moment his eyes focused enough to make out the form of Persephone.  She looked as ragged and over worked as ever in her hospital scrubs.
"You do know that I choose you because I THOUGHT that you wouldn't end up here for a long time, if at all," she said.  She looked and sounded very irritated, but Radimir couldn't help but think that he had heard a little pity in her voice as well.
With a sigh she went on, "well, at least your wounds weren't anything serious, especially given how deep they were.  You're definitely very lucky, though I wouldn't push that luck if I were you."
"Lucky?" he thought to himself. "Or is have I been drawn in to someone else's schemes?"
He thought back to the fight, and focused on the end.  Lukas definitely sounded like he had intended to not seriously injure him.  He also said that he would come here and discus things with him.  
"Whatever," he thought. "If he shows he shows, and I'll figure things out from there."
Persephone went through the motions, checking vitals, adjusting connections, and generally doing everything you would expect from a nurse doing a quick checkup.  When she was done she made to leave without a word, probably still not happy with him, but stopped at the door and said over her shoulder, "Your things are in the top drawer of the night stand. Please don't try to cause a scene with the dagger, there are two guards outside your door and I don't want to have to take it away from you after working so hard to convince them to let you keep it."
She closed the door, said something Radimir couldn't make out, presumably to the aforementioned guards, and he heard her walk away yelling something about Dionysus he thinks.
"Dagger?" he thinks aloud as he reaches for the nightstand.
In the drawer he discovered his Yarn Ball, his shirt and pants, both clean and blood free, and lying on top of them, the knife that Lukas had thrown to him during the fight.
He took it out to inspect it.  It had changed some since last he remembered.  Now instead of being a very simple design, it looked more familiar, almost exactly like the favorite combat knife he once owned.
On closer inspection, he realized that it was actually changing as he was looking at it, and the more he thought it looked like that lost blade, the more it came to resemble it until it was a perfect match.
"Well," he thought. "Almost a perfect match."  Its hilt, though shaped like the worn, leather wrapped knife of old was still purely the same coopery colored metal as the hand guard and blade.  After some thought he wondered why the weapon was still perfectly balanced even though the hilt should have more metal then the blade.
Tapping it with his figure nail revealed the answer to that question.  The hilt was hollow, and further tapping revealed that the whole thing was as such all the way up the blade.
"That doesn't make sense," he said aloud, brow knotted in confusion.  The knife was heavy enough that he wouldn't have guessed that it was mostly hollow, he had thought that it was metal through and through.  It being hollow meant that the metal it was made from was heavier than steel.
"Which would explain the kick I suppose," he thought, rubbing his forearm while remembering the fight. "It hurt so damn much because he was swinging a weight on the end of his leg, not just kicking me.  That would also explain the spinning around thing; he needed the momentum to make it count for more than just a kick, which could be worth the risk of turning your back on your opponent I guess."
A loud crash from outside his door interrupted his thoughts.  "Gah!" he heard someone yell. "Hey, you guard ladies, could one of you help me lift this thing?"
"Probably a new male nurse," Radimir thought with a chuckle.  There was something about hospitals were almost everything that happened in them made him feel relaxed.
He then tried to see how hard the metal was.  To test this he tried to bend it over the metal railing of his bed.  After pressing down with all the might he could muster, the knife slipped out of his grasp and caused a few sparks as it slid along the rail.
He reached down and picked it up off of the floor, noticing that it was completely unbent.
He paused for a moment, thinking about what he just saw.  "Sparks?" he thought, and then pressed the blade hard on the rail and rubbed it back and forth.  As he did so, a few sparks were formed and a couple singed his blankets.
Stopping before he caused a fire, he went back to inspecting the metal.  Before he could discover anything else about this mystery metal however, he was distracted by the door of his room being forcefully opened.
The two guards tumbled in, landing with one laying on top of the other, holding her in a chokehold.
As the door bounced off the wall and nearly closed itself, Radimir realized that the one doing the choking was not one of the identical female guards, and was instead a man wearing one of their over coats and glasses, as well as a pair of dark scrub pants.
Radimir switched his grip on the knife, ready to use it, and then recognized who the man was.
"Lukas?" he asked confused.
"Just a moment," he grunted.  Tightening his grip for a moment, the guard finally passed out.  The oddly dressed Lukas held on for a moment more, supposedly to make sure, then got up and closed the door the rest of the way.  The door kept opening a crack, given that it didn't have anything to latch to anymore, but was closed enough to block most of the view of the room that mattered.
With a deep breath, Lukas finally turned to Radimir.  "How are your injuries?" he asked, almost nonchalant.  
"Fine…" he responded, staring at Lukas oddly.
"What?" he asked.
Radimir motioned to him with the knife, indicating his cloths.
"Oh," Lukas said, looking down at his outfit.  He was in scrub pants that were too big, a suit coat that was too small, and though the sunglasses fit, something about them and the blue tinted hair gave Radimir the distinct feeling he saw a character just like him in a cartoon once.
Lukas explained as he dragged the unconscious guard over to the hospital room's bathroom. "Well, I needed to sneak around unnoticed so I stole one of these hospital outfits first.  Then when I found your room and noticed the guards I knocked over a nearby janitor's cart and called for one of them to help me.  After knocking her out, I took her coat and glasses and rubbed some blue window cleaner into my hair. That and the dark pants made me look like one of them at a glance, and it got me close enough to this one to grab her and get her in here."
Taking off the scrub pants, showing he had his normal ones underneath, he tore them into strips. With those he bound and gagged the guard, and then took of his acquired over coat and left it there with her, washed most of the blue out of his hair using the sink, and closed the bathroom door on his way out.
"Where is the other guard?" Radimir asked.  
"In the janitor's closet were I got the cart, tied up with the shirt that went with the pants."
Lukas crossed over to Radimir's bed and sat in the nearby chair.
"So," he said. "As I was going to tell you back at the arena…"
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Athene smirked.  "This 'competition' is getting sufficiently interesting," she said to no one in particular.  Watching it from countless different perspectives through the spider-cams gave her quite the insight on what was probably the biggest scene of intrigue, betrayal, and outright violence this decade, if not this century.  
Her attention was being asked for through one of the spider-cams.  She sent a bigger shard of her consciousness to inhabit it, taking the form of her in old Greek armor in the hologram that projected above the device. She favored that form a lot, although she wasn't sure why.
It was Artemis herself on the other end.  "Spider," Artemis said, using that infuriating habit of addressing only in code names. "One of the now former contestants has an odd request."
Athene contemplated informing her about all of the guards that have been dealt with by the various contestants, but decided that it would be more fun to see her reaction when she finds them herself. She will later claim that in all of the recent chaos that she had put that low on the list of priorities of reports she had to make.  
"What is the request?" she said instead.
"Former contestant Cael wishes to speak to Big Boss."
"Minos? He probably just wishes to beg for the cure now that he has lost."
Artemis shook her head. "I had thought just that," she had said. "He reassures me that he has no intention of curing himself even if the possibility arose.  He wishes to speak of a different matter that he will not disclose to anyone but Big Boss."
Athene thought on this for a moment.  She remembered that Minos had a few minutes to spare in his schedule coming up.  This whole "experiment" could get even more interesting.
"Tell Cael that I will put in a request. He will know in a few minutes if Minos will speak with him."
"Thank you, my good lady." said a smooth, masculine voice as its owner walked into view.  He looked mostly normal, well kept suit, smoothed back hair, toned physique. The only thing that stood out was his left arm made of what could only be described as liquid metal.  A result of the infection Athene guessed. However, despite all this, she almost felt a shiver crawl up her spine. It was the eyes. There was something in them, a cold determination, a calculated lust, something that made her unsettled regardless of the distance between her and him.
She pulled her consciousness back, and sent the request to Minos. As an afterthought she added her own advisement for him to take it.
"A very interesting event indeed," she said again to no one in particular.
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"So let me get this strait," said Radimir. "You want to assemble an army of contestants and sympathizers to coordinate with your 'Plan Odin's Way,' which you need a to find a radio for, so all or at least most of us can not only get the cure, which you believe there to be more than just one dose of, and so Minos and his corporation will be taken down for what he has done, and you want to start with me as your first recruit."
"That about sums it up," replied Lukas. He had omitted the more likely scenario of there not being a cure at all in favor of the "more than one dose" scenario which would offer more hope, but aside from that and a few side reasons to want to see Minos Corp. fall, he hadn't lied to Radimir.
"Alright, I'm in," Radimir said as he slowly got out of bed. "You sound like you know what you're doing and you're going to need someone to patch up everyone when we officially go rogue."
Radimir put his hand on top of Lukas's. Lukas started to feel a lot better as Radimir took his wounds upon himself.  Before Lukas could question why, Radimir then went into the bathroom where the guard was bound.  She was just stirring to consciousness when Radimir put his hand to her head and began transferring the wounds to her.  It was an odd ability he had, and one that Lukas had no idea of its source, but useful none the less.
She twitched around, yelling into her gag as the injuries that were once Radimir's were shrugged off onto her. Every scratch, bruise, and deep cut was given to her to bear as Radimir became the pinnacle of health yet again.
As Radimir left the bathroom, he saw Lukas's surprised look. "She'll live," he said in a surprisingly cold way.
"I didn't know you were ok with that," responded Lukas.
"You're not?"
"No, no, all hesitance at harming a woman willing to harm me as been beaten out of me by now," he said, thinking back to his sparing sessions with Dorothea.
"So, how are we going to get out of here?" Radimir asked as he grabbed his things and started to put on his cloths.
"I was thinking that we could just walk out."
"Walk out?"
"Well, the whole reason that I was sneaking around in the first place was because I didn't know where the guards were. Now that I have taken out the only two that I could fine, I see no reason to not just walk out. It's not like anyone will care for a while," Lukas said, looking back at the bathroom door.
Lukas leading the way, they started making their way out.  Walking like you belonged someplace didn't make people stop to question that you should be there.
"Something has been bugging me," said the ex-mafia thug.
"Hmm?"
"Where is Fenrir?"
"Don't know," Lukas responded, shrugging. "He'll find me soon enough though."
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Fenrir loved the taste of the eye.  He just couldn't stop chewing it. There was something about it, some divine quality that he couldn't put his paw on.
No matter he guessed. It was still the best thing he had tasted in a while. So good that he decided to skirt around the hedge maze just to avoid the repugnant smell of magic.  Yes, his master's scent trail went into it, but Fenrir figured that it would come out of the other side, and the eye tasted too good to have it ruined by that smell.  
The one eyed man said something again, but Fenrir wasn't listening.  He seemed like an alright kind of guy, even though he swore a lot, but Fenrir was on a mission and couldn't be distracted.  He did however slowdown a bit so the guy could keep up.
Fenrir then caught his master's trail again, just like he thought he would, and almost forgot to remain at a slow pace for One Eye.
He liked the smell of One Eye; it reminded him of his master almost.  He had the bloodied smell of a warrior to him and didn't seem like to much of a bully.  He could grow to like the guy, faster if he stopped swearing at him every time he opened his mouth.  
The trail led to a tall building with a large smell of disinfectant.  Fenrir almost had to go in to the other bad smelling place, but was relieved to find that his master had left by way of a fresher trail.  This one seemed to lead to a big, wide building with a tower in front of it. Unless it was a sewage plant it would smell a lot better than the last two places.
Cursing in confusion, One Eye followed Fenrir as he dashed off to the probably-not-bad-smelling place.
After a few minutes, Fenrir realized that he smelt another familiar person.  It was the big one from the arena where he got the tasty, tasty eye that was ow so chewable.
Bear Man's scent broke off from his master's near the tower though.  It went into the tall building while his master's traveled towards the large and wide one.  It didn't take him long to decide which to follow.
There were more people near this building.  Most of them were about master's age, maybe a little less, and all had the smell of books and caffeine about them.  One Eye seemed to get nervous around them at first, but relaxed when no one gave him more than a quick glance.
Fenrir couldn't help but speed up when he neared the building that smelled like a lot of books. His master was close and he just couldn't wait.
That, and the smell of old paper somehow complemented the tasty, tasty eye quite well.
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Arron was almost out of breath, and still wondering why he was following this odd dog.
"No," he said aloud. "I know why I'm following this dog. It's because I've gone fucking crazy. I'm actually listening to a fucking nut job and an following a fucking dog to find some random fucking asshole just because I have nothing better to fucking do. This place has gotten to me and now I'm fucked up like the rest of it!"
He followed the dog to what looked like a library as the dog sped away.
"Great, a library, what else is in this fucking place?"
Arron thought back over the past few of hours. First it was the maze of the vents, then the shock of finding himself in a cave with its own fucking sun, then, in succession, finding a hedge maze, a hospital, a God damn TOWER, and now a library.
"What next, a shopping mall and a water park?"
The strangest thing of all though, as he thought about it, was that moment back when he fought Cael.  Or more accurately, he watched someone else fight Cael with his body.
"And the fucker got my arm broken!"
His yell startled some nearby people, college students he guessed by the number of books and pencils they were carrying.  He didn't care though, he just wanted to find the guy that the dog was leading him to and… and…
"And what?"
He never really thought about that part.  He was too busy just trying to get out and not be caught.
"Oh well," he thought. "Maybe this guy will know more, and I can relive some frustration by beating it out of him."
Arron followed the dog up some steps and through a large double door.  The room he found himself in was a giant library, with tables taking up half of the flood on his right, and stacks of books filling in the space on his left. So many books it seems, that they added half of a second floor just to find room for them.  The second floor took up half of the open space above the first, allowing one to look down at the tabled areas with only a railing stopping someone from falling.
At one of the tables near the domino standing book shelves, the dog pounced on a man wearing a dress shirt and pants, with short hair that was blond but seemed to have a blue tint to it, and a slightly gaunt look to his face.
"Gah! Fenrir!" the man said as the dog licked him ceaselessly. "I'm glad to see you too, but get off!"
The man was speaking in a language that Arron didn't know, but understood because of the Yarn Ball that had fallen out of his pocket was translating next to where he laid.
As the man pushed the excited dog off, Arron walked over and picked up the fallen Yarn Ball before the guy had a chance.
"Ok," said Arron. "I've been following your dog here for the last few hours on the word of a mad man I met in a vent. Who are you and why should I care?"
The man's stunned and confused look was mirrored by the few students that were left in the library at this late hour. The students quickly decided as one that they didn't need to study that badly and left, closing the door on the way out.
"Well, now that we are private, I guess I can talk freely," the man said in a way that almost reminded Arron of Cael, and made Arron all the more angry at the whole situation.
"My name is Lukas Ansgar," he said with a pleasant smile and extending his had to shake.
"I'm Arron," he replied, ignoring the hand, tossing the Yarn Ball up and down instead. "Now, why do I care?"
Not showing any complaint to his rudeness, Lukas put his hand down and said, "Well, I'm guessing that you are a contestant, given that you're speaking in English instead of Greek.  So I guess that you should care because I wish to enlist your aid."
Arron crossed his arms, not liking how familiar this all sounded.
"I wish to get as many of the contestants together so we can-"
"You wish to use me, and as I told the last guy, I don't work under anyone."
Slightly put out by the interruption, Lukas said, "I don't wish to use anyone, I wish to-"
"Forget it, I'm out of here." Arron turned to leave.
"Now wait," said Lukas with some anger seeping into his voice.
Lukas's and enclosed around the one Arron was holding the stolen Yarn Ball in. A small beep went off as his figure accidently pressed the blue button.
The strange man from the vents popped into existence right next to them. "Dionysus?" Lukas said as reality seemed to shimmer.
--------------------------
Fenrir's new toy dropped from his mouth and he seemed to freeze, as if catatonic. Dionysus did the same, standing there with a far off, emotionally dead look on his face.
Lukas and Arron joined them, locked in the position they were in, both holding the Yarn Ball. They, however, didn't remain there.
First Arron, then Lukas started to convulse sporadically.  Eventually they both were bent over gasping, only it wasn't them.  Arron looked at Lukas with his right, blind eye open, revealing the black orb within. Lukas looked back at Arron, wearing a manic grin and a wild, animalistic look in his eyes.  Both began to laugh, and if Dio or Fenrir could, they would have shivered at the sound.
"Let's have some fun Samurai," laughed Lukas.
"Too bad my arm is broken," replied Arron, indicating his right arm.
"Is that your primary hand?" Lukas asked as he backed away some, and put himself behind one of the square tables.
"Sadly yes," answered Arron, tearing off the leg of another with his left as an improvised club.
"Well then," Said Lucas as he grabbed the edge of a table with his primary right and pushed down on the table with his off-hand left, jerking his shoulder up with a sickening crack. "That should make it even," he said as his right arm dangled uselessly at his side, its shoulder dislocated.
"You wish!" yelled Arron as he threw the club strait at Lukas.
Lukas bashed the projectile out of the air with a quickly formed club and was up on the tables in the blink of an eye, sprinting over them towards Arron.
As he neared, Arron kicked the three lagged table up in the air with surprising strength, then spun and kicked it again over the other tables, throwing a veritable wall at Lukas.
Lukas jumped, but not high enough to clear it. Instead he formed the metal of one leg bracer into a spiked toe cap.  Hitting the wooden wall at waist height, he dug the spike into the wood and kicked off from that, flipping himself over the table.
He landed to the side of Arron and lashed out a kick. It landed hard and sent Arron flying into the wooden side of the nearby book shelf with a crack.  Arron barely had time to slip out of the way as Lukas slammed into siding where he was and lodging the many points he had formed on the metal of his good limbs into the wood and sticking him there.
He wasn't stuck for long as Arron grabbed him by the belt, tore him off with a spray of splinters, and swung Lukas in a full arc around and into the books of the same case.  
As the case started a domino effect with half of the others in that row, Arron quickstepped to the case near it, slamming him into that one with a crack and starting the rest of the row falling like dominos, books flying everywhere.
Arron wasn't done, as he swung Lukas down and then underhanded him up into the ceiling two stories up, barely missing the second floor railing.
On his way back down, Lukas reached out with his good hand and grabbed that rail, kicked off of the side and swung out of view onto the second floor stacks.
Arron didn't bother trying to find the stairs, and instead sprinted across the fallen book cases, ran up the nearby wall and kicked off, grabbing the rail and using his momentum to swing himself up.
Lukas was nowhere to be found.  Arron slowly stalked into the rows of bookcases. After a moment, he barely ducked in time as a sword scythed through of the row of books to his left, easily cutting them in half. Running to the end to catch Lukas in the row over, Arron silently cursed when he saw that Lukas was already gone from the row.
Continuing his slow stalking, this time down the middle of the aisle intersecting the rows, he was surprised again as a throwing ax nicked his arm from behind and buried itself into the nearby bookcase.
Wrenching it out, he quickly followed the maniacal laughter that was echoing through the stacks.  It brought him out near the rail again. Before he had a chance to look around, Lukas was there in front of him.
Arron instinctively blocked the first sword swing, sparks flew as metal collided with metal, and was put on the defensive under Lukas's relentless assault.
Arron was backed to the railing under the hail of blows accompanied by the most insane laughter he had ever heard, the cloud of sparks blinding him enough that he couldn't find an opening to counter attack.
As his back hit the rail, he saw a high cut coming down and dodged to his right. At the sword cut through the rail, Arron swung at Lukas's head. Lukas ducked it and chopped down again, which forced Arron to dodge left.
After the blade cut the rail again, but before Arron could counter attack, Lukas through all of his weight at Arron, pushing him through the empty space where the railing had been and into the open air above the first floor.
On the way down, Lukas formed the sword into a gauntlet, which he raised high and, upon landing heavily on Arron as he hit the ground, smashed it into Arron's face.
--------------------------
Dionysus came out of the catatonia, and looked around.  The place was a mess. He heard a rustling over by the books and was met with an odd scene. Arron was unconscious on top of some knocked over books, and Lukas was writhing on the grounds, his skin seeming to be splitting itself in half.
"What an odd place this is," he said as he walked away to go find where the jam was hiding this time.
Dear god i'm surprised i got it done.

Had to cut out a few parts form the original idea but ow well. I can always use them in the next round if i get there.

Copy writes!

Arron belongs to the amazing :iconchibi-esque:

AJ, Angelo, and Pegasus goes to the equaly amazing :iconmodesty:

Cael the evil master mind is owned by :iconalecvastor: who i suspect to also be an evil master mind

The ever charming Radimir was created by the great writer :iconskysongma:

Lukas, Fenrir, and Dorothea came from my own strange mind

and finally basicaly everything else in this story goes to that shining example of humanity :iconrobinrone: (no, seriously, i'm not fishing for favor ;))
© 2010 - 2024 Murphyslaw159
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FantasieAutor's avatar
Mm. Impressive, dear. Sorry it took me until now to get to this. Life and all that. You have an impressive talent. It may come from your D&D soul, but all the same I am impressed with your writing ability. I will go over it again soon to see if I just read over any grammar or spelling mistakes but from what I could tell you did a wonderful job. This chapter was even better than the last! Can't wait to see what is next. See if you can't keep me on the edge of my seat even more this time.