Altarial vs. Cadence (2)
Altarial walks over to the center of the amphitheater and stands on the smooth, round black stone that is still there. It gleams in the reflected lights of the large arena, and appears completely solid as she takes her place. She gives it a good crack with the heel of her right foot, and then seems perplexed when nothing happens. Frowning deeply to herself, she wonders what is wrong and starts to jump up and down ferociously. Finally, the stone lights up with tiny, glowing strings of orange light, trailing across the dark surface in a spidery pattern. The pattern continues off the stone, rippling the ground of the entire amphitheater, each line widening into a boiling river of lava. The lines surround Cadence and rapidly close in on him, devouring all solid land in their wake. Soon, the entire floor is composed of nothing but lava, save for the black stone on which Altarial stands, and the small island of land on which her opponent stands... which is quickly disappearing and threatening to dunk him into the inferno.
Cadence eeps and acks and ponders. A light bulb flashes above his head and suddenly he knows what to do. Pulling two twigs from his hair, he quickly gets to work. The light stays bright above him, acting like a spotlight as he sets his drumsticks in thin air and gives them a nice beat. He then begins to dance, using as much floor space as he still has left. As he dances his heart out, the thin streams of lava begin to dance too, twisting about and twirling creating a very nice sparkling atmosphere. Within a few moments all the lava has been drawn off the floor and is dancing up along the ceiling like a fiery starlit night. Sweeping up Altarial, Cadence swings her about in an increasingly fast dance number. If something isn't done soon, the poor girl might not have any feet left to stand on by the end of the dance.
Altarial becomes enamored with dancing with her sweet Cady-poo. With the ceiling now glowing so beautifully, it takes her several moments to remember that she is actually dueling him, and not on some romantic date where one dances in candle-light. As the pace of the dance increases, she begins to panic, feeling a dull throb in her feet. She quickly jumps up, wrapping her arms and legs around Cadence, so that she is no longer dancing with him, but being carried by him. She gives him a quick kiss on the tip of his nose, and then jumps away, landing soundly on the ground. After putting some distance between herself and the crazy dancer, she pulls open the string of her pouch and withdraws a tiny pinch of gray ash. She gives it a good blow, and it trails along on the wind, eventually sticking to the glowing lava on the ceiling. As the particles of dust touch the flaming glow, the whole thing cools and hardens into jagged black rock. The density of it now proves to be too much to remain on the ceiling, and the rock cracks in several places and begins falling to the ground in several pieces. Many of these sharp objects crash very near to Cadence, and with his wild dancing he stands a good chance of getting hit a little too hard for his own good...
Cadence screeches to a stop and stares at the ceiling in horror. Remembering an old childhood saying, he decides on a course of action. "When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream, and shout". Cadence begins running in a small circle as fast as he can and screams and shouts at the top of his lungs. The rhythmic yelling booms throughout the amphitheater. The sound produced would be enough to keep anything as far away as possible, including inanimate objects such as falling pieces of cooled lava. Running around like a maniac, Cadence doesn't even notice that the danger has passed, The noise coming from him is enough to drive anyone permanently insane, if it doesn't manage to spontaneously combust them first.
Altarial screams also and grabs her ears with her hands, covering them up as best as possible. Nearly unable to think with this racketing noise, she closes her eyes so as to concentrate better. Then, before she has a chance to plan her next move, she actually does spontaneously combust. Her entire body takes on the iridescent reddish-orange of lava just before bursting into a million pieces, sending bits of lavafied Altarial all over the stadium. All the little pieces of her absorb into whatever surface they landed on, and a moment later the amphitheater begins to shake violently. A furious earthquake rumbles across the area, and a huge crack in the ground rips open between Cadence's two running feet, threatening to spill him into the fiery depths below. Meanwhile, Altarial's form seems to rematerialize from the spidery lines that still cover the smooth stone in the center of the stadium.
Cadence stops running and stares down into the fire pit beneath him. He shuts his mouth. Gingerly taking one foot and moving it next to the other foot, Cadence manages to make himself on one side of the crack, and therefore 50% safer. Mumbling to himself he takes his sticks and stares at them for a moment. After a moment of pondering he drops one of the sticks deep down into the pit of lava and runs to the corner. The earthquake gets stronger and begins to quake the other direction, quickly closing in the gap and continuing further. It seems as though the walls are coming together. Yup, sure enough, the Cadencified earthquake seems to be pushing the walls toward each other. The space in the room is rapidly decreasing. Perhaps something should be done before there is great amounts of gooey flesh smeared throughout the amphitheater.
Altarial makes a funny face when the earthquake turns its course and the walls start to close in. Immediately she melts back into the stone, intent on rectifying this problem. The quake continues until the walls are no more than fifteen feet apart from each other, quite disturbing considering how large the amphitheater was before. Then, the whole place gives one last, pitiful shudder before all is still. Once again, the mage re-materializes from the center stone, holding something behind her back. She grins and holds out the very stick that was thrown into the chasm a few minutes before.
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