The Grand Battle 2: Round 3

[airob]

Soren kept thinking all of the announcer´s speech was just exaggerated nonsense. A demon stronger than the soul that resided inside him? pfff... If that would be the case he would know about this type of demons. Still, he knew there was much more in the universe than what he already knew. He had to be cautious. As the place he was in was the twisted reality of a long-dead demon, and his knowledge about demons (and own experience) has shown that a demon´s essence can still lurk around it´s death-place many centuries after it´s death, with enough power and will to be a threat.

Soren started thinking of a plan on how the four of them could make it out alive. It was unknown if dividing the antidote bettween the four would be enough, probably not; as the exact amount of antidote needed was probably already in each vaccine.

He might try to eliminate the poison with his powers, though it would take a while, and his offensive powers would greatly decrease as he would be focused on curing himself. Besides, the poison was of a rare breed, one that would need him to unleash his power well above 75%, that alone is a risk considering the demon´s will had been recently trying to take his body over.

While thinking on a solution to all this, he guided the march towards the first floor, with a cool-minded look.

The group reached a staircase in one of the walls which seamed to lead to a walkway, and finally leading to another staircase, this one was spiral-shaped. They then reached the first floor, which was probably the least thing the group would have expected it to be: an inmensely big room with nothing in it. Nothing at all, they could see through all of the room clearly. There was another staircarse at one of the corners leading up, probably about 2 miles away.

The group glanced around the room looking for anything that would stand out... but, nothing. There simply was nothing.
Grode was the first to step forward and into the room, but Soren stopped him grabbing him by the shoulder:

-"Wait! he said while stopping Grode, who was sort of annoyed by this whiny boy. He really hated delays and even more little scaredy brats.

-"We cant just rush through this room like that you know? the announcer said this was the lair of a reality twisting demon... who knows what lies beyond our eyes sight...

-"I fucking know! but it´s no use if we just stay here right? none of us can see beyond this lair´s deceiving and we will have to move eventually. Also we have been poisoned remember? we only have one hour. You bitchy f***.. Grode just plainly didnt give a f***, though he had a point: time was running out. He took another step forward and was once again stopped by Soren.

-"Ok now what!? ive had enough of yo... Grode saw a concerned and deep look on Soren. He wasnt looking at Grode, but rather a couple meters forward . -"W-what? what is it!?

Grode turned and caught sight of one of the most grotesque images there could ever exist: a dark-gooey substance sprouting from the ground and turning into some sort of mist in mid-air and then back into goo as soon as it went down. Pieces of human organs, blood and flesh could be seen moving along with the goo. Two noticeable white, bright and amorphous eyes could be seen at the top of the goo, moving up and down through it all; These belonged to the creature. The light of the room started to fade as even more goo started to sprout from the ground. Moments later a Y-shaped mouth opened through the goo with no apparent teeth in it. it smiled...

As soon as Soren pulled Grode back out of the room the creature started to twist and turn into various shapes, in a maniacal way. It´s mouth smiled and changed shape constantly while looking directly at the group. It then let out a screaching noise that became constantly stronger as it echoed through the room. the creature then stopped, smiled again and said "goo-bye" in a pitched-voice. It then went back to the floor and seemingly dissapeared. The light returned to the room.

The first thing the group thought was probably "what the f*** was that".

Soren turned to the group and proceeded:
-"We should not be careless... we dont know what that is or what it can do... but now we know this room will only activate until we enter it. If this room is based on deceiving or illusions, maybe an expert bettween us on that matter should take the lead...

[Mr--Clean]

Getting poisoned sucks. Maybe not as much as getting a hand chopped off but it still ranked pretty high up there on Grode's suck list. Smug disembodied voices were also pretty high up on that list.Despite his fairly long list though Grode felt slightly relieved. He had expected something quite a bit worse considering they were all openly planning on working together to over throw the tournament right in the hosts dining room. If not a giant pit of lava he expected at the very least the stage would force them to fight against each other. Instead it was almost like he was encouraging them to work together, or rather, he was encouraging them to work together until they hit the roof and it was time for 3 of them to gang bang the fourth. Thinking over the plan Grode couldn't help but chuckle over his predicament. Maybe the JJ guy had a sense of humor after all.

Grode looked to his left and saw a wall. Grode looked to his right and saw another. He looked behind himself to only find a third. In front of him was a fairly large door.

"Well that keeps things simple" he stated to himself approaching the door.

Before he could reach for the door knob captain over emotional stopped him and yelled something about not knowing what behind the door.

"Aw s*** you right!" He sarcastically though to himself "There might be a birthday party behind this door and I don't even know it!"

What actually came out of his mouth was "I fucking know! but it´s no use if we just stay here right? none of us can see beyond this lair´s deceiving and we will have to move eventually. Also we have been poisoned remember? we only have one hour. You bitchy f***

Grode grabbed the handle and slammed the door open. Before he could get inside the kid once again boxed him out. Before Grode could hit him with the full blast of his Mell Gibson impression, something else caught his eye... something familiar from long ago in his past

With his eyes bulging he whispered under his breath.
"Terry...? I-Is that you...? You lost weight." Before he could go embrace his old child hood friend he re-examined the creature.
"Hey wait a second you aren't my dead fat friend!" He narrowed his eyes "You're just some blob!"

Not only was it some blob but it was a fairly smelly blob. Following the others retreat he slammed the door back shut. The door did not stay shut for very long. The words "goo-bye" kept ringing in his ears like his head was an alarm clock factory

"Aw hell no!" He yelled slamming the door for a third time and taking it off its hinges. "Nobody is going to be using stupid puns like that while Grode is in the house!"

The blob quickly reformed and charged at Grode. Much to everybody's surprise instead of dodging the sludge he ran straight at it. The sludge somehow leapt off of the ground right at the Grode and would have submerged him instantly if not for his very large industrial-strength umbrella he pulled out at the last second and blocked all the sludge, save his shoes.

The sludge ran off of his umbrella and already began to reform a few feet away while charging for a second time. Grode attempted to charge himself but found the task near impossible. What was stuck to his boots was far heavier than it looked and the sludge was so sticky it half stuck his feet to the floor. Just before the sludge rushed over him like a tidal wave he was able to unstick his feet from the ground and jump into the air with the sheer power of his desperation to get away.

However the sludge didn't miss a beat and leapt into the air after him. As impressive as Grode's jumping power was the slime's was far more impressive and caught up to him midair. Grode was on a now unalterable path and the sludge was quickly catching up. Luckily, before it could get within a few feet of him he once again blocked with the opened umbrella. Unluckily for him the blocked sludge fell back to the ground right where he was going to land. He was now quickly coming back down to the earth and right into his enemy hands.

"Man I really hope this works like it does in the cartoons." He thought to himself as he entrusted his life to a tool normally only meant for keeping off rain and sunshine.

One second went by, then two and a third after and still Grode had not hit the ground. The sludge finished reforming and its eye balls circled over its body hideously looking for what should be its now dead pray. When it finally did catch sight of him he was still in the air but a couple feet away. He held onto the umbrella over his head as he gently floated down to earth with a very much ridiculous grin on his face. As he softly landed back on the earth he congratulated himself on keeping up his trim figure that made it all possible.

The sludge also seemed eager to congratulate him and rushed at him again faster than before. Grode closed the umbrella and stood his ground. The monster jumped at him and still he stood umbrella closed. When the thing was a mere few feet away and gaining quickly, Grode plunged the closed umbrella straight into the center of the slime. This did not even slightly slow down the monster and kept on its destructive path straight towards Grode's face and was now so close he could have almost licked it. It was that moment he put his plan into action by forcibly opening the umbrella while still inside the monster.

To say it had a desirable effect would be a understatement. It splattered the slime the slime everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, a bit of the ceiling, and of course the other contestants who were still standing in the door way watching his battle.

Grode stood up straight and surveyed the room that would now never be clean again.
"hmm maybe that kid was right. Sure kind of looks like a nine year olds birthday party was here."

[DuelStriker]

Raden tried to shake off some of the slime that had splattered on him. He wasn't really sure what that weird slime thing was, but he definitely didn't want to stay around to find out. The announcer had mentioned the floors were full of traps - traps that got worse as you proceeded higher in the tower. Was this thing one of them? He put the thought put of his mind and continued into the room. The room was incredibly bare, completely dull looking and empty, with the exception of the sludge which now covered most of it.

He saw Ana, who appeared to be staying just outside the door.

He looked at Grode, who was still celebrating his heroic victory over the dreaded slime villain he just slayed. Raden walked a little into the large corridor.

He looked back at Soren, who was being really cautious about entering the room, as if the floor were about to come alive and swallow him up, which, after what everyone just saw, would have been believable anyway. Soren was nervous, for once during this battle, he actually looked a little worried. He moved slowly and carefully, taking steps in inches. Grode rolled his eyes at him, not understanding what the big deal was to Soren. Thoughts whirled around in Soren's mind.

Was there really still some presence of the slain demon here? What other illusions was this tower capable of producing? What would the four of them do when they reached the top? What would he do if he came across the remnants of the tower's demon? What would he do if he lost control? What would he do if he lost control??

No, no... Soren told himself. He shook his head and cleared the thought out of his mind. He wasn't going to let that happen. He couldn't let that happen. Not now, not after everyone had agreed to put an end to this horrible game.

Everyone else wanted to think that too, but hope seemed to be deteriorating by the minute, like water rushing down a drain.

Once again Raden felt the sharp pain from the arrow wound. It felt like time had slowed down and that the pain lasted much longer than it really did. Noticeably, everyone else seemed to feel it too in their own bodies as if the pain was synchronized between the four of them. But everyone regained their focus.

Soren started to pick up the pace a little, finally catching up to Raden and Grode. Suddenly, a wall of sludge appeared in the doorway, with Ana still outside. The others kept walking, not knowing that the sludge wall had cut Ana off from them. As they were walking, the corridor grew a little darker, which was a little odd, but they kept moving. But then Grode thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned around and looked at Soren and saw a dark figure that looked like it had grabbed hold of Soren and was holding a knife to his throat.

"Look out!" he shouted and lunged at the figure with his trusty umbrella, only to find that there was nothing there, and nearly stabbing Soren in the process. He backed away confused, and realized he had fallen for yet another illusion.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Raden shouted, but his expression went from anger to fear as Grode backed up into what appeared to be a spiderweb made of - yet again - the black sludge. Grode struggled to get out of it, jabbing it a bit with the umbrella, but to no avail. The umbrella seemed to be making it worse as the web wrapped around it. The black figure reappeared behind Soren and stabbed him through the back. The wound would heal of course, but Soren was surprised at how real it felt. Soren realized now how hard it would be for anyone to be able to tell what was real and what wasn't.

Then a bunch of sludge-spiders appeared, dangling from the ceiling by thin webs. Some surrounded Raden, some were going after the others. Some even appeared outside the now-sludge door above an unsuspecting Ana. Raden drew his sword and slashed some of them, sending more sludge flying everywhere. But then sludge started collecting on his sword. Startled by the sludge, he dropped his sword. He then settled on the gun instead. After shooting up multiple spiders, even more spiders appeared in their place.

The demon inside Raden was getting steadily more and more irritated. This is a waste of time, he thought. It was dangerous to take over Raden's mind again so soon, especially after the extended time he had already controlled him, but it was clear that this situation was going nowhere fast. Raden blinked and the demon took control again for a minute. He quickly moved Raden and grabbed the sword off the ground. "Enough wasting time! We're going up, now!" Raden shouted, now with the twisted voice again.. After channeling the electrical energy into the sword again, Raden slashed toward the ceiling and it was struck with a blast of lightning. The ceiling only cracked a little. He slashed again, and again, slowly damaging the ceiling, and after several tries, finally blew a hole in the ceiling. "Come on Soren, we're going!" he shouted again. He hacked away at the web that Grode was stuck in (luckily Grode kept his hand on his umbrella and managed to keep it safe). He grabbed Grode, sent a blast of lightning through some spiders to clear a path, ran, and jumped up through the hole. He set Grode down again on his feet, and then the demon retreated from his mind again. Surprisingly, they had come up in front of the stairway that had lead up to the second floor. It was probably a good thing that they didn't go all the way through the first floor and up the stairs, as that probably would have taken a hell of a lot of time. Raden decided to wait for Soren to come up before they proceeded.

Grode and Raden turned around. The second floor laid out in front of them. It was definitely larger than the first floor. Nothing looked all that dangerous at first glance, but they could tell that this room was full of traps. Generic traps at that. Motion-sensing guillotines, arrows that shot out of walls when you stepped on a button on the floor, some pitfalls even. You know, those kinds of traps. Except generic did not equal "not deadly." Throughout the room were also some tall stone statues that looked like knights, each holding some sort of stone weapon. They almost looked alive... if things like those could even be considered "alive."

They stood ready to pass through this floor. The clock was ticking.

[Mr--Clean]

Grode turned around and surveyed his surroundings. Suddenly he felt it. A terrible urge that he could not control. Try as he did he could not stop his body from action. In one fell swoop he raised up his arm to his face, and scratched, his nose.
"Ah thats better" He thought to himself "My nose was really itchy."

[airob]

Soren stood still in the first floor, having a very traumatizing flashback...

He saw a dismembered body of a woman... laying on the floor. Next to it a shadowy figure consuming many corpses laying there also. Then it proceeded onto the woman´s body.

-"Stop it there, motherfucker!" Soren shouted while launching a light burst against the shadowy being. It went through it and finally crashed onto a wall. To soren´s surprise, it was all but an illusion, an illusion created of a memory of his...

-" it was... fake. Dont tell me im supposed to go through all my memories again on this castle... that would be... sickening. I have to hurry...

As Soren went through the hole in the ceiling to reach Grode and Raden, many illusions were created in his mind and quickly faded away; as if trying to make him remember all the horrors he had went through his life in a single moment.

He stopped cold for a momento at a particular illusion: the same woman... bleeding and in really bad shape laying on the ground, with an extended arm trying to reach Soren. "why... why did you do this to me?" moaned the woman. Soren´s eyes were lost... he was shaking and clenching his fists so hard they started bleeding. Soren´s mind was lost into that illusion.

-"I-Im sorr... then Soren´s mind came back and his look seemed calmer. T-this... DIDNT HAPPEN! and with that the rest of the illusions faded away.

-"Pretty clever hu... the human mind is designed to live a certain amount of years, and with that store a certain amount of memories... but for someone who has lived so long as me, trying to fool me into believing illusions is quite the strategy. Ive been through so many s*** i wouldnt know what´s real and what´s not. They could try to modify small details in my memories and i wouldnt even realize it... Soren continued his way and quickly reached Raden and Grode.

-"...Is this just a dream?" He thought to himself.

-"So this is the second floor hu? shall we enter now? also where is the lady? Soren quickly entered the room. He needed something to draw his attention from the illusions, so some fighting or at least doding some dumb traps should help him keep his mind busy.

There were several pitfalls in the room, Soren stepped at the edge of one to see how deep they were down below. He sensed a living being come from under the pitfall and quickly stepped back.

-"looks like someone´s here to play!" A giant worm-like creature jumped from the pitfall, trying to swallow Soren, who jumped back avoiding it perfectly. The worm then went into a hole in the ceiling, dissapearing from sight. Soren looked back at the other two and noticed a sign in one of the walls. it Read:

"An always hungry guardian dwells in this floor, it´s saliva will melt everything on touch, and touching it has similar effects. it links the sky to hell itself, release it from this life in order to advance to the next floor. But beware of the dangers of this floor."

-"Great, what is this!? a video game!?"
Just what i needed.

[Mr--Clean]

As Grode finished scratching his nose he finished his surveillance of his surroundings. Traps of all shapes and sizes surrounded him from all directions. Not only in front of him and to his sides but they covered every wall and the ceiling, there were even a few pitfalls under the ground waiting for someone to fall through. Despite the sheer amount of devices designed to maim and kill surrounding him, the environment wasn't actually all that threatening.

Sure every device ever designed by man to kill filled the room but their age and random placements made most of them ineffective if not useless, and in some cases almost comical. Bear traps covered the ceiling, chainsaws dangled from fraying ropes, spear traps jutted outward with the non-pointy side, pitfalls long ago lost their camouflage and even a blind man could easily avoid it, spikes and other metal objects lost their sharpness due to rust, and even a giant bolder lay pitifully cracked in half next to a golden skull. Sure there were a few perfectly functional traps around but they were so far and in between even the statues looked more menacing.

"Dam almost reminds me of home" Grode muttered to himself. "Well... almost" He added glancing at the loser next to him who was wearing a concerned expression. After staring at the kid for a moment or two he added
"What's the matter with you huh? Don't tell me you're afraid of a couple pointy death traps are you?"

Without waiting for an answer Grode began to casually walk through the death pit, careful not to get himself killed but not overly concerned either. The green guy followed shortly after him but far more cautiously and slower.

They proceeded like this for a few minutes without talking to the other. Grode wanted to use the peace and quite to think of some kind of plan of action for this round, he really did, but every time his mind tried to concentrate the pain in his nub flared up again. It was a different kind of pain now though. The actual physical pain of having the nerves shredded like they were was starting to recede but was quickly being replaced by the ghost pains one experiences when losing a limb. Despite there only being air in front of stump his brain still felt the pain from a hand that no longer existed.

A short while later of exploring identical rooms the two unlikely companions suddenly came across a room far different from the rest. Gone were the decaying stone walls and instead there were now glistening white marble walls looking as new as the day they were built. Where there were old outdated rusty traps there was now a very long hallway with the floor covered in large black circular buttons, each only inches from each other.

"Well what do you think?"

"Hmm don't really know"

"Im not sure exactly what this trap is, obviously the buttons on the bottom will do something but I'm not exactly sure what"

"Hmm"

"The walls are so smooth, unlike anything in the rest of the room. Id say that has something to do with it but these walls are so heavy I doubt they could actually be used in any mechanisms"

"Hmm"

"Anyways the buttons seem to be only pressure sensitive, If we fly right over them we should be safe"

"Hmm"

"Well why don't you say something? The stairs are probably just a little further up and I don't like being here any more than you do"

"Ah don't worry about it kid, I'm an old pro at this kind of stuff" Grode stated smugly while patting him on the back "Im not a big fan of mysteries either and I know just the thing to do in this kind of situation that is no risk."

"Really? Why didn't you say so earlier? And for the last time I'm not a kid, I a-

The not-kid was interrupted by Grode's patting hand suddenly pushing him as hard as it could forward, straight into the hallway of buttons. As he flew through the air he heard the sound of Grode's voice behind him

"Well no risk to me anyways."

[DuelStriker]

When Soren finally came up, Raden saw him jump back after he approached one of the pitfalls, but he didn't see anything there that could have made him jump back like that... Just great, more illusions. Little did the three of them know that the illusions would soon get worse as things from the first floor had already begun leaking through the hole that Raden had made in the ceiling. After Soren read the sign on the wall, that didn't exactly raise anyone's hopes either, if there even was hope left at this point.

Grode ignored Soren completely and walked off into the mess of death traps, which now upon closer look, were mostly old and decaying and didn't really pose a threat for the most part. Raden followed him, and Soren followed closer behind, although a bit slower and cautious than the other two.

After talking a bit with Grode about another trap in front of them and trying to figure out whether it was dangerous or not and discussing how they should pass it, Raden was shoved forward onto one of the buttons on the floor.

"Well no risk to me anyways," he said.

When Raden hit the button, all the stuff they might have expected to happen didn't happen. In fact, nothing happened. There were no walls closing in to crush them, no trap doors sucking them into an endless abyss, nothing. "Oh haha, very funny," Raden said as he rolled his eyes at Grode. But then suddenly there was a sound coming toward them. It was getting louder and louder, echoing through the hall. It was obvious that it was getting closer, and closer and...

"What the hell is that sound?" Grode yelled.

It was the sound of stone scraping against stone, and it was still coming closer. The statues. One passed right by Soren and came up behind Grode. Before the axe could come down and slice Grode neatly into bloody halves, Raden grabbed him and through him into the hall of buttons. He landed on a couple of them, but there was still nothing happening. Reacting quickly, he drew his sword and blocked the axe. The statue just lifted the axe again and swung at Raden, who jumped onto its shoulder and cleanly severed the stone head. The head fell to the floor, crackling with electricity. Behind him, he heard Grode shout something about the wall.

Grode was starting to realize something. Karma sucks. The trap that was doing nothing moments earlier was now lashing out at the famous tourney-winner. The wall itself was attacking him; small, clean pillars shooting out of the walls and ceiling, forcing him into a dance of constant dodging. Sadly, his umbrella sidekick was crushed and for a second he mourned the loss of the object that had just slain an evil sludge monster. He stumbled back a bit and saw a pillar coming at him from the side. Reacting quickly, Grode reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a mini-tv. He held it out in front of him to block the pillar. The pillar smashed through the screen, but amazingly, Grode managed to hold it off, and immediately jumped out of the way.

Meanwhile, another statue had shown up, spiking at Raden with a spear of stone. This one was putting up a tougher fight than the first, and another, if not more, could be heard approaching.

Soren jumped into the fight, still trying to keep his mind off of the illusions, and also trying not think about her. He shot a ball of dark energy at the back of the statue's head and blew it to bits. Another one attacked him from behind and he dodged.

---

Back on the first floor, the sludge was starting to move. It was no longer splattered all over the walls and floor. It was collecting in the air - coming together, swirling around, continuing to collect other splattered bits of sludge.

---

Raden blocked the giant stone sword, sparks flew as the swords met. Soren had extended his arm blades again when suddenly a hole opened in the wall behind him. Raden stared in shock as he kept the sword locked in place with the statue's sword, and started shouting to Soren.

Soren turned to see the worm-creature from earlier, slowly coming at him with its mouth open, ready to swallow him in one gulp. This just pissed Soren off, but he knew he'd have to deal with this bastard in order for everyone to reach the third floor.

[airob]

-"This bastard really likes me...

Soren stared at the giant worm as it rushed at him ready to have it´s first meal in who knows how long. Soren stood there, without doing anything, and let himself get swallowed by it.

Raden was about to halt his confrontation with the statue to help Soren, but as he was about to do so, the worm started to thrash about in the floor madly. The back part of the worm started to swell and eventually it bursted with intense force, with a dark energy-covered Soren emerging out of it.

-"Piece of cake right? i just had to make it´s cells react to my energy and make them expand enough to burst free out of it!

He talked too fast though... as soon as this worm retracted back onto the void: many others emerged from the different holes in the ceiling, walls and ground, enraged...

-"Just...what the hell..."

Meanwhile Raden gained the upper hand against the statue With a burst of lighting from his sword he shattered the statue´s weapon to pieces, he then jumped up and destroyed it in one strong sweep.

He moved onto the next statue crushing it´s legs and finally shooting the head of the statue with his pistol so many times it became just a pile of debris.

One of the worm "heads" suddenly appeared behind him, he jumped up and fell on top of it with his lighting charged sword. It cleanly sliced vertically through the worm as all of his weight, strenght and energy was focused on the tip of the sword.

Grode struggled to avoid the pieces of falling debris from Raden´s slaughtering. A couple statues cornered him, so he started to search for things in his coat. He took out a bottle with some strange liquid inside, and he took his beloved lighter and lit a piece fabric coming out of the bottle´s mouth... yes, it was a damned molotov cocktail...

Try this for a change fucking harassers! let´s see how you like to be blown up to pieces like the ones at your feet! Effectively the bomb blew one of the statue´s feet, causing it to crumble to the ground, almost falling over Grode in the process. He proceeded to take even more bombs and finish the work of the remaining moving hands of the statue, and then proceeded to take onto the other statue.

It was an easy work for Grode up until he faced the worms, which took advantage of Grode being at a corner and prepared to eat him. To make things worse the nasty goo from before started sprouting from the cracks on the floor and a large mass of this goo was moving slowly into the room through the entrance. Things looked really bad...

Soren decided it was about time to execute one of his most devastating attacks, as the situation requiered it: He charged again dark and light energy in his hand like the last time.

-"You two stand back if you want to live! Take cover behind me if you want i dont care, just be sure not to get in the range of fire!" Soren lifted some small rocks into the air with dark energy and threw them at the worms surrounding Grode to draw their attention, effectively giving Grode enough time with that distraction to escape and put himself safe.
Both Raden and Grode safe Soren unleashed his attack: He threw a stream of silver energy which behaved in a wavy manner. It didnt make big explosions, it didnt incinerate its targets, it just went through both the worms and the statues, as if it didnt do nothing to them. Grode looked down upon Soren´s attack... until he noticed the worms and the statues were no longer moving; seconds later all the area affected by the stream of energy (including the walls, ceiling and floor) started to dissintegrate. They became small grey particles which came back to Soren´s body. Even a part of the sludge got affected by this attack.

A big hole was made in one of the walls that got impacted by Soren´s attack, and the group noticed the other side of the wall was empty, as if it was a secret room or something. Upon getting closer they saw a giant squid like monster where all of the worms were connected to, it all made sense then. This big monster died as well due to the amount of damage it received.

-"Quickly this is our chance! the guardian is dead so we should be able to reach the next floor! lets advance before that sludge comes back again!

[DuelStriker]

Pretty much every single evil entity or illusion or whatever they were (it was hard to tell which was which anymore) had all been taken out by Soren's attack. Luckily, even the strange wall trap that Grode had to face just minutes earlier was now dissolved for the most part by Soren. The path to the third floor was clear. The sludge, which had started breaking through the floors and walls was the only thing relatively unaffected, and was still rising. Soren shouted that they should head to the stairway quickly before the sludge had a chance to do anything else...

Soren helped Grode up off the ground, who just shrugged him off angrily. He was sick of everything, especially these two idiots. He quickly stormed off toward the stairs to the third floor. Raden and Soren followed close behind. They heard the sludge behind them starting to break through more of the floor, and everyone picked up a running pace up the stairs.

Soon, they slowed down again as the sounds subsided. The sludge was apparently moving slowly and they figured it wouldn't be catching up to them anytime soon. Everyone was rather silent during the trip. The stairway seemed to grow wider, the ceiling was starting to get higher. There were a couple of twists and turns here and there. Suddenly the atmosphere felt different... Short, quick images of the past flashed in everyone's minds. Soren's expression changed multiple times and he put his hands up to his head, shaking it to get rid of the memories.

A laughter echoed in Grode's head. A familiar laughter... who's was it? He shrugged it out of his mind. But then it came again. A sharp sound of a chainsaw powering up followed. Then the laugh again. Why did this sound so familiar? Then a single word gave it away. Stumpy...

Grode snapped out of it. They had arrived. This floor was just a very large, empty room, with an incredibly high ceiling.

To the left was a sign on the wall:

No matter how hard you try to run from it, the past can never be escaped.
It remains with you, haunting you always.

[Mr--Clean]

Grode was starting to realize something. Karma sucks.

Not only did nothing awesome happen to the kid when he hit the buttons, (although it did send some giant statues after him) all sorts of bad s*** started to happen when he hit the buttons. Despite the marble walls looking perfectly smooth and inactive moments before there were suddenly shooting out spears at him that weren't facing the wrong way.

Ducking and weaving as fast as he could he did his best to dodge the spears as best he could but there were just too many of them. Despite his best efforts to try to dodge his way out of the line of fire, all he could do was just simply stay alive and try not to get hit, which sadly meant he stayed in more or less the same place if not actually slowing moving further down the endless hall with as many buttons as the eye can see.

Upon noticing the fact he was slowly moving further and further from safety he tried to think of a way to stop the spears from firing. It appeared that every button was each linked to an individual spear so if he could stop himself from stepping on more buttons he might be able to stop the machine gun fire of near death experiences. Of course not stepping on the buttons is easier said than done. Not only was Grode completely unsuccessful at it but he some how even managed to step on even more buttons than before including a far larger red one.

"Hmm that doesn't look good." Grode pondered

Grode didn't have to ponder exactly what the button did for long. Shooting straight towards him was a much faster and much larger spear aiming straight towards his midsection. Without time to dodge the far less dodge-able spear he quickly whipped out of his pocket his favorite and only mini TV to stop the missile from turning him into a Grode donut. While the TV was able to hold off the weapon from Grode's flesh it was completely destroyed in the process.

"f*** how am I going to catch my favorite show now!?"

Grode's mood was not improved by the still constant armada of spears flying at him. Oh and giant statues, Grode wasn't very happy to see those either.

"What the hell are those other two doing? Playing patty cake? f*** looks like ill have to deal with these things too"

At this point (and a bit to Grode's embarrassment) most of the buttons had already been pressed so the wave of spears was now more or less a trickle, which was very favorable to Grode and his sophisticated plan for deal with the new threat. Of course his "sophisticated plan" just meant blowing the s*** out of them molotov cocktail style. Ok so maybe it wasn't very sophisticated, but it was a classic, not to mention effective.

Many explosion later coming from Grode and one big one from the blue kid the fight was finally over.

Many steps up a winding stair case later and Grode found himself in a new room on the 3rd floor.

This floor was very bland. Aside from a few bland walls dividing the floor into bland rooms, there stood a quite a bit bland less sign.

No matter how hard you try to run from it, the past can never be escaped.
It remains with you, haunting you always.

Grode studied the sign for a few moments and really reflected. Then he kicked it down and shoved the sign post into one of his larger pockets. Apparently one of the dumb and dumber duo thought it was funny and let out a deep and heavy laugh. Grode quickly swung around and was ready to shove his new found weapon up the skull of whichever of the two were laughing but instead found that neither of them were there.

In there place stood a very tall, very large, very fat, dark man with a glistening clean dome and an amazing set of pearly whites.
"Hahaha well if it isnt Grode, still up to your crazy antics. Why I dont believe I have set eyes on you for quite a while. When was that again? Oh yeah thats right, it was the day you killed me."

Grode stood stunned and was only able to utter one word.
"Terry?"

[airob]

Soren was now overcharged with energy as the result of his attack had made his body absorb the dissattached molecules and transform them into energy. He would need to vent this energy soon or it would become a serious problem.

Upon arriving at the third floor, Soren inmediatly felt an enourmous curse placed upon this place. Moments later he started having an intense headache. He held his head with both hands and kneeled down. Countless memories started to strike him again...

They all were passing so fast in front of his eyes that he could not remember what the place or time of each memory was. All he felt was the negative emotions embedded in each one: First a woman slaughtered before his very eyes, he did not realize who the woman was, he just experienced the pain of watching a loved one die; Then his hand covered in blood over the body of an unrecognized man, somehow, he knew it was a friend, and judging by the illusion he felt as if he killed him. And so many other memories... He could not remember who those people were, or how they died... all he saw was the despair of watching supposed loved ones dead, and some of them presumed to have been killed by his very hands. He could not find an answer to this...

-"Im a murderer... i murdered friends and foes alike... Soren whispered...

-"Hu? hey... are you alright? Raden noticed Soren deeply disturbed... he knew s*** was gonna happen soon.

-"Y-yes... i am alright... or so i hope. This place, this floor... is making me remember dreaded things. Listen Raden, ive lived for thousands of years. Im one of the original humans, the ones who inhabited earth, the planet of which only lore remains... were the humans were created.

A demon attacked earth in year 2XXX, it came from a parallel dimension. In its rampage, it attacked my neighborhood, and nearly killed me. However, it was slaughtered by a hero of legend, and... in a weird twist of events, i was bathed in the blood spilled from the demon´s veins. It´s soul now resides inside me, though dead, it still posseses a strong will for evil, and has tried to manipulate me all my life.

Living forever would sound kind of awesome to tell the truth... but it´s not. You become shallow, hollow, and eventually insane. Why? well, even though my body has been in it´s highest strenght capacity since a long time ago because of the powers of the demon, the mind cant be stopped from aging, the same as the soul. I became wiser, i became gentle, i learned to respect life and death, but very few things really meant something to me anymore... I´ve had 5 wives, their combined time spent by my side represents less than 1% of my life... do you realize how minimal their impact has been to me? my first wife meant all for me. Now she´s just forty years of my life. The mind becomes wiser, but it eventually knows so much about this world that it becomes cynical, vacant, meaningless, it deteriorates and soon it starts to forget, modify and create memories. Ive lived so long that ive forgotten so much, some of my memories have been modified unconciously. Dreams now seem like real memories to me and vice-versa. Imagination leads to dreaming, which leads to self-conviction, and eventually you lose the first and let the second screw the third. I dont know what´s real or what´s not anymore. Even this competition could all be false, i could be dreaming right now! I often wake up believeing things that didnt happen... it´s... sad...

Raden stood speechless at Soren´s melancholic drama. Soren soon got up from the floor and continued exploring the floor... suddenly it happened...

-"ughhh...Ghhaaarghhhhh!! Soren fell to the floor in intense pain, while transforming to his demonic state.

W-what is it now? what´s the matter!? Your... your body!... is totally covered in energy!

My body is overloaded with energy from that last attack... it wouldnt be a problem if there werent so much demonic presences in the vicinity. It´s not just you! there is something else in this floor! i sen..sed it... while we wer...e...entering... some...thing.... Raden! You have to stop me! im...losing cont...trol... last time it happ..ened... an entire planet...was destroyed! quick!...aim for the throat! it is...it´s weak point!

Soren stopped convulsing, he stood up and turned to Raden with a maniacal grin.

So...ren? are you alright now?

Grode, who was a bit far away from them both, was able to hear all the ruckus from Soren. He was really getting sick of this whining bitch. But he had to attend his own affairs first.

The sludge mass from the previous floors began to enter the room, but was inmediatly dissintegrated by a silver shoot by Soren.

It´s too late boy... he´s gone for now... ill have his body for about half an hour. Enough time to have some fun! It´s been so long since i was in this lair! i wonder if the demon of this lair really got slayed by that McFagmour...i highly doubt so hehehe. Anyway, you´ll be the first one to die, i just needed to tell you... Said Soren in a demonic voice, not really coming from him but it was heard coming from all directions, as if it was an omnipresent being.

[DuelStriker]

This was getting insane. Soren was going insane. Everything was insane.

First, some large man appears behind Grode, someone that he knows or something apparently? Next, something started happening to Soren... He spoke quickly in a worried tone about his own past, almost as if he was thinking that he would never be able to talk to anyone again. Now something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

"...Soren? Soren...? W-what's going on..."

What the hell was going on? Now Soren was saying he was going to kill Raden, and his voice was different.

"Soren! Snap out of it! What happened to escaping this cruel game? Don't do this!" Raden shouted.

"I told you boy, Soren is gone! There's nothing you can do about it! Now it's time for you to die..."

Across the room, Grode seemed to have taken notice of Soren's odd behavior and turned his head a little to see what was going on. He had a strange feeling, something was just really off about Soren now, a feeling that weighed enough on his thoughts and emotions to bring a wave of fear. In fact, it was probably the first time Grode had ever been truly afraid during this entire competition. Terry looked slightly concerned for a second, but the wide grin didn't leave his face. He motioned with his hand for Grode to turn back around and pay attention to him instead.

"What did you do with Soren?!" Raden continued shouting. Soren's response was just a cackling laugh. "Soren, I don't want to fight you but--"

"Oh, I think that won't be necessary."

That voice. Raden knew that voice. Him? No, impossible... Raden turned to face someone who was maybe just a few years older than Soren. He was dressed in black for the most part, the exception being some white-ish bandage-like cloths hanging from each of his arms. Gray hair that seemed to drape forward over his face, barely stopping above his eyes. The black headband - the mark of the Dark Forces showing clearly on the side of it. Those chilling eyes.

"...You!" Raden yelled, eyes narrowing in disgust.

"Me! Yes, that's right! Don't you just love the past Raden?"

"What you did is... unforgivable!"

"Hey, don't forget me Raden, I'm here to kill you, remember? Hahaha!" The possessed Soren's cackling was interrupted.

"Oh, shut up Soren!"

"What did you just say?"

"Ahaha, don't get in my way now Soren."

A breeze that seemed to come out of nowhere crept through the room. Suddenly a wall of ice shot up out of the ground in front of Soren that extended the length of the room and presumably the height of the ceiling.

Grode had turned back to Terry, who was laughing at him again. Then he heard more shouting across the room. Geez all this shouting why can't people be a little quieter seriously all the shouting is just irritating now and oh god another haircut reject is here. Dangit as if two weren't bad enough and oh god what the hell ice just shot out of the ground.

Soren growled from the other side of the ice wall.

Raden had his eyes locked on his new yet familiar opponent. "You... I won't let you get away again!" Raden said and drew his sword.

His response was just a wide smirk and an laugh that was slowly increasing in volume.

Soren proceeded to try blowing this damn ice wall to bits. Then he heard something behind him.

He turned to see Ironstorm standing there gazing at the ground. "You killed me Soren..." he said and snapped his gaze up toward Soren.

[DuelStriker]

This was ridiculous. First poisoned by some lunatic announcer, then a bunch of weird stuff involving sludge happens, and next the sludge barricades the door right in front of her. Ana was certainly in a worse mood now than she had been earlier. The sludge spiders that had attempted to attack her experienced spontaneous combustion as Ana set them aflame with a flick of her wrist. Now she proceeded to bust open the sludge barricade. Although the sludge spiders had fallen easily to her attack, the door proved much more difficult. She managed to blast a hole through it, which quickly filled itself again. With the next attack, the door didn't budge at all, clearly intent on not letting her pass. The sludge door now grew sludge tentacles to make matters worse.

Ana paused for a moment as the pain from the poison spiked through her body. Her mind was racing. She realized now how much she truly hated all of this. MacGilmour, the announcer, this tower, this poison, this sludge, this entire battle... It all disgusted her to no end. She dwelled on the events that had passed since she had first been brought here into this battle. It all seemed... so distant now. It felt like it had been days since she first woke in MacGilmour's dining room, just to see that pathetic excuse for a human Karen knocking over her chair and making a big fuss. She wondered how long she had really been here. Hours? Days? It was so hard to tell. Her thoughts turned to things further in the past. What had happened 39 years ago....

Her thoughts were interrupted by one of the tentacles lashing out at her. She jumped out of the way, answering the attack with a swift pound from one of her hammers. The tentacle was pinned for a second and then broke apart with a squish, sending sludge everywhere. The sludge just recollected itself at the door and kept up its attack.

Ana started thinking again. She had agreed to help stop this battle. But what now? The others were gone. She didn't know what was happening or what had happened to them. Did she even need them really? What should she do now...

---

A mist and a breeze swept through the room, something odd considering there wasn't really anywhere that wind could come from in a sealed building like this. Raden could no longer see the others as the mist took effect. But he was more focused on the problem at hand.

"You... Veyce! How could you just sell out our planet to darkness? Do you know how many have suffered because of you?!" Raden shouted.

"Ohh, you make it sound like I care! The rewards for what I did were truly worth it. If people suffered from it, it doesn't matter to me..."

Raden had heard enough. He rushed forward at Veyce. A sword of ice appeared in Veyce's hand. Within seconds, the blades clashed. Veyce jumped back and then swung, Raden parried the strike. The duel continued, neither one able to land a blow on the other. Veyce jumped back again, forming an ice wall in front of himself as Raden charged toward him. He broke a ball of ice from the center of the wall and sent it flying at Raden, who just sliced it in half. Raden charged his own attack and sent a lightning blast toward Veyce, blowing the ice wall apart. Another iceball shot out of the mist from the side and Raden jumped to avoid it.

---

Soren was trying hard, he didn't want this demon to take complete control of his mind. He was keeping a small sliver of control over his mind and body - a small sliver of hope. A sliver of hope that was fading still.

"I-Ironstorm...?" he managed to say as the small sane fraction of himself recognized who was standing in front of him.

Ironstorm reached into his hoodie, sorting through and deciding which element he could use here - fire, steel, or diamond...

---

Veyce came rushing at Raden and the swords clashed again. Sparks flew off of Raden's sword. Veyce grabbed Raden's left shoulder with his free hand. Instantly, ice was beginning to cover Raden's shoulder and upper arm. Raden used this chance to kick Veyce in the side and broke his grip, shattering the ice on his shoulder. He swung but Veyce disappeared into the mist again. He heard Veyce laughing, but couldn't figure out which direction his voice was coming from.

"The past can't be destroyed Raden..." Veyce said as he continued laughing.

Veyce came from behind and Raden shot off another lightning blast, which just barely missed. Another short sword duel followed. Then Veyce jumped and began to float in the air. The ice sword disappeared and a bunch of icicles began to form in the air around him. A volley of icicles flew toward Raden. He blocked the first few, but one clipped his arm and he dropped his sword. He fought off the other icicles with his pistol.

"I don't think you understand Raden..."

Raden started spinning his sword around in a circle, forming a ring of lightning in front of him.

"A memory can't be broken..."

Raden sent the lightning ring flying at Veyce. Veyce grunted in annoyance and moved out of the way.

"I am but a memory Raden..."

Raden continued to not listen and began charging another attack. Veyce wasn't laughing anymore. He was getting angry now. Raden was such a pathetic fool.

"Don't you understand Raden?! YOU CAN'T HURT ME!" The wind blew harder. "YOU CAN'T DESTROY ME!" Snow and ice began to swirl through the air. Veyce, now a blizzard of fury, flew toward Raden. He knocked his sword away, and immediately grabbed his arm and froze it, and then froze the ground leading to Raden's foot, which became frozen as well.

"Gahhh!" Raden cried out.

"The past is so haunting isn't it? But you can't destroy a memory, no matter how hard you try. You want to get past this floor don't you? You won't be able to until you understand. NONE OF YOU WILL!" he ended his sentence with a shout, making sure Soren and Grode could hear.

[Mr--Clean]

Grode's mind went blank. Which was actually pretty understandable. After all, assuming that a guy is dead just to see the guy appear in front of you many years later could be a little jarring. All Grode could do was just stare in silence and watch, watch as every thing around him started to move in slow motion, how all sounds around him became muted, and how his surroundings started to fade away to white.

When Grode's senses had returned to him he was standing in a dirty poorly-lit hallway made out of fine marble. Upon examining himself Grode discovered not only were all of his scars gone but he felt at least 5 years younger, not to mention 5 years weaker he thought eyeing his now muscleless arms. After a few more seconds of patting himself down his eyes almost bulged out. It shocked him he didn't notice sooner. His second hand was there and completely attached to his arm just like it was supposed to be

"A...A.. Ah... Ah... Ah s*** I must be having a flash back" he groaned to himself.

Almost as if on cue the nearest door opened, and out came a large man who Grode would later learn went by the name of Terry. The man walked close up to Grode and spoke "Whoa where are you going buddy? The pit is in the other direction."
Before Grode could tell the man to go f*** off his mouth moved on its own "The pit? Wait I'm... I'm new here."
Grode cursed inwardly. (damn I really am having a flash back here)
The large man looked at Grode puzzled "Well you do at least know about the pit right? The guards told you about this place right? Right?" He examined Grode's blank face. "s*** they didn't tell you anything did they?"
No they didn't tell me anything. They just picked me up off the street and tossed me into my cell. The guy with the big welcome committee shirt was supposed to tell me?"
"Yeah he kind of was. Why didn't he?"
"well he was cleaning up something.."
"it wouldn't happen to be a... dead body... wouldn't it?" He said these last few words as if he was trying to hold back a laugh.
"Yeah I'm pretty sure thats what it was. How did you know?"
"Well me and this other fellow got in a bit of a disagreement you see..."
"and you killed him"
"Why yes. Yes I did. Would have liked it if you stayed quit a bit longer though. I had this really cool story planned. Or at least I did. Until you killed it."
"Umm... sorry?"
"Naw don't be sorry, killing is a good thing around here and at least you picked up on that already... you do know about the killing right?"
"yeah I watched about this on the TV once. Didn't really sit with me too well."
"Well at least you know what this is about. I hope you fine with it now though cuz now you don't got a nice TV between you and the fights, you are in the middle of them."
"Yeah I kind of figured that out when a man hit me in the back of the head with a blunt weapon and I was dragged away in the middle of a crowded street."
"Haha well don't let that get you down. It happens to the best of us sometimes. Anyways first thing you should know is that the guards are only here to keep you from escaping, not to stop the others from shanking you in the showers and especially not to be part of a "welcome committee" Those happy shirts with the pictures of all the smily faces are only there to keep the public blind about how terrible this place really is (and they know its pretty bad). Well since you so clueless ill fill you in on some of the details of what happens around here.

White once again clouded Grode's senses. When his vision returned he was in the arena he knew too well. When his hearing returned he heard the deafening roar of booing. When his sense of touch came back he felt something at his feet, he looked down to find Terry there staring back at him with lifeless eyes and with many kitchen knifes still stuck in various points of his body. As Grode later found out that Terry had recently taken a bribe to make the match long and as drawn out as possible for entertainment purposes, which very luckily translated to going easy to start with. Of course despite young Grode's complete lack of experience it is still very fool hardy to go easy on someone with an entire kitchen knife collection, a knife collection that Grode was trying to sell before he was picked up off the street and kidnapped. Of course Terry knew nothing of this, the knives being hidden in Grode's overcoat..

The guards approached Grode with fury in their faces. Terry was one of the most liked contestants around and was loved by the crowd and the other contestants... Even the guards were partial to him. Grode just happened to be the poor sucker who nobody knew who killed the unarmed hero with dirty tricks like concealed weapons. The guards forcibly pushed Grode to a march with the pointy end of their spears. Despite his complete exhaustion, his raging internal conflict, the boos and hisses from every man in the arena, and the sharp stings of the guards weapons, he forced his feet to carry him forward, straight down the path back to his cell. His remaining years in the program known only as "The Tournament" looked dark indeed. A tournament where there were no winners, only those who got to suffer another day, A tournament which always stacked the cards for the crowd favorite, a tournament from which there would always be a kill, guaranteed.

[airob]

Ironstorm lifted a closed fist into the air and started gathering energy, soon his body started to turn into steel.
-"I think we still have a little unfinished fight, dont you think? i wasnt at my fullest at that time, but now i can show you who´s the real harnesser of energy of this universe!

Ironstorm charged at Soren at full speed and tried punching him on the face, but Soren quickly grabbed his fist barely stopping his attack and causing a huge crater to break on the floor. Ironstorm hand-standed and started kicking Soren with no rest, but he just kept guarding each hit almost perfectly. Eventually Ironstorm managed to land a few kicks and throw Soren off balance, he jumped low and upon landing he propelled himself straight to Soren with a full body slam, sending him crashing against a nearby wall.

-"How´s this hu? and im just getting started!

-"You talk too much! Soren´s demon had taken control again, this time it was midly annoyed at the pesky rat that had just appeared upon him.

-"I wonder if you really know who you are dealing with. Im not that weakling fool called Soren, not anymore. You know, you´re about to regret coming back from the grave hehehe.

Demon Soren started building light energy in his mouth until it began to burn the air, he pressured all the energy in his mouth and shot it as a white fire ball. The heat was so intense it began to melt ironstorm´s steel body. He quickly took advantage of this and absorved part of the light energy and turned to the fire form. He then again charged at Soren engulfed in flames.

-"Oh my, you´re such a fool hahahahaha! Demon Soren raised a dark matter wall in front of Ironstorm, strong enough to stop Ironstorm for a while. When it was about to be pierced through, Demon Soren engulfed ironstorm with dark energy and rose the pressure like he did before with the hall´s Door. He finaly closed his fist and the dark energy imploded in place, spreading everywhere, and now Ironstorm, back to normal self again.


-"W-what have you done!? my power!

-"I simply stripped you of your power... dont you remember? i manipulate energy itself! hahahaha! Now, it´s time to finish you for good... but it wont be me, i´ll leave this pleasure to Soren himself.
Soren´s eyes changed just slightly to imply the change of personality.

-"I dont like when he posseses my body, it always ends bad... very bad, and though i hate to admit it, it´s time for you to go Ironstorm. You are not among the living anymore, you are just an illusion of this place, and that´s why the demon was able to get rid of you so easily... He doenst feel remorse in killing as i do, and certainly, he remembers you less than i do. Fighting someone else´s memory is easier than fighting your own. Soren stood over Ironstorm´s body lying on the floor, he morphed his hand into a dark matter blade and directed his attack right at Ironstorm´s chest, He turned to diamond in a last effort to protect himself and raised his hands to stop Soren´s attack, somewhat futile though. Soren pierced cleanly through Ironstorm´s hands and chest.

-"You should remember, that diamond is matter, and matter equals to energy, and that i can manipulate energy! there is no sword sharped than mine! nor shield stronger than mine!

As Ironstorm´s body vanished from existence, so did Soren´s last piece of sanity. He was done for now. For he hadnt fought his past by himself, but rather with the help of an evil being. He twisted on the floor for a while until he stood up again, with the demon in full control.

-"So i think i was about time i gained full control of this shitface. Now i guess that ice wall wont be able to hold my attacks anymore... let´s have some fun! hahaahahaha