[Coliseum] The Tri-force Tournament

The rest of the time spent in the waiting room was done in awkward silence. Sobek had neither the patience nor the experience for prolonged conversation, and sat like a statue with his mind completely elsewhere. His focus surged back into reality at the announcement that the tournament would begin and he stood up suddenly without a word. Several of the more novice contestants flinched and fell off their seats at Sobek's gesture, each hoping they weren't the next target of his ire. The hunter followed Brutus and appreciated the brooding figure's silence all the time. Taking a place on the far edge of the slab, his dark eyes quickly scanned the audience before turning back to his many foes. Even when the duke spoke, Sobek continued to analyze his competition like a ravenous wolf.

As the stab shook and began to rise, the cursed warrior's hand was already on the hilt of his sheathed blade. With a quick flash, his sword was out and looking for a new sheath inside Sobek's first bounty. While some of the competitors panicked and fell, others were made of more stocky breed. Sobek could see that near the center of the platform, five burly-looking brutes had made a pact and claimed sovereignty over the safest spot. They would be difficult to split and knock off, Sobek figured, and he also assumed this agreement had been made before the tournament even started. Turning his gaze upon the more vulnerable lot scampering about the lip of the slab. Sobek swept his left claw like a scythe in wheat, his grasp finding hold on the shoulder of a young Hylian trying to scurry by unnoticed. With an effortless swing of his arm, the hunter had sent his first target over the edge.

"Aaaargh! Die, monster!" Turning just in time to receive a glancing blow to the chest, Sobek saw a furious town guard that had entered the tournament. He bore an expression that Sobek found all-too-familiar. The look of hate, one inherited by the mistakes of his father, that had met him at the gates of every society he met. It was something that had deeply wounded him as a child, though ever new iteration had left the flesh tougher and tougher until the contempt no longer broke skin. The guard brought up his sword to let it fall upon Sobek's head, but the hunter was quicker. With a duck to the side and a disarming flourish, Sobek found himself standing tall above the guard with the tip of his own sword at the man's throat. The look of hatred was quickly melting away into its true form: one of fear. Having learned of their pitiful nature long ago, this came of no surprise to Sobek. And even though he had no wish to show pity on one that have given him none, he was keen on the rules of the tournament, and he instead delivered a light cut on the guard's cheek. Shallow enough to heal quickly, Sobek figured, but one that would leave a scar.

Tossing the guard over the edge of the slab, Sobek turned to face any others with the gall to approach.

Sheraz had waited on baited breath for the match to begin. Despite being family, her sister had told very little on matters of the challenges of the tournament. She liked it that way, part of the fun.

What she didn't enjoy was taking on different personas all the time. Every death had to be real. Almost ruined her fun, which is why she took dying in this somewhat seriously. Razesh, of all her characters, wasn't too far from her real self so it'd be annoying to kill 'her' off.

Once the battle began, she spread out the distance between her feet, to keep better balance as the platform was being raised. Once that was over, however, the fun part began. A match reliant on domination of space. Had dearest Euryale tilted the odds in her favor on purpose? It didn't matter.

She took out both urumis, snapping the steel whips against the floor, as she then began to use both in wide swings, doing glancing hits and leaving cuts on the contestants too close to her, forcing them to give her space or be cut by the several metal blades being swung at them.

One of the gladiators attempted to hook an Urumi by catching it with his axe, pulling Razesh close and delivering a punch to her face, to throw her off balance. Before she could bring about the other sword to strike him, he swiftly pulled a dagger from his waist and drove it into her gut.

She gasped for air, but then looked up at the other contestant with a grin from ear to ear, before headbutting him, even as that drove the dagger deeper. This disoriented him for a moment, long enough for her to reverse the grapple on the weapons and wrap the blades around his arm. Then, she dove in again, striking her head against his once more, making him lose the grip on the dagger and keel backwards slightly.

At this point, she raised her foot and placed it squarely on his torso, then pushed him back with her weight, causing the urumi grappled around his arm to move and lacerate it. Now disarmed and with one arm effectively disabled, he was at her mercy.

However, that was the same time that an opportunist, having seen their struggle, charged towards Razesh with the intent to push her onto the floor before she could regain balance. His mistake was to scream in the heat of battle.

She heard the approach and using her other arm swung her second urumi backwards, aimed towards the ground, where it made light cuts on the assailant's leg and stopped his advance. She was effectively surrounded. But at that point, she simply began to wind up the urumis, letting the whips threaten to strike their feet, should they come closer. Letting them keep their eyes on the ground and used to the stagnant rhythm. Then without warning she alternated sides and flung each whip to the opposite end to strike them with cuts on their necks.

The Gator's bleak gaze eyed the competition as it quickly shrank in size. It seemed like dozens were being swatted away like flies, and the remainder was nothing to sneeze at. The group of burly thugs still claimed dominance over the central, most stable spot on the platform. From the center of them came a dull glow, and with a flash flames taking the form of ghastly serpents sprang from the huddle. The fiery asps whipped about in the air chaotically like the embers that made them manifest, though soon their attention was turned to the scuffling contestants. Lashing out with reckless fury, the snakes brought down vicious fangs of fire upon their unsuspecting targets. Hopeful champions shrieked in pain and swung at the snakes in panic, but it was to no avail as their hands went alight upon touch. Some of the more fortunate duelers took the opportunity to throw the bitten opponents over the edge, while others stepped back in shock or futilely helped their enemies out of pity.

One of the magical beasts shot out in Sobek's direction, baring red-hot teeth in anticipation of a strike. Reaching quickly to the side, the bounty hunter grabbed a poor soul who had already been caught by one of the snakes, offering them a second assailant. With a pitiful cry, they went plummeting over the side with Sobek's toss and the cursed knight turned his eyes to the group in the center once more. More and more snakes erupted from the center of the mass, and Sobek could make out some odd figure being shielded by the group of brutish bodyguards. Looking around and seeing that no other had taken up the mantle of striking down the mutual threat, Sobek tightened the grip on his sword and dashed at the bunch.

Two split away at the approach to face Sobek and it was then he could see the cause of the reptilian havoc. A child, it appeared, sat cross-legged over a large tome while muttering some unknown language under her breath. A phrase repeated again and again, its punctuation spawning a small spark that danced from the youth's lips and rose swirling into the air. Its form seemed to take shape in the blink of an eye, swelling into a hungry viper that flew away towards its next victim. Before he could observe the child further, two meaty hands came down like a twin set of freshly fallen trees. Sobek glanced to the side to see his other attacker reaching in for a grapple with the purpose of disarming the hunter. Without much a chance to think, the lizardman used his advantageous speed to redirect the bludgeoning into the grabby thug, forcing the two into a confusing embrace as Sobek stood unharmed to the side.

Pulling back his neck, a gnarly gurgle reverberated from Sobek's throat. As the two thugs looked on in bewilderment, the Slate Gator's maw dropped open and a great plume of flames propelled from the hunter's gullet. The cloud of fire consumed the two for but a second, as that was all Sobek had released, but it was enough to ignite them as the snakes had done their enemies. Now victims to an attack of their own element, the thugs pushed off one another and flew into a distressed frenzy. In their wild state, neither had noticed that both were charging recklessly towards Maewin.

As the group of hooligans guarding the child sorcerer reevaluated their condition, Sobek turned and looked to the violet-haired woman he had seen in the waiting room before. While she seemed to be holding her own just fine, she was in fact surrounded by a sizeable group of gladiators. However, the snakes were making victims of at least half of them. "You, girl," Sobek shouted over the commotion of battle, though his gravelly voice managed to claim sovereignty over the noise. "Help me with the snake charmer. These other fools aren't worth the effort." Looking back to the central group, Sobek witnessed the number of fire snakes growing more and more rapidly. "I think taking them out is in all our interest now."

'Razesh' was almost fully absorbed in the fighting as she got swarmed with foes. With those urumis swinging, the approaches were few and cautious. Nevertheless, she was occupying too much space to just be ignored or avoided.

That was when she heard the Slate Gator call out to her. She grinned happily. "Of course!", she called out, as she swung her swords, aimed right at her opponents legs so they'd jump aside and open the way. Between her blades and the snakes, the contestants began to cave in, and either fall or step aside.

Now, however, she was exposed to the stream of magical beasts spawning from the center, and so she had to switch tactics. Rather than vie for domination and make a wide area open by sweeping the metallic whips, Razesh instead moved to swat and strike the beasts, either cutting them or moving them away from her path. Some bursts of flame got close enough to her, as their sheer volume could overwhelm her if she faltered.

One of them got through, landing its fangs on her leg and writhing as it burned her. Rather than scream, that only seemed to make her more invigorated to continue this battle, taking her time to move forward, and stopping to stomp at the snake and shred it to pieces only when it began to constrict around her leg and threaten to hinder her advance.

Whether or not she derived satisfaction from this, now that damnable wound had taken a toll, and she had slowed down, her bitten leg limping a bit while it got accustomed to the burns and nerve damage. Now, she was positioned further into the platform and closer to Sobek, slowly but surely approaching the snake charmer. She already was formulating fun little ways to make the casualty entertaining for the crowd and herself.