A Battle To Think About

[IOwnedYou]

Rakarshi was walking around the grand city of Las Vegas. The wonderful flashing lights, the tall buildings. The drunk, happy people walking around. What a fun place to be. He eventually got tired of walking around The Strip and took a seat on a bench nearby. Across from him on another bench, there sat a puppet in a dark red jester suit. Rakarshi never liked puppets, he looked away from it. He put his bag down and took a book out. It was a French book without the letter E. Rakarshi thought that it was impossible to write a book without the letter E! He started reading it and noticed an odd figure walk by and inspect the puppet. He turned his head slightly to see what the figure was going to do. All the man was doing was inspecting it in an odd way.
"Excuse me sir... But... What are you doing?" Rakarashi asked in a friendly way with a little laugh in his question.

[serraskai]

A place of debauchery and sin, this was.

Ezekiel walked calmly through the streets, catching the gaze of the broken hearted, empty wallet gambling fools as they stumbled drunkenly past him in a stupor. One asked if he was supposed to be Gandalf the gray. That man died.

Ezekiel strolled to the strip and stood at the end of its long, disgusting road, staring at the people within with a sense of contempt as they shuffled about, trying to find their way to wherever they were going. Filthy, disgusting.

Silently Ezekiel decided that if he ruled, such a place would only exist outside his influence.

Propping his book upon his arm, Ezekiel sifted through his notes until he found today's date, and skimmed over his annotations from the book of Eternity. A soldier and a jester were to fight today. Without looking at who the victor would be, Ezekiel looked through the crowd, scanning for them. He was uninterested in intervening in their fight, but it seemed very likely that he was going to have a part to play in this anyway.

[Kismet]

“Bwah!” Lazus cried, startled, and toppled off of the bench. How’d he get here? What was going on? Who was this strange person talking to him? Leaping to his feet, he looked at the thread author, trying to get his bearings straight. IOwnedYou. Oh yeah, him!

Leaping to his feet, Lazus dusted himself off and tried to make himself look cooler than he felt at the moment. Falling off of benches usually didn’t help one’s image. “Yeah! Well, you brought me here, so you ought to know.” He said, replying to the man who’d questioned him. Absentmindedly, he placed a small marionette of himself in his hat, and placed it on his head. “If it’s revenge you want, the letter A is now Taboo! Avoid it like the plague, lest you end up like your Hester Prynne inspired brother!”

Oh wait, that was odd. There was another poster in this thread, who had thus far remained out of sight. Interesting.

[IOwnedYou]

"Hester Prynne? I know no one of the sort! Oh, I noticed you spelled 'your' incorrectly too. How silly of you!" he chuckled to himself. The thought of someone so strict in the subject of spelling misspelling something, how humorous!
"You're quite the exciting person! You should be very fun to fight!" knowing he couldn't use the forbidden letter, he checked his words when they were typed out.
"I'm going to guess there were tons of people who fell for your tricks. I bet they even thought you were telling them lies! How funny! Don't worry, I'll give you quite the exciting experience!"

[serraskai]

Things were becoming quite interesting to Ezekiel, who looked upon the entirety of the exchange.....

damn. Ezekiel thought with a smile. He hadn't gotten far without using the letter "a," had he? Vacantly he wondered if the spell would effect him, but when he felt no burn marks on his skin or any drain to his life he felt quite content that he was safe from it for the time being. Spotting a vantage point from which he could observe the battle, Ezekiel entered a nearby restaurant, emerging minutes later on the rooftop with his pen and paper in hand, prepared to take notes on the variations his mere presence here had from the notes he had already taken from The Book.

[Kismet]

“Oh you whore.” Lazus looked up at his previous post, and sure enough, “your” was misspelled. How aggravating. Well, that can be fixed. After a few moments of tinkering, Lazus modified his post, correcting his mistake and rendering his opponent’s accusation completely irrelevant. Take that. Bitch.

Lazus pointed at the man and laughed. “Oh yes, most clever, most interesting. Be warned though, the Fourth Wall is mine to break. Your words are bound to this reality to around you. Only I am transcendent!” Yes, this one would die now. He would die for daring to encroach on the power of Lazus’ words, his words, which defined reality.

Lazus pressed his thumb and forefinger together, and a pink needle of flame sprung up between them, as if sparked by the friction. “I warn you now, transgress upon my domain again, yes, mine, and the consequences will be severe. I’ll let that first post slide though.” Then he grinned and rose into the air, hovering a few feet above the ground.

“Sting of the Spelling Bee!” With a flick of his thumb, the pink needle flashed across reality, burying itself within his opponent’s chest, permanently sapping 2% of his health and energy and transferring it to Lazus. Laughing, he rose higher into the sky. “Come, let’s go find the other one!”

[IOwnedYou]

"Well that was mean of you," he told the puppet. As they walked along trying to find the other man, Rakarashi asked a question "I never got your name. I like to know my opponent's name when fighting them. What is it?" he asked with curiosity. This puppet was very interesting. Rakarashi was wondering how this puppet came to exist. A magic artist? A spell enchanting an ordinary puppet?
"Out of curiosity, how did you come to exist? I understand if you do not want to answer. I just like to learn things and make my opponent my friend, then kill them if you know what I mean," he told the puppet. He looked up at the floating puppet. How odd.

[serraskai]

Striking his notes with a strange sense of passion, Ezekiel looked on the two combatants with interest. No punches thrown, yet, but the Jester thing had stabbed the other guy, not that he payed it any particular mind. He seemed more uneasy than genuinely threatened, but that was anyone's guess really.

More fascinating than that was the fact that his presence had indeed changed things. The Jester had even noted his presence in a vague way... did he really know he was there?

Ezekiel smiled the way a snake did after devouring it's first meal of the day. So pleased with himself at his discovery, Ezekiel hardly noticed that people in the restaurant were staring at him, trying to discern his purpose here from his scratchings on the page. He doubted they could read ancient Hylian, but the fact remained that he would probably need to kill them soon, or scare them sufficiently to make them leave him alone, so his research could continue unhindered.

[Kismet]

“Hah. The name is Lazus.” He looked around, wondering where the other could be. He had to be around somewhere, though he couldn’t determine exactly where. I can feel your words there, but I can’t see them! This was most distressing. He’d only met two people so far in this world of words, and he’d killed on one of them.

That would be an awfully good reason to hide from someone, actually.

Lazily, he turned his head back towards the one who had revealed himself, the curious one. After a moment of deliberation, he decided against sticking another needle in him. Borderline case. And he didn’t need to know about how Lazus was created. No one did. Still, for someone here to pick a fight, he wasn’t doing much. Time to change that.

Lazus glanced at him, grinning wildly, then shot through the air, reduced to a red blur. In an instant, he had smashed through the window of a passing taxi cab and knocked the driver out of the car. Cursing his small size, he stretched his legs down and floored the gas, swerving back around towards his companion. He could barely see over the dash board, but it didn’t really matter. Random pedestrians were of no consequence to him, since they didn’t actually exist. But your words are.
He thought, directing his words towards his so called opponent. Now let me silence them.

[IOwnedYou]

Rakarshi saw all of this happening. The taxi was flying towards him at full speed.
"You little pain in the ass," Rakarashi said with a groan. He jumped on the front of the taxi and shot three times at the little puppet. He wasn't hurt, well, it didn't seem like he was.
"What are you? Invulnerable? Or are you one of those people who have an item that keeps them safe?" Rakarshi was annoyed by the little puppet named Lazus. He started to think while he flipped off the front of the taxi and behind it. What is it that's keeping him safe? Rakarashi thought of anything that he did that seemed odd. He dropped that... The marionette! But what does it do? I'm not 100% sure that it keeps him safe... It might've just been a fake to throw me off. I'm thinking about this too hard... Rakarashi turned around to see the taxi turning around at him.
"God damnit... Get out of here!" Rakarashi shot the wheels of the taxi three times. He was out of ammo, he emptied the round and reloaded with the bullets in his pockets. He rolled out of the way of the swerving taxi and shot at it twice more.
"Are you done yet?"

[serraskai]

Oh how active they had become!

Ezekiel jotted down a few quick notes on his quarry. They were quick to vacate his proximity, that was for damn sure! But had it been because he was here?

Before he could ponder that, a large man dressed all in black with sunglasses on (despite the late hour) put a hand on his shoulder, asking him to leave. Two others were behind him- ready to back him up. That wasn't a problem.

In moments all three were dead on the floor, Ezekiel holding their murder weapon in the form of a rapier, as he allowed the people's panic to mirror that of the people on the streets, screaming instead at him in place of a runaway taxi and a gunman.

Confident that the chaos they had authored would cover his own, Ezekiel slipped onto the balcony below (scaring the two love birds away with his sudden appearance and bloody weapon) in an attempt to get a better vantage point on his test subjects.

[Kismet]

The tires of the cab blew out under the hail of gunfire, causing it to skid out of control into a nearby street lamp. “Oh you’re so screwed now.” Lazus muttered, prying his face out of the windshield. He was not hurt, of course, but he was going to enjoy this post nonetheless. Especially since his opponent was displaying ungodly levels of inductive reasoning. Very borderline, that.

The sun roof of the cab slowly slid open, and Lazus rose out of it, his arms spread wide. From his right hand dangled a small marionette. With a light thud, he landed atop the wrecked car, his lips twitching upward. Like a cat about to pounce on an unsuspecting rat.

“You shot me…Autohit me… That wasn’t nice. Not nice at all." Lazus held up his marionette for his opponent to see. In the pale moonlight, its facial feature seemed to melt, swirling and reforming into that of his foe’s. Lazus cackled. “Now dance."

His fingers twitched, tugging on the strings to his marionette. And his opponent, his body now slave to his will, copied move for move. With a gleeful laugh, Lazus began spinning the marionette wildly around his hand, His opponent copied the movement, looping through the air at sickening speeds. Then, Lazus stopped, halting his target’s moment with a swat of his other hand against the marionette.

Then, Lazus began pounding the puppet up and down. His opponent flew up into the air…and down into the ground. Up, then down, up, then down. Again and again and again! Amused with himself, he slowly pulled his opponent off the ground, holding him limp in midair.

“You see, if I’m subjugated to godmodding, I can return the favor.” He smiled. “I don’t think that’s enough to kill you, but I’m going to make sure this is painful.” Lazus shivered with excitement. Holding his marionette aloft, he slowly reached up with his left hand, and delicately grasped its left arm. Then he twisted the arm completely around in its socket. With a sickening snap, his opponent’s arm mirrored the motion. Lazus shivered again. The cruelty was a little exhilarating.

But, enough was enough. It was high time he wrapped up his fun and relinquished control of his opponent’s body back to its rightful owner. Just then though, he noticed a stream of screaming people exit from the bottom floor of a restaurant.

Lazus didn’t think people did that on their own, usually. Not unless the food was really bad.

“I’ve found you, you little sneak!” He yelled happily. With a flick of his wrist, he sent his puppet bound opponent flying into through the second story window of the restaurant, and ended his post.

[IOwnedYou]

You can't let him control you like that. Get up. Get that marionette
Rakarashi was motionless on the floor. Glass was stuck in his flesh. He was given serious cuts and bruises from this little puppet. He got up, his arm was limp, unusable. He took his gun out of his pocket, went to the open space that he was thrown through, then saw the puppet laugh with glee. Sick. Lazus was too busy looking for the other man to notice Rakarashi.
Perfect
Rakarashi went to the open space. He caught on to a chain-like structure to climb to the bottom of the restaurant with. Using his one arm, he eventually got to the bottom of the restaurant. Lazus still hasn't caught him. He went to the back of some bushes to stalk Lazus' movements.
No more of you

[serraskai]

Ezekiel shrunk down, slamming his back onto the wall of his own secluded balcony.

How fascinating. The jester had spotted him. The other was paying him no mind, of course, but then he had not means of detecting him.

Come to think of it, neither did the jester. What was he, a mind reader? With this in the forefront of his mind, Ezekiel checked his notes- nope. He wasn't a mind reader. There was little information about him so Ezekiel made a mental note on checking the book of eternity on what exactly it was to compensate for his terrible note taking skills.

[Kismet]

Well, that had been fun. Lazus had suspected that using his opponent as a human yo-yo might be entertaining, and lo and behold, he’d been correct. Funny how things worked out. With an absentminded smile, he swiped his hat off his head and placed his marionette back inside, humming Ride of the Valkyries as he did so. With a climactic dun da dun DUN, he placed his hat back on his head, and rose into the air, hovering about ten feet off the ground.

“Marco!” he called, looking around for his opponent. He didn’t really expect a reply of “Polo!,” but he was rather enjoying himself. “This is normally something you’d only say to a girl,” he called out, taunting his foe, “but you forgot about your periods!”

Lazus spun in the air, drawing his limbs in and clenching his right fist. Three needles of flame stabbed out from between his fingers, as if some inner fire was bursting forth at the seams. “Sting of the Spelling Bee!” The needles of flame again streaked from his hand, burning through the Fourth Wall and striking his opponent squarely in the chest, permanently sapping another 6% of his total health and energy. Lazus flopped onto his back in the air, lounging, and waved in the direction the needles had flown off to.

“Hiiiiii!” he called, smiling innocently. “I see you hiding over there, you little sneak!” Sneak! Lazus remembered suddenly that there were two of those around this time. He turned his gaze towards the restaurant he’d seen people streaming out of earlier. He hadn’t actually detected the second person inside, but had instead guessed that his or her actions had led to mass panic of the customers. Oh well, time to go say hi.

Forgetting almost, but not completely, about his opponent lurking in the shadows below, Lazus floated into the second story of the restaurant and peered about. “Hello hello!” he called, cupping his hands to his mouth. Peering quizzically around, he began searching through the restaurant, his eyes eventually settling on the balcony. Floating just inches above the ground, he laid himself parallel to the floor and hovered forward, slithering along on a cushion of air. Rolling on his side, he extended his head through the balcony door just far enough to allow his eyes to sweep the area, locking onto the strange magician man.

“Well hi there.” He said, grinning not so innocently.