Tonight, this rainforest is getting wrecked!
Amanda Jones, the space marine known colloquially as Jonesy, shall be fiting the young janitor Alexander Triden. Since this is a special arena fite, we sought an on-site correspondent as per the norm, but I have the feeling this one will be even less useful than the others. Plucked from a native tribe is some Amazonian shaman whose name escapes us. We've just been calling him Dale. We taught Dale the Shaman some English but... well, let's go to him and show you what we mean. Dale the Shaman, tell us about tonight's fite!
"Tonight. Yellow hair warrior cleaner fite red armor space lady. Big fite. Bad for forest. Space lady have fire throwers. Fire bad for forest. Yellow hair warrior have magic blade. Dale fear for spirit of forest."
That was Dale the Shaman's way of saying Alex is bringing Excalibur and Jonesy is bringing her flamethrowers. Also worthy of note are Alex's wind and earth magic skills and Jonesy's new telekinetic and psionic abilities. Amidst the trees and wildlife these two shall fite, so let's get it on! Jonesy and Alex, it's time to Fite Yer' Mate!
Flames shoot forward from Jonesy's suit, but Alex is able to dive out of their path. The fire quickly ignites nearby brush, but Alex whips up some wind magic that both slams into Jonesy and puts out the flames. Jonesy's massive metal suit prevents the wind from doing anything greater than making her take a few steps back, so the space marine again sprays her fire-throwing weapons to try and get a wildfire started early. Alex quickly teleports out of the range of the attack, but his unreliable new teleportation skill causes him to appear right next to a tree. What's so bad about teleporting next to a tree, though?
"Yellow hair warrior seem to have moved fast next to tree... but tree branch was in way."
When the knight reformed by the tree, a branch was at mouth level with the knight's head. The branch lodges into the left cheek of the young janitor. Alex screams in horror and quickly teleports away in hopes of not being harmed to greatly by the teleportation mishap, but when he reforms near Jonesy, there is now a gaping hole in his cheek.
"Warrior should be more careful. Warrior should not move so fast."
Alex is unable to hear Dale the Shaman's wise words though, because fire quickly begins to envelope the boy distracted by a bloody hole in his cheek. Much of Alex's armor is able to take the fire easily, but Alex's skin and hair are soon ignited by the dual flamethrowers. Jonesy walks closer and closer to Alex, trying to get more of the janitor into the flames' reach. Alex begins to back up, trying to conjure up some sort of spell to block the flames, but the fire burning him alive is a bit distracting.
Alex stumbles backwards more and more as the flame's begin to move through the various degrees of burning. Luckily for his skin, the battle takes place close to the Amazon River! The knight realizes this and quickly throws all his focus into casting an earth magic spell. A large spire slams into Jonesy, giving Alex the time he needed to leap into the river to douse the flames. The earthen spire manages to completely destroy one of the suit's flamethrowers, causing a horrible backlash in Jonesy's left arm. Jonesy quickly struggles to remove the left arm's plating as flesh is burnt by the broken weapon.
"Fiters hurting selves more than opponent."
Jonesy runs to the river bank to douse her own hand and then glares at the water in anticipation of the knight's resurfacing. Alex is patiently waiting beneath the water, watching Jonesy stand above him on the shore. Caiman swim harmlessly about in the water, apparently not hungry for the knight. Piranhas also swim by harmlessly, because honestly piranhas aren't very vicious unless starved. Heck, even that overblown catfish the Candiru swims by without incident!
"Nature respect boy who wish nature no harm. Nature on yellow hair warrior side."
Dale's words prove true as a jaguar stalks towards Jonesy. Jonesy is too busy waiting for the knight to resurface to register the spotted big cat's approach, but when she gets tackled... she simply grabs it and snaps its neck. The armor offered way too much protection for nature's creatures to harm her. But there is something that can penetrate that armor: Excalibur.
Alex leaps out of the water and rams his sword directly into Jonesy's stomach!
It's the voice of Dale the Shaman.
"Beware mirage of the mind..."
Alex begins to lose his breath and falls over onto Jonesy's corpse, struggling for breath. His lungs seem to fill with fluid as he continues desperately gasping.
On the shore of the river stood Jonesy, concentrating so she could project a false victory into Alex's mind. In the water, Alex struggled to breath as he saw a world that is not real...
The hole in Alex's cheek did not help with the whole "holding your breath underwater" thing, and as water he could no longer sense flowed into his lungs, Alex could do nothing to free himself from Jonesy's illusion of the mind. It looked like this would be it. Losing by drowning...
Suddenly though, the image snaps away. Alex can once more see he is in the Amazon River, but he is too weak to swim. He was almost out of air, and his muscles were not responding. Before he closed his eyes though, he could have sworn he saw a pink dolphin who looked eerily familiar...
Alex is pushed onto shore by a pink blur. Struggling for breath, the knight pulls himself up and looks around. Dale the Shaman and Gezora are there, the forest is there, some brush was burning... But where was Jonesy?
Obscured by the trees, Jonesy has removed her helmet and is regurgitating blood. The image was too long and difficult to sustain, and she no longer could maintain it without wracking her brain to the breaking point. Hiding her weakness behind the trees, Jonesy quickly wipes her face clean of any remaining blood and takes a breather. She had a feeling Alex would not die in the water after the illusion was broken, so she prepared herself for his return...
But she did not expect it to come as quickly as it did. Jonesy reaches down to pick up her helmet, but a chunk of earth shoots up, slamming her on the chin and sending the helmet flying into the depths of the forest. Jonesy spins around, her nose now broken from the force of the blow. Jonesy cannot see Alex, so she begins torching all of the forest around her with her remaining flamethrower. Alex is forced to jump out from his cover as the rainforest is now enveloped in a humongous wildfire.
"Wish could say it surprise, but it not. Fire consume forest spirit. Woman kill forest..."
As Dale the Shaman begins to convulse in fits of prayer to try and heal the forest spirit, Alex hefts up his sword and slashes forward at Jonesy, shearing off a huge chunk of Jonesy's armor. Jonesy responds with a nasty punch to the knight's face, the metallic right hook accentuated by the flamethrower it held. The right side of Alex's face is horribly maimed by both the harsh punch and the harsh flames, leaving Alex's face looking like a Halloween zombie mask. Alex tries to cast a healing spell, but Jonesy grabs his arm with her big metal hand.
A sickening snap is heard as the wrist is broken, but Alex's other hand quickly brings Excalibur over and slices off Jonesy's hand and the nozzle of the flamethrower! The fire, no longer concentrated by the cone-shaped ending of the weapon, sprays randomly about until Jonesy uses her badly burnt hand to stop it. Jonesy's hands are seriously maimed, but she still has large metallic legs!
Jonesy begins to do some rather lithe kicks in her Firebat armor, the hefty armor giving her kicks bone-shattering strength. Alex takes a few to his sides, but Excalibur once more swings forwards. Jonesy backs up and is just barely able to dodge the blow, but in doing so she backs into a burning tree. Her ponytail ignites, and she begins frantically batting at it with her damaged hands.
Alex uses the distraction to plunge his sword square into Jonesy's chest. Jonesy sputters and coughs up a bit more blood as Alex removes the blade from her chest. The female space marine struggles to move, but her body begins to fail. It appears the move she had simulated in the illusion earlier had just became reality. Jonesy falls to the ground, struggling to try and get a last move in on Alex.
Alex looks down at Jonesy and begins to wonder if he should help her, but suddenly the flames grow stronger, and the knight is once more ignited. Fleeing the foliage to seek the safety of the Amazon River once more, Alex leaves the struggling Jonesy to the burning forest.
Jonesy tries her best to scream after him. She's not dead yet! She can still fite!
Dale the Shaman's prayers are getting louder and more frantic. The forest seems to sway... The tree Jonesy had bumped into began to fall down. Whether it was the prayers of the shaman, the spirit of the forest, or just the fire finally weakening it enough that caused it, the tree fell down onto the injured space marine.
Jonesy screams in pain and tries to free herself, but she no longer has the energy to do so. As the fire begins to consume her, Jonesy slips into unconsciousness...
Despite what Dale the Shaman says, the wildfire still runs wild through the forest. Nothing can stop it!
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