The Charred Satyr vs. Lola

Heat Awesome

All You Need Is Derp v.s. The Charred Satyr

Gaia Combat League Season Two

RIDDLE COLISEUM

Among Gaia's fast-moving populace, this coliseum is nearly ancient. The site of hundreds of battles, its walls are pock-marked and battled scarred; its sands hide the bones of the vanquished and the forgotten. Beyond the coliseums short walls, the Riddle Manse looms on the horizon, a dark and dim reminder of the coliseum's former glory.

Terrain

General: A 100 foot circle makes up the fighting ground, walled off by two meter tall, one meter thick walls of concrete. The ground is hard-packed dirt.

Weapons: None.

Bonus Features: A character can climb onto the thick walls that mark out the fighting area, but going beyond them will begin the ring out function.

(Open to spectators.)

**There was a guffaw to answer such a presumptuous declaration.**

An odd melancholy infused itself into the enraged spirit of the beast. For some reason he seemed to recall this place, a long time ago, in another age. Before Gork and Mork had deigned to birth him into this body from their frenzied seed of WAAAGH! and a call for ceaseless expansion. The deserted battlefield was swept to and fro with gusts of dust, the pellets peter pattered against his numb, black-green hide. The unblinking eyes of his guise stared down from his genuflecting pose, they tread over the mottled and stained ground. Yes, there had been many battles here -- most to the end. The faded scent of blood, entrails, and morbid death filled his filtered nostrils. Loppa knew that great champions and quivering worms had once danced with blood-slick hands in this place. Even if he had not been here when it was once populated by so many eager to die. Regardless he resolved himself to emulate the vestiges of that aura today. But first came the braggadocio.

From his knelt position the vast, dark-emerald leviathan opened his metal Klaw slightly. Through the brass toned alloy, tendrils of dead topsoil attempted to touch with the arena's floor only to be swept away by the wind. As the dirt ran clear, he clutched the artifice that passed for a limb shut once more, steel digits ground against one another in a terrible screech that could make teeth ache. With no more earth to amuse him, the girl's opponent rose to his full height. Even at this distance, some thirty feet away, it was clear from his outline that she had voluntarily jumped into a fight against a creature that was the very definition of "monster." He was Loppa, Loppa da 'eadchoppa.

The Black Orc had not enjoyed her impetuous sense of superiority, it was anathema to everything that made an Orc, an Orc. 'umies ought to know their place after all. 'specially the womenfolk. Their men died easy enough and in his wide ranging experience the smaller of the pair only shrieked even louder before being silenced forever. He almost felt insulted, in his small mind this match wasn't even going to be worth the teeth he collected from her head. Well, maybe it would be. That would all depend on how many he was able to keep intact and how much care she had shown in keeping them pristine for his inevitable retrieval.

Loppa crossed his arms across his body and retrieved the nearly identical Big Choppas from the band around his waist, the chains that linked them to his wrists jingled melodically. The vast brute was nearly naked save for the one gauntlet and pair of steel boots he wore. Aside from these trappings there was his bandoleer of Squig hide, his battle helmet, and loincloth. With the helmet already shut in the manner of a visored barbute, in fact this had been the inspiration for the creation when he had supplied the more Brainy Boyz in the Broken Toof tribe with a few samples he had collected from previous owners who had been so gracious as to permanently lend them to him. Mechanically there wasn't much difference, but functionally there was a great deal of changes made to the exacting specifications of the great Black Orc. Rather than opening from the side, the helmet was shut via a lever at the back making it easy for him to close with a mere flick of his stunted neck. Further, the multitude of ventilation holes at the front were specifically separated from his nostrils by a layer of Snotling membrane. Allowing him to breathe but also protecting him from a great many dangerous fumes, his own included. Completing the effect was a pair of spiked and metal banded tusks, likely plied from a war boar. With enough force, he could easily gore anything with flesh on the end of his helmet.

"U'ze tink u'ze bad 'n tuff?"

His powerful voice clipped out in mangled Common tongue, an almost hollow tone succeeded each word though. Probably as a result of the steel box he wrapped his head in. The Black Orc shook his hands up and then down once, menacing at his distant opponent with both of the jagged and rust riddled blades. They were each over four feet long from tip to tip, yet in his paws for hands, he held them like butter knives. He had his tree-thick arms to thank for that.

Loppa exhaled loudly through his flat face, puffs of soot shot out from the front of his mask.

"U'ze doh'n eve'n noez da meanin' uh tuff."

Then he snorted and guffawed a second time.

"I'ze gunna showz u'ze doe."

All at once his grip on both of his Choppas tightened and his vascular arms visibly bulged, even at the distance between the pair this would be plenty evident. Loppa then pulled his elbows in against his sides, and aimed his Choppas's straight ahead, creating a right-angle with his arms before he started out at a slow trot towards the girl. Although it would soon become obvious that he was incrementally gaining speed with each stride.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

Loppa's eyesight began to tunnel vision in on his opponent. Although this specific battlefield was unknown to him, he had fought in the rounded borders of a "Kall-oh-see-um" before. There was really only one downside to this sort of pen, and that was... theoretically an opponent could continue running along the outer perimeter until someone gave up. Almost as if she had heard his internal gripe, she quickly began to move away from the wall. Nonetheless, she had yet to make a stand. Which made him wonder at what precisely the girl was doing.

While Loppa continued to increase the speed of his long strides, to the point where he'd quickly assume the imagery of a charging bull with the twin tusks of his helm leading the way. The girl was quick. He had to give her that, and she had the presence of mind to do something else, rather than panic utterly and just try to keep distancing herself from him. She was reaching into a bag that was in her possession, likely to retrieve a weapon or some sort of defense. No one, not even himself, was foolhardy enough to enter into combat against an unknown opponent without arms or armor. Well, okay, maybe without much in the way of armor.

For now, the time for quips had come to an end, but that wasn't to say he wasn't keenly listening to everything she had to say. Loppa made a point of noting everything his opponents said to him, that way he could recall them when a reversal in their fortunes occurred, or when he was going to drive home one death blow or another. He quite liked the look of confusion inter-spliced with horror as he took their (usually) overblown and eloquent words and spat them back in his own broken tongue. How many self-righteous knights, chevaliers, battle priests, stunty heroes, "chosen" idolators, and infernal wielders of the ruinous powers had he put down after they went on and on about how amazing their were? Loppa couldn't right recall, but it had been a lot. And that wasn't even getting into the words of foes he wasn't able to comprehend. The Rats and the Lizards were stupid bastards, stupider than even most squigs, and that was really saying something. Mentally he sighed. If this was the sort of talk she was going to throw at him, the words would just be more oration he in turn threw onto the discarded pile. The only time he ever truly enjoyed talking during battle was for the aforementioned reason, or when his opponent really knew how to banter.

Loppa began to cut in with her turn, tighter than she had. His aim was to start allowing himself to run in parallel with the girl, rather than lamely follow her lead from behind. This had the rather practical long-term effect of allowing him to dictate where the battle took place, for even if she continued to run he'd eventually be able to box her in move for move. He was already running, and soon he'd be sprinting at his maximum speed. All he'd have to do then was make a great leap in order to complete the synchronization to move in parallel with her. An act that he knew he was more than capable of performing. With the next step already planned, he began to formulate what his further maneuvers ought to be. Right now his plan looked like this:

1. Jump

1. ???

1. Slice 'n Dice (repeat as necessary)

It was that second bit that held him up, not for lack of choice though, quite the opposite really. He could pin her down with one of his acorns, set her on fire, make himself practically invisible, do horrible things with his Klaw. The various options were open to him in his mind's eye like points on a map. Ah well, he'd choose a destination soon enough. His heavy, quick repeating foot falls would be the only thing he'd choose to air for the time being as he approached the limit of his speed.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

Loppa was not blind, nor stupid. No matter how he sounded, or how he looked.

The Black Orc was quickly becoming aware that this nimble opponent was faster than he was, but that mattered little when his aim was to become an implacable force of nature that could neither be assuaged nor appeased. She still needed time to begin putting distance between one another. Time that she was hoping she could buy by forcing him to lose the momentum he had built. Not a bad idea, but he was used to fighting those who could outflank him in speed. The pointy earz were particularly happy to try and dance away from any and all of his blows. That's where they often found themselves mistaken for this unforgivable folly. She would soon see why Loppa was called a Cunnin' Git among his kind, for he was in possession of almost limitless low cunning.

In a single motion, the Klaw that act as a substitute for the real thing that he had lost let go of the haft of one of his Big Choppas. The giant blade began to fall, but not to be discarded. As it was still attached via a manacle and its accompanying chain just above the wrist where flesh met bolted steel. And then with a bang, the prosthetic fired from his arm with a hiss. The massive, seven inch blades that acted as fingers slung themselves into the dirt of the arena like so many stakes, anchoring him. While the chain that connected hand to Orc spooled out, Loppa began to turn, utilizing the rigid point he had created in the arena as a hinge on which to guide himself smoothly. Which developed the situation into a continued game of outflanking maneuvers. [Note: While anachronistic, the writer wishes to explain the situation in a way that might seem more familiar. You ever see The Safety Dance's music video? The song by the band "Men With Hats"? Remember how those girls were dancing around that giant ass pole while holding onto the ribbons? Exactly like that.]

Still, Loppa had not been able to prepare for all eventualities. A weapon that resembled a crossbow was now aimed at him, from where she had procured it he could not rightly determine. Then with a soft huff, the bolt held back by its string flew forward and directly at him. The Orc, now directly facing the girl, released his hold upon the ground by clutching shut his fist. Sending him reeling straight ahead at her. If he had been more prepared there stood a chance he could have deflected the quarrel with one his Big Choppas, he had done it before, but in this scenario such a chance was not in the cards. He didn't even have time to grit his teeth as the metal head of the missile flew directly into the monster's extremely broad chest. Catching him right where his right arm met with his torso. But it was a tad bit too late, he had already already committed to his plan. Pain wouldn't set in few at least a few moments longer, an Orc's naturally ever flowing river of adrenaline made pain seem like an echo of what it was for other races. The beast, finishing his final step had made to leap. Less than twenty feet away from one another they were, and it was well within Loppa's capacity to close the distance.

As he took to the air, the bolt sticking out of his black-green flesh, and the chain quickly winding his Klaw back into place behind him, the 'eadchoppa lifted the Big Choppa in his right hand back over his shoulder, preparing to come crashing down with it and the nearly 400 pounds of muscle and metal that comprised his form directly onto the poor girl. He knew she was going to roll, they always did, it was just a matter of direction. Zog, in the minutia of time that was passing as his body fought gravity he fully expected to take another bolt to the body. She would do so at her peril though. It was one thing to fight an angry Orc, it was whole other thing to fight a truly mad one. And as soon as that pain began to set in, she would very probably find herself fighting something altogether more terrifying than her pretty little head could imagine.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

By the time he had landed, creating a terrific crater in the arena floor and stumbling forth a few feet, the Black Orc had found himself the owner of several new, rather minor wounds. He knew what gunfire sounded like, though he was not precisely conscious of this sort. The rapid fire was nothing new to him either, it wasn't uncommon for 'umies 'n stunties to use mass, repeating systems of volleyed fire. It was a shame that his color was so uniform, and his scars so indistinct. This did have the benefit of making it bloody well near impossible to tell when he was wounded though, green on green was pretty good at masking itself. That being said, Loppa was a creature of pain. One quite versed in dishing it out and taking it in. This was merely a part of life for Orcs, to them pain came as natural as breathing or eating.

He knew right away that he had been shot, regardless of what kind of ammunition his opponent was using. The internal burning and searing sensation was always the same. The biggest difference however was the precise kind of ammunition being used. 'umies 'n stunties literally wielded small cannons for their arms, and his body bore the faded pocked impacts from taking such lead balls to the chest and gut before. Don't be fooled, he couldn't shrug something like that off so easily, but this... well, this was rather different than having an inch sized hole suddenly pushing its weigh through your musculature. Further, it had an acute drawback of building his rage.

By the time he had turned around, he could feel the dribbling of blood from the new collection of wounds he had added to his collection. Although the bold leap had certain ripped open some of the fresher injuries he had accrued as of late. It would be difficult to tell. Had he literally done more damage to himself than his opponent had? He wasn't certain. What he could be certain of though was the throbbing and burning that was beginning to grow around his right arm. The Black Orc grunted as he wrenched up with his now retracted arm and pulled the bolt free, the terrifying digits slicing it into half a dozen pieces as he crushed the projectile in his prosthetic's palm. He idly lifted his arm to look at the odd incisions that had been left under the armpit. Droplets of green blood dripped out and intermingled with the arena floor. A twinge of pain stabbed at the joint as he did this, causing the beast to grind his teeth in order to stymie the feeling.

Loppa lowered his arm once more, and tilted his head as he took in the sight of the fleeing woman. It was now abundantly clear to him that she had brought only ranged weapons, and would only engage him from afar. Implacability. He needed to become the green horde. The idea was conjured in his mind. He would only tire himself out if he attempted to continue chasing her at speed, he was already having a hard time resisting the deep seated, primal urge to give chase to a fleeing opponent. But that wasn't what Loppa had been bred for. He was better than that. The Black Orc released his grip on the Big Choppa in his right paw, before quickly yanking his Klaw up, and flicking the dragging Choppa of that side back into his firm, metallic grip. There was still a great many options available to him, and he knew that all he had to do was keep his opponent moving. Exhaustion was a tool he employed quite frequently when he was hunting down prey. They might be faster than him in the short-term, but so long as he persisted... eventually he would catch up. That was just a simple fact.

He consciously felt the gears inside of his prosthesis finish winding. He could use the Klaw again in the same way as he had before at any moment. Tempting, but until she came back within range there was little reason to. No, he had better focus on her and preparing a plan to pen her in. With his green, right paw, he reached up and plucked two odd looking objects from the bandoleer. One was red, the other black and they vaguely resembled acorns. Though that was practically impossible to tell at the distance they now stood at from one another and them having disappeared into his fist. Loppa began walking towards the girl, the Big Choppa in his Klaw was raised ahead of him, while his right hand was down at his side. Back towards the arena's boundaries they went.

Loppa observed her as he plodded on ahead at his continuously slow, methodical pace. He took in every little detail, adding what he knew and cross-referencing it against the new parcels that he subsumed. Loppa knew quite well that most of the guns used by 'umies were rather hit or miss. Which was why they needed so many, and fired them in volleys. Their deadliness though could not be denied. Where a big enough Orc could survive getting needled by a multitude of arrows and bolts, a properly placed shot from one of their loud rifles was another matter entirely. His own experiences with taking bullets had been extremely unpleasant affairs after all. The Black Orc began to place the various situations into two different, distinct categories. What he was used to, and what was currently happening.

What he was used to was scared, untrained 'umie men shitting themselves as they fired their guns into an unstoppable green swarm. What he was used to was those same men missing many times, but those who didn't were capable of taking down many greenskins that failed to close the distance with them. What he was used to was battle formations inevitably breaking down into frenzied melees between small groups of frantic peasants with shot and halberds against goblins with stabbas, and Orcs with choppas. What he was used to was Witch Hunters carefully taking aim and trying to put him down a single, well-aimed shot from his sizable handcannon. What he was used to was these same weapons taking a long time to reload, only being able to fire once, and being of limited ammo. These were all the things he was used to.

What was happening though was different. What was happening was he was facing a girl, with a much smaller sort of handcannon, capable of firing multiple times before needing to stop and reload. What was happening was that the projectiles that came out of the smaller weapon were quieter, and splintered like the impromptu shards of metal, and clay that the peasants sometimes filled their weapons with. Except these could actually pierce his hide. What was happening was that the girl's weapon didn't seem to require any sort of flint, or fire in order to function. What was happening was that she was putting herself further and further away from him. What was happening was that she appeared to have many more weapons than she let on.

Loppa stopped and dropped his Big Choppa, it was time to make her show him all of her secrets. He began to step backwards from her, in the same methodical fashion he had when done just moments ago. Except now he was heading towards the opposite side of the arena, and as she moved along the wall he kept moving along with her in parallel, slowly turning to match the slight bend of the Coliseum. By no longer pursuing, he was going to find out just how far away she was willing, or able to engage him from a distance. And he was going to find out just how many weapons she had, and how much ammo she had for them.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

He stopped moving when he noticed that she had stopped moving. A deep, satisfactory smile spread across Loppa's face under the helmet. He had been right. The girl didn't trust that smaller handcannon for one reason or another at the distance they found themselves at now. He was going to make her life miserable now. So far nothing in her arsenal implied she could attack him indirectly. Which was good. She'd need a clear line of sight on him in order to stand a chance of actually hitting anything. A few more pieces of what was happening versus what he was used to lined up with one another. He still had the acorns in his giant mitt. It was time to put them to good use.

They were roughly fifty feet away from one another, or so Loppa guessed. He knew how big a cloud the acorns in his hand could generate, albeit of different sorts of clouds. If he tossed the Gobbo Acorn against the wall, it'd mask her in a partial cloud. But she'd just run out of it, and he'd have to leg it a good thirty feet before he could reach the outer fringes. Not a particularly good strategy. He instead chose a more prudent course, one he had used many times before when distance was a pressing concern.

The greenskin was quite adept at lobbing his acorns exactly where they needed to be. First would come the black acorn, the Gobbo Acorn, he thumbed it and sent it flying overhead. The small, roundish object would land roughly halfway between the two adversaries and then promptly explode into a cloud of black tinged with green. The cloud was twenty feet in diameter and twenty feet high at its peak. This left fifteen feet on either side of the cloud between the two. Loppa more towards the center of the coliseum, and the girl against the wall. With this barrier, of a kind, established. Loppa began huffing it. He forced himself to run break neck into the fog, while at the same time dropping the Big Choppa in his left hand, and palming the red acorn off into it. Time to change this up a bit.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

Loppa entered the cloud with no issue, save for something that felt like a bee sting. The girl's aim had been true, the bolt was cast forth and struck him in the side. Where it promptly met with the hardened bone of his solidified rib-cage. The head of the quarrel had sliced open a small wound before deflecting off of the stone-like skeleton and to who knows where. She would have been better suited aiming for any number of other places, but he wasn't about to give her any hints. Loppa chuffed from inside the fog, he was only in it as deep as he needed to be in order to have it cover him completely; which was to say he was still along the edge.

When he looked down to his left and noticed the small wound dribbling blood, he sniffed the air. The girl, whether she knew it or not, smelled of bile. This was never an easy smell to cover, and with his exceptional nose, it was even harder. He turned with her, from behind the cover he had created. The red acorn would remain in his false hand. While he procured another black from the bandoleer. As he stilled himself, he let both his other faculties take over the job of seeing for him. Had this battle been taking place within the cloud, he would have had very little trouble spying her with his yellow eyes, but with her outside it... that wasn't possible. She would keep trying to put distance between the haven he had created and herself, He was certain that she was just going to keep running if he let her. A thought crossed his mind, and he grabbed a very special acorn from the bandoleer.

Two in the right, one in the left. There was a new plan taking shape as she continued to run from him. Either this one would work, or he would resign himself to wearing her down by making her run out of things to shoot him with. Not particularly the best, or most expedient choice, but it was the only choice he was quickly coming to find himself with. As he did all of this he had been quickly stepping backwards, and turning with her. When he reached the center of the cloud, he started to run for the edge -- back ahead of her.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

He had heard her reload the crossbow and fully expected to take yet another bolt to the chest. To offset this messing with his big brained scheme, he let out of a roar and began to charge on ahead. His bellows came out like a mixture between a Kodiak's and a Tiger's. Although he could not be seen, the sound was almost certainly more than enough to put pant's shitting terror into anyone watching the "battle." And so he began, feeling a renewed surge of adrenaline and rage creep over his back and into his spine. He had judged the distance between the end of the cloud, where he was, and the opposite end: where he needed to be. Each step would need to be taken at exactly the right time in order for him to appear just as he put all of his power into leaping.

Leverage. This was all he needed. And in order to gain the proper amount of leverage, he just needed momentum. An attribute he was quickly gaining by put everything into his running start. He knew that if he ran straight out of the cloud, even with a running start -- she'd just merely peel away and continue to put distance between him and her. With the distance he had judged to be the difference between one another, he could not have made completed the circuit in time even at a full sprint. He had keep her from being able to simply run away. Which was where all of his tactical foresight came to a head. He was going to paint her into an inescapable trap. Internally the plan looked somefing like this. Behold, the genius of Loppa da 'eadchoppa.

(Not to scale.)

His mind had conceived of this plan knowing that even at his best leap, which is what he was aiming for, he'd end up short. About two of his strides or so, which translated into roughly ten feet. A problem obviously. He was also certain that he was going to get shot, hence why he had dipped into the well of his many adrenal glands. He was also certain that she was going to dodge. Just like she had done last time, except here is where things weren't going to go that way again. If she tried sliding under him again, that wouldn't work because he'd be too short and she'd literally be running straight into his hands. This left her with three other ways to go. Back, towards the coliseum wall, left, or right. Well, he was going to prevent any of that from working by throwing each of his acorns at roughly the same time in a triangular pattern, where each acorn's effects would overlap with one another. So even if she somehow knew which way to dodge to avoid the effects of the grenades, which seemed unlikely to him, she'd be right in his clutches anyway.

With the fourth stride, his body suddenly came into view from the midst of the darkness. The black and green fog clung onto his body as he emerged. And with the final foot smacking into the dry dirt, he leaped once more. It was questionable whether or not Loppa was becoming more frog than Black Orc at this point. As he soared through the air, he brought his hands up and threw the acorns with everything he had. The Red Meanie, sparking in his metal simulacrum of a hand as he did so, it's top tearing off. They would land and detonate in a very specific order. Loppa had made certain that the black acorn, which would land to the girl's right and obscure her vision. Then in almost perfect sync, the special acorn he had plucked, the Shaman Acorn -- would detonate to her left. And finally, only with the most minute delay from the short countdown, the Red Meanie would explode behind her. As he touched the ground, Loppa would transfer the forward momentum into a roll; carrying him half the remaining distance to where his prey had initially been before running straight into the midst of the three acorns, baring the Big Choppa in his right hand, and yet another acorn in the Klaw. By now, if all went well, she'd be blinded by the Gobbo Acorn, on fire from the Red Meanie, and hallucinating from the Shaman Acorn. Or at least a combination of the three; which suited him just fine. So long as she wasn't running any time soon.

OOC EDIT:

So apparently I can't throw all three acorns. I can only throw one, which was brought to my attention in the Judge Call ruling for this post. The profile I submitted to GCL neglects this information as it was agreed upon without inclusion during the profile grading process. Therefore, I have made Loppa only throw his Red Meanie and nothing else in the post changes aside from this fact.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

Loppa was hit by two things while he was in the air, one the bolt from her crossbow, and other the crossbow itself. The second of which collided with him just before he hit the ground, bouncing off his body and deflecting away. While the aforementioned bolt stuck out from deep within his massive thigh. Loppa finished rolling at roughly the same time the fire began disappearing. The quarrel from her crossbow was smashed to pieces with the violent movement, tossing dirt and blood up into the air. Loppa propped himself up on one knee and began to laugh. The girl was running again, but not nearly so fast as before and her retreat wasn't aided by some further onslaught now that the weapon she had been plaguing him with was out of her reach. He took a second to savor the smell of burned flesh, and look upon her extensive injuries before looking down at his own. The head of the quarrel was somewhere inside of the (relative to him) small slit that the bolt's head had produced. Green blood oozed out along the edges, adding to the pool already congealing below. She had finally aimed somewhere worthwhile. That was good. Rather than fight back the pain, he punched in the wound with his gauntlet covered hand and roared out loud,

"'bout timez ya git!"

For whatever reason the Dedd Cunnin' Git seemed pleased that she had finally done some significant damage to his green bulk. Loppa already had a solution planned if the wound were to get worse, but he doubted it would. In time, his body's natural healing properties would generate enough palates in order to stitch the cut closed. There remained one problem, and that of course was keeping it from reopening until he could have it tended to proppa. He stood with a groan, a numbness trickled down his leg around the pulses of pain. The Black Orc knew he wasn't going to be running without a limp any time soon. Not like that mattered though. He had accomplished what he had set out to do, though it could have been a bit more spectacular he supposed. Now, unless she were to get close, the rest of this battle would be up to her coming to him. A good change of pace, one that he welcomed with open arms. He began to trudge diagonally from where she had taken off, pulling Zog knows what now out of her bag, and stopped at the crossbow before slamming down hard onto it with his good leg. The frame buckled under his tremendous weight and the tremendous force he could so easily apply. Job done. Loppa's blood stained fist grabbed for his Big Choppa and stood about waiting, with the Red Meanie used and her crossbow destroyed, the parcel that seemed to provide her with so many goodies now became the object of his fixation. However, there was too much distance between them and he had no desire to pursue. So for now the squig was back in her court.

It was in that moment, in that delay that Lola had made a crucial error. Loppa witnessed what some might have considered a minor miracle, but he viewed as abject heresy. Something damnable and disturbed. An odd cultural concept. From the distance, there was no way of Lola knowing it but she had just pushed the great beast over the edge. The compounding, if only mostly nuisances, injuries, her continued flight from any of attacks, and now this... Magicks. There was nothing, not even stunties, that Loppa hate more than magicks. Which was essentially an incompatible belief when he regularly used devices created from magick. In Loppa's mind though, he justified this as being the gifts of Gork and Mork, not the perversion of the natural order of the world. The natural order demanded that Orcs crump, and fight, and win, not stand back and hurl lightning bolts at one another, or raise the dead, or any number of other insidious acts that the various arcane schools of his world raised. He even distrusted the work of Goblins and Shamans to some degree, knowing from experience that they could easily try and corrupt the most powerful of Warbosses for their own means. He lifted the bronze, gilded gauntlet to his mask and pulled it back, just as she stepped onto the floating board.

Although she had not seen his face without this half of the helmet obscuring it, there lay only the avatar of rage and unrest in every wretched line of his skull. Blood vessels rooted out from every corner of his eyes, rending the yellow orbs asunder until they reached his black irises. There was death and only death to be found here, it was spoken wordlessly in a thousand different languages. And yet the Orc was oddly silent, but his body was not. If Lola looked carefully, she would have been able to tell that Loppa had suddenly grown larger, not in height but in every other way. His heaving muscles seemed ready to tear the blackened hide from his back, and small trickles of blood began to appear from dozens of tiny wounds that he had reopened. This was the look of a Black Orc who had become so wrought with frenzied madness that he truly become enraged. Loppa raised the Big Choppa in his right hand up, and let out a horrifying roar as she approached on that bloody board of hers.

"I'Z MAD!"

His eyes honed in on her, taking in every detail in red hued methodicalness. Loppa saw her reach from behind her back and pull free an object, it was roughly hand sized. As she approached, he saw her telegraph the throw. No. Loppa was not having any of it. For a creature whose job description listed: "good at throwing things at people, which explode" it didn't exactly take a Snotling to figure out what that was. Even if it didn't precisely resemble one of his own toys, he wasn't stupid. The Orc, fueled by an endless stream of adrenaline and testosterone was working his body overtime, and almost automatically. His motions were nearly a blur as the Klaw grabbed onto the haft of the Big Choppa along with his right hand. With one easy stroke, he turned the blade to its side, the gargantuan flat face ahead, and swung backwards. Just as the grenade entered his arc, his reversed the swing and piled every sinew of every muscle fiber in his body into the movement. The action was terribly fast, and if he had done the same thing to someone standing in front of him; there would likely be little left. Now though, his target was the grenade. He crushed it with such force from the blow that it soared shot into the opposite direction, partially crumpled from his strike upon its polymer (or metal body) only for it to explode overhead of the pair in a rather inglorious fashion as a result of him damaging the object. If it was meant to do more than merely pop, Loppa didn't know. Loppa didn't care.

For the next minute or so he was the very Avatar of the Greentide, and let all those cower before him.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

As Lola turned around to attack the Black Orc again, he began to move. Something that in a more stable state, he probably would not have done but this was not the same creature that she had been fighting before. This was Loppa unleashed. He watched her turn over her shoulder, and fire three times from her small hand cannon. Loppa reacted as if it hadn't even occurred to him that he should perhaps dodge or something. But that was the point wasn't it?

Yes, shoot the giant, mad Orc and make him even madder. Truly a stratagem worthy of the great Gobbo tactician, Snot-Stew. Loppa would eat the fragmenting shots with reckless abandon as he began to pursue. All sense of self-preservation and pain (for that matter) was lost on the spiraling insanity that now ran itself ragged after her. His leg betrayed only the slightest of limps, thanks to the frenzy in which he had been whipped up into. The Black Orc dropped a hold of his Big Choppa, and sprinted with both arms held out ahead of himself, they were practically begging to grab onto the soft flesh of that woman in order to start ripping her a part. With both of the giant blades attached to their chains whipping on behind Loppa, streams of green blood, and the nonsensical gibberish expelling forth from his helmet there was only so little else he could do to paint a more terrifying picture. In his mind, he was going to grab hold of her one way or another. And that was when the "other" came into play. He was slower than that board, but not by much. Not now anyway. Each of the three bullets clipped directly into the dark, green hide of his chest and buried themselves; smoke and a vile stench of his burning flesh filtered into the air but not into his helmet.

Loppa's feet smashed into the ground with such fury that they left almost half-inch deep impacts behind in the dirt. With her attention divided between himself and the satchel, he prepared to throw the object that was to render unto him all of his hopes and dreams: the Shaman Acorn. Even in this berserker state, the Black Orc had a very good feeling about doing this. Lola had thus far turned, every single time she wanted to attack him. He was being strafed by her, he knew that, it was a pretty common maneuver on horseback, or spiderback, or boarback, or whatever the rider chose as their steed. He had not yet replaced either the Gobbo Acorn, or the Shaman Acorn back onto his bandoleer, and so he still held them (if a bit awkwardly) in his giant fist. And while he couldn't outpace her, once she stopped moving dead ahead: she was going to fall right into his trap. Then he could easily intercept her and throw the Shaman Acorn, which he had a feeling would be any moment now.

All You Need Is DERP Wrote:

> .

She may have felt calm, but Loppa was aloof.

His eyes went wide at the sight of the tube as she wrenched it free from the satchel and drifted away. It reminded him of a giant version of the rifles he was used to seeing Stunties and 'umies used. The color was wrong though, the green and red was pure Orc, but the way she held it, and the way she was leering at him told the Black Orc a tale that needed no further exposition. Now that his second wind had come and gone, he skidded to a halt at roughly the same time she had, an obvious reaction to her maneuver. His mind now refreshed and scrambling to take the initiative out from under her, a fresh throb of pain stabbed at him from all over thanks in part to his own recklessness. The beast was close, too close to her if she was truly planning on shooting something that large at him. His brain didn't consider whether or not the rules would even allow such a weapon, his headspace had no for such unimportant details. What it did have plenty of space for however was the Gobbo Acorn in his fist, and the location of the demonic, floating toy of hers. Without even being prompted, the Black Orc tightened his grip just so and an explosion of black fog immediately enveloped the area. The snicker of the Gobbo who had created the black acorn could almost be heard. At the time he had been under two strides away, and with the immense sphere that the Gobbo Acorn produced; this was nothing in the grand scheme of things.

The Black Orc didn't stop there however, even a blind man could still shoot straight. As soon as his fist pulped the Acorn, he rolled to his left (on his good leg) once and came to a stop in a knelt position. His good hand pressed down into the dirt in a fist helping to stabilize him from rolling further, and his Klaw pointed out slightly to the left. In this darkness, she may have been blind... but the Orc wasn't. He was home, and the odd humming from the device only helped him further. With a thunk, he fired his Klaw; it's hand open and extended to its full length. The chain and fist combo travelling at a furious blur (at 120 feet-per-second) within the black ink that surrounded the pair before it slammed into the board and clamped shut with it's steel grip, prompting the Orc-turned-fisherman to yank back with his arm. The bait swallowed, Loppa's hand, chain, and now newly pilfered hoverboard flew through the air towards him as the chain was reeled back into his arm. Soon, there would be a great deal of new problems for Lola to deal with. Starting with a 400 pound beast looking to deliver a little bit of flying payback.

Had Lola ever been pummeled by a flurry of strikes from a stunty Ironbreaker? Loppa had.

Had Lola ever been thrown through the air by the launching of a catapult in order to surmount an enemy's walls with the only way means of stopping being the ground? Loppa had.

Had Lola ever stood toe-to-toe with a Minotaur to give as good as he got? Loppa had.

What Loppa had never done though was get sucker punched by a cannon.

The Orc turned his head in the direction of the nearby sound that had popped off soon after he had fired his Klaw. He had no time to respond, and certainly no time to dodge. As the Klaw retracted, Loppa found himself in a rather undesirable position as missile punching bag. The red glove flew directly into the tip of his right, iron banded tusk. The ivory shattered once at the edge, sending shards of keratin and dust, red polyester, and cotton in all directions, only to be followed up with more as the now nude ball smacked into spot where the tusk began its emergence from the helmet. Loppa was floored by the impact, quite literally. As the kinetic energy from the blow transacted from the missile into the greenskin's helmet he was thrown backwards into the ground. His head twisting with the blow as if smacked by a dwarven hammer.

Loppa's chain continued to retract in automatically back towards him, but now Loppa may as well have been a thousand miles away from the battle. His tiny mind spun, and his ears rang as his head was mushed up against the front of the mask. The Black Orc tasted blood in his mouth, it was definitely his own. And if he had had a peaked nose like a 'umie or stunty, it most certainly would have been crushed. In his case, his flat face was uncomfortably nestled against the steel of his helmet. Everything was odd, to put it bluntly. Loppa was struggling to make sense of what had just happened still, while his left arm was lifted off the ground from the hovering board that he now held onto, and his legs were spread akimbo. After a moment or so, he finally did something: he groaned. Just outside of his reach was the Shaman Acorn he had been holding onto in his right hand. The monster lifted his head up, away from looking down the length of his outstretched arm and towards the board.

He shook his head trying to clear his mind of the buzzing, he could feel the right side of his face starting to swell. Although this was to be expected. Loppa swallowed the blood in his mouth, and felt several fangs flutter with the motion. Whatever had just hit him had loosened a few of his pointed, yellowed fangs. The Black Orc leaned up off his back, groaning a second time, before standing up. The toy, for that was what it was in comparison to Loppa's grip, continued humming. His head was throbbing. As he looked down at the board in his metal fist, and then the woman in the distance; a surge of anger welled up inside of him. It was fresh, and pulsed with each beat of the pangs in his blunt skull. Loppa understood now what had happened, it had been as he suspected initially. That large tube in her hands was more or less a cannon. But she had betrayed herself. In hoping to pull him into a head on attack, she had given up her mobility. Loppa's Red Meanie had robbed her of the true speed advantage that the young woman had held over his head for the majority of the match. Now it was gone, and now that he had the board... didn't hesitate.

Grabbing onto the other end, he noiselessly pulled it over his head before slamming the board over his knee. The electronics, magnets, and other circuitry that made the magick inside happen sputtered and zapped once his knee crushed through the device. There, two bits of kit gone. Loppa could do no more however. He was fighting the urge to vomit, and his head was still swimming and would need a moment or two more to recover. In the mean time, he flung the snapped hoverboard aside, turning away from her, and leaned down towards the acorn that he had dropped, turning away from Lola. He was fine with her running, he needed the breather to compose himself again. And besides, as this fight had shown over and over again: she would be back. Whether she liked it or not.

And there she ran, yet again.

Loppa smirked to himself, in spite of the headache that she had gifted him with on their departure. He had plucked the Shaman Acorn off from the ground soon after she pierced through the blackness, back out into the coliseum with that cannon of hers. The Dead Cunnin' Git mused to himself, silently inspecting the bleakness around his form... it would be going away soon. He needed to plot, but first needed to listen. He silently took in her jog for quite some time, before she paused and set about working on her maniacal weapon. Loppa figured deduced that like the cannons he was used to, this thing needed to be reloaded after every shot. Elsewise she would have just stood there and shot him again. Which, like everything else in her repertoire had a limited amount of ammo. He didn't know how much she had, and he couldn't bet on what it might be given that special bag of hers. It, much the like board he had just destroyed, seemed to confound reality. Everything she had used against him thus far came from within its hold, and it definitely could not fit all that in there without the help of, yet again, Infernal Magicks.

The monster began to play the fight over in his head, examining the highlights and taking into account her habits once more and how he might best exploit them. She had run for quite some time, which told him that this weapon likely had a considerable range. And given her relative silence now, she was waiting for him to show his mug. Loppa rolled his eyes. It didn't bare repeating, but he couldn't help but think it. His lot was a dumb sort, not a stupid one. If she was going to be this predictable, then he needed to be unpredictable once more. A fresh plan, for what seemed like the thousandth time since this match begun, had come to him. He tossed the Shaman Acorn into the air before snatching it and replacing the magical totem back onto his bandoleer, but not before plucking off one of the other two that still remained. Loppa was down to three acorns, a single Gobo, the Shaman, and the Green Meanie.

He put himself in the mind of the young woman he was fighting. Regardless of whether or not like it seemed she was controlling the match, she wasn't. Cannon ball to the head or not. Loppa had thus far dictated nearly every single point of contact between them, all she had done was keep her distance; which on several occasions she had been unable to do. And for all her trouble it seemed as if Loppa was invincible. She couldn't even be sure how well the cannon had worked on him. She just had to guess. This told him that the cannon was her big play, the final trick to try and topple the giant from his pedestal. If she failed here, she was out. It was a reassuring thought. Another reassuring thought was her immovability. Loppa figured that if she tried to use the cannon while running, it either didn't work or would backfire horribly in some way. The same thing had been the case with the crossbow he had dispatched with earlier on in the match. In summary, the girl was badly wounded, low on supplies, and scared. If Loppa was wrong about any of those, she wouldn't be in the same sordid position she was in now that had led to her getting set on fire originally. And if she was smart, or if she could, she wouldn't willfully put herself in such a way. But because she was reverting to the same tactic again and again, it told Loppa she was playing the only strategy she knew or could think of, and worse... her weapons would only work with it.

It was this same line of thinking that had allowed him to figure out how she had detected where he was in the first place. Loppa might have been invisible, but because of the Zoggin' restrictions on him, he certainly wasn't silent. Now though he was practically a dead zone of muted silence. His breathing was silently regulated through his filtered nose, and he made certain not to jingle the loud chains at his wrists. She had no target, and even if she did, Loppa was ready this time. Speaking of which... the other thing that Lola would be counting on was Loppa's speed being hampered but he was about to turn that expectation on its head. She hadn't hamstringed him with the bolt, but she had split the muscle which was what caused the limping. Now he was going to stitch that back together using an old trick he had performed on several occasions with much worse wounds. With his natural hand, the Black Orc pushed apart the slit where the bolthead was still stuffed and flexed his thigh muscles. The torn wood of the shaft, and the bolt slithered out, with trickles of blood quickly following. In the hole he had just made, the Orc pressed the Green Meanie into it and released his hold on the two slabs of flesh. The acorn was enveloped, a rather odd and uncomfortable sensation but nothing in comparison to what was coming.

Loppa bit down on his tongue and grit his jaw before flexing his muscles again, pulping the frangible acorn inside of himself. At first there was only an odd granular feeling intermingling with the blood, but then it turned into a goop... Pain! Only the absurd threshold of an Orc could withstand the sort of reaction ongoing within his body now without even muttering a curse. Seconds later the pain ebbed, and Loppa looked down at his leg. Sure enough, the wound had been sealed. He smiled and twisted his foot into the dirt, the pain wouldn't be going away fully any time soon but at least now he could move about unhindered. Oh yes, the Black Orc still had a few tricks up his sleeve. Loppa grabbed the Shaman Acorn from his bandoleer once more and held it in his left hand. The Black Orc, when he was ready, was going to grab onto the Big Choppa attached to his right hand. It would be a bit before he could fire the Klaw again and thus it only made sense to use that hand to hold onto the acorn. He played back their first encounter again, certain this was the proper tact to take. Two could play the same game.

Loppa could feel the magic beginning to weaken around him. It was time.

He turned and stepped forward with his left leg, and took the Big Choppa into hand. He quickly raised the weapon diagonally in front of him, the edge at a steep angle, elbow bent in tight against his body. Behind the flat of the blade he placed his right forearm, diagonally as well. Tight in his fist he held the Shaman Acorn. Loppa looked straight ahead, where Lola was waiting. The clouds faded, and he started to run, knowing full well what was coming for him. In the next few moments, Loppa was going to prove that not only could Lola not hide, she couldn't run either. And as he did so, a single, solitary word- nay! A sound erupted from within is mask, the cry of a million, billion of kind, the call of all who were born into the green and struggled for supremacy at the behest of Gork and Mork:

**WAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!**

Loppa had emerged from the smoke, screaming his battle-cry only to rush headlong back into smoke again. He had planned his entire next few steps around her trying to use that cannon on him again, and when she didn't he didn't really care for what she had planned next. This was simply because what she had planned next was an irrelevancy. Nothing compared to the danger of that cannon, it was the girl's lifeline. Loppa knew this, and she knew this. As he quickly gained in speed, he couldn't have been happier. The Black Orc had traded one kind of camouflage for another, and once more Lola had to rely on her ears (which were insignificant in comparison to Loppa's) in order to sniff him out. Although to be absolutely fair, he wasn't exactly being quiet anymore but this was a worthwhile trade off. His plan had completely accounted for her being able to see him, and if she was choosing to try and take that shot blind... all the better for him. He wasn't the sort to stop his enemies from making a mistake when they endeavored to make one.

The distance of fifty feet that had initially separated them began to melt under his unrelenting assault, and whether she knew it or not -- Loppa was wholly aware of her moving once more. He could smell the fresh dirt being exposed to the air, he could hear the subtle adjustment of the cannon as it moved from her body to the flesh of her hands, the intensity of her scent as it grew closer. Loppa was a hunter bred for the part in this element, Lola by comparison was dumb, deaf, and blind. He wasn't certain why she had decided to try and blind him, when all she had done was plucked out both her eyes. What he did know was that in trying to get closer to him, she was planning to use that tool of hers at point-blank range, hoping to take him out in a single swoop. Not a terrible idea, but he had already accounted for this; hence his stance as he ran towards her. He was using the arm holding onto the acorn as a brace for the one that held his Big Choppa, and the Big Choppa essentially acted as a shield to deflect the projectile away from him.

Between the two of them, the distance between them had shrunk immensely in next to no time at all. Down from fifty feet, Loppa on his own had crushed it down to twenty-five in a mere four seconds, and then Lola had helped by taking several steps forward and hitting it down to fifteen. He had expected this next part to take several seconds longer, as he had expected to traverse the whole distance but when opportunity knocks... Loppa knew that she knew where he was. Back at twenty-five feet her form started to come through the haze. His superior low-light vision pierced through the obscuring darkness, not with the same ease as his own clouds though given they were magickally crafted specifically for him. He was willing to bet though that he could see her well before she could see him. And that's when he moved to take away the only sensory input that she could rely on away from her. It was becoming old hat during this fight, but in this specific instance it was altogether completely required that he do this. With his body pressed into a full sprint, he pushed off the ground left leg first and began to soar into the air once again. This time was a little different though.

The Black Orc knew that his sudden relative quiet would spur confusion, perhaps he had stopped his charge, and not well, decided to do what he had decided to do. Loppa's Klaw held the Shaman Acorn. And while Lola was fifteen feet away when Loppa had jumped, he very quickly would not be. Five feet was nothing to a flying Orc. Loppa counted "One Gork-a-Mork" in his head after he took off from the ground and promptly crushed the acorn. This would have cut down his total distance from her into a mere few feet, theoretically. Placing her well within the range of acorn's dispersal range. And given that she had chosen to pop that smoke grenade of hers, it would make detection of the acorn's screen an almost impossibility unless she specifically knew what to look for. Or was even somehow aware that he had subtly destroyed an acorn in his Klaw for that matter. This in no way detracted from the positioning of his arms. In fact, as he set about sticking his landing directly in front of her, the Black Orc would violently and brutally slash downwards with his Big Choppa in the expectation that the attack would annihilate her cannon; while swinging outwards with his Klaw in a terrible backhand aimed at her face. And that was just the appetizer.

If everything had gone well, Lola would have definitely breathed in the fear gas from his Shaman Acorn. And to put it mildly, Loppa was looking forward to seeing how the fearful girl might react to that. One might have expected in this coup for Loppa to say something, anything really but he would not. His intention from the point where he had taken off from the ground all the way to the landing a few heartbeats later was to be as silent as the night, and leave her stunned by his abrupt and overwhelming arrival. This combined with the gas, well... he had high hopes. That was all.

Loppa calcified abdomen was hit with a hammer blow. He had felt something very similar to this before, and knew what to expect. There was a series of expectations actually:

• He was now in possession of a cracked chest cavity.

• He now had the wind knocked out of him.

• He was about to go zoggin' berserk, again.

In turn, each would be dealt with. The Black Orc took a knee instinctively, the sudden lack of oxygen had a way of doing that. He did however have the presence of mind to use the Big Choppa in his right hand as a cane and to lean onto it to stay up right. Wheezing left the front of Loppa's helmet as he tried to catch his breath. His body was fighting with his brain to coordinate with the correct motions again. And to make matters worse, stabbing pain shocked directly into his system each strained inhale and exhale. He could feel his pulse pounding madly in his skull, and his eyes almost bulge under the strain. The last time he had experienced this, was when an Ironbreaker had hit him with enough force to cave in his chest piece. Loppa had nearly died in that fight, not from that blow but because it left him so exposed to further strikes. Lola though had been hit so hard that Loppa had literally thrown her eight feet away. Her helmet may have absorbed much of the blow, but you didn't get hit so hard that you were thrown through the air and walk away from it very easily.

Oh, I'ze mad!

Somehow though she had found the strength to pull herself to her knees... in front of him. Spit frothed around Loppa's mouth, it was tinged green from the blood that he was still bleeding from his gums. His eyes were locked onto the shaken woman, his mind was filled with an intense urge to do horrible things to her body as recompense to the situation he now found himself in. And so he would. Loppa had placed his Klaw against the spot where the now missing shot had rippled against his flesh. He had by no means recovered enough to stand and chase after her, but he didn't have to. His Klaw would do that for him. Red rage tinged his eyesight as he pulled his Klaw away from his bleeding side, and pointed out ahead of him. Loppa's Deff Klaw opened wide, and fired. The nightmarish contraption had been pointed directly at her head and throat. The fist thunk'd again, and the chain whipped right along with it. The eight feet would be crossed in milliseconds, and then as soon as the fist had come into contact with something firm it would snap shut. Just like it had with the hoverboard.

Loppa had no doubt this would inflict horrid damage to her head, but it would not kill her. That wasn't his intent. His intent was to grab her tight within the rusted, steel fist and then reel him back towards himself while he continued to recuperate. Even with the insane rush of adrenaline and testosterone dumping itself back into his blood stream again, it did nothing for the physiological issue he was currently dealing with. No amount of pain suppression could very well make him breathe easily again. Loppa's feet dug in to the dirt under the oppressing urge to rush forward and begin rending her limb from limb, but he simply couldn't make his body do it. So for now, he'd have to rely on the Klaw to do the job for him, while he kept wheezing and leaning on his Big Choppa.

Loppa's Klaw flew back towards him as the chain was hurriedly reeled back in. With another thunk, it locked into place on his forearm. The monster had only been dimly aware of her initial shouting, but now his ears perked up at her question. The Black Orc tried to respond, but the words came out as a wheeze and hiss, essentially unintelligible. Loppa tightened his fist around the haft of his Big Choppa as hard he could, causing the metal and flesh to shake with frustration. He was beyond livid still. The great Orc tried to speak a second time, pressing his body into action. All pain still forgotten, and only lakes of rage for him to draw him would have to provide him with the sustenance needed. His boots slid against the dirt, as he pushed the entirety of his bulk on the fanged blade. The head perforating the ground further while his body struggled to muster itself.

After what seemed like a titanic effort, he exhaled and pressed a foot forward and began to rise. The Black Orc strained to speak once more, this time his voice wavered into existence in parallel with his rise, only for it vacillate out of existence again:

"Cuz..."

He dragged his seated leg out from under him and now stood on both legs, but was still hunched over. The Big Choppa wobbled precariously. As he stood, the girl's cannon was still firmly gripped in Loppa's Deff Klaw. His digits had cut into the barrel, but he did not possess the power; even in his enraged state, to simply dice the object into so many pieces. That did not mean he was just going to relinquish the object of so much of his agony however. He grit his teeth and tasted the blood from his tongue and gums, the scene of him was everywhere throughout the arena. The girl had been trying to pick him apart this entire time and yet she didn't know why they were here? He couldn't believe the words. After sucking in another breath of air, he lashed his larynx into working order once more. Though it was hoarse, even for him:

"Cuz I'ze..."

His body tensed under all the stress, as if it was going to tear apart in the inner frenzy he was currently trying to wrench to the surface and put to practical use. The shell preventing this began to shatter with each word, and he lifted the Big Choppa from the ground. Dirt drifted off the head, before flying away as he swung the tremendous weapon over his shoulder and placed its blunt edge along his collar bone. Despite the bleeding wound on his left, the dried blood on his right, the many pock marks along his chest and arm that was accompanied by blackened soot. Loppa betrayed no evidence their existence any longer. He seemed just the same as he had when he first shown himself to her in the arena. As if the damage she had been trying to inflict upon him all along was merely aesthetic in nature, and not even the two great blows that she had actually delivered had gone on to calculate more than a sum of zero. The Orc seemed stoic. Drawn up to his full height once more, he flicked his head back. The damaged helmet on his head flipped over itself, and opened. Revealing the face of her attacker for the first time.

Scars crisscrossed his black-green features. His lower jaw jutted out with two large fangs protruding above his upperlip. One was shattered, the other was not. Sort of like how she had left the tusks on his helm. His yellow hued eyes were bloodied from popped blood vessels, they rimmed two pits of darkness at their center. His nose, or lack there of added to the grisly affectations. From her position, belly down on the ground, Loppa's imposing height must have seemed even more monstrous. Especially since at last she could put a face to her tormentor. And now, without the echo of his helmet he shouted freely into the wind.

"CUZ I'ZE LOPPA, LOPPA DA 'EADCHOPPA! AND U'ZE TEEF IS MINEZ!"

As he roared these words, he swung the Big Choppa off his shoulder while raising the cannon horizontally in front of himself, arm outstretched. His Klaw let go of the device, letting it clatter to the ground. This marked the third piece of her kit that he had stolen from her. Loppa, despite it all, grinned and tilted his head at Lola. His Klaw now devoid of any objects reached up and plucked his final acorn from his bandoleer. A Gobo Acorn, back to where they had started. Lola's smoke had worn off by now, and it hadn't been as altogether useful to Loppa as he had hoped.

"Now'z... Now'z I'ze gonna show u'ze da meanin' o' fea'."

His steel digits pulped the acorn, the world went black, and Loppa began to run at her.

Must we do this every time? She could in no way hide the fact that she had drawn her weapon again, and it was only logical for her to shoot him in one place and one place only. The girl had tried in so many others, and failed in so many others. He knew this as soon as he had opened the helmet. Point of fact was that he had expected her to try this far earlier, back when she was on the ground. Loppa had swung the Big Choppa off his shoulder in anticipation, the blade was already held vertically. With a slight twist of the wrist, the face of the sword was now in front of his big green head. And almost as if on cue, he felt a pressure buck up against it followed by a vibration and a ringing sound as the slug deflected and shattered harmlessly already the arena.

Once more she had to run from him, but immediately following the deflection, so had he. His neck lolled about as he returned the Big Choppa's blade outright, and with a shake the helmet swung back over like a cage closing shut. The edge of his Choppa straightened once more ahead and he began to pursue, he quickly left the cloud of dust behind. The girl was in his sight, and she was running for the wall of the arena. Doubtless she felt she had some last trick to pull, a final gambit to play. But if she hadn't figured it out by now, she never would. Loppa was an Orc, and she simply wasn't up to snuff. Still, his eyes watched that satchel of hers. The small hand cannon was a non-issue for him, practically speaking. She could only fire it two more times before needing to stop, and load it once more. Another piece of information he had picked up over the course of this battle.

The endorphins from his prior rage had begun to abate, and pain once more welled in its place. There was an unpleasant sensation along with the pain in each breath he took, it was almost labored. He could hear the wheezing in his breathing in time with the jostling of loose bone. Whatever, it didn't matter now. This match would soon be at an end, but had been that blather about not being afraid of him? She clearly was, not only could he literally smell it on her (among other things), she had said as much just moments prior. An irrelevancy. Loppa refocused his mind, plotting a potential tactic and redoubled his efforts to run her down. Her bare feet pattered ever close as his metal covered once beat the thunderously.

Loppa quite frankly couldn't be bothered anymore.

He was in La La Land, he didn't need to be here, why was he here anyway?

There hadn't exactly been the promise of a chest full of teef as compensation should he win, or any trinkets and gubbins he might have found useful. This got him trying to recall how this all had started. He couldn't quite remember. Likely someone told him that there was to be krumpin', and bashin', and winnin'. Probably with flowery words instead of the terms he preferred to use. They probably had worn a track suit, or some sort of outfit festooned with garlands, and other accouterments. All 'umies looked pretty much the same to him though, so it was hard to remember the more acute details.

A bullet whizzed by, and the dull stabbing of fragments from another pressed into his thigh. Oh, what was that? Pain was knocking? That was odd, Loppa thought that he had already come to visit. Whatever. In the grand scheme of things though, this wasn't any worse than a few hard pinches by comparison to the cannon balls he had taken earlier. Wait... what?

Loppa thought about the last few minutes again, this time instead of focusing in on the prominent combat details that actually would make or break his decision making, he thought about the notable outcome that each had brought about. There was running, a lot of running, and a great deal of athleticism put on display by the both of them. But Loppa was getting zoggin' tired of this, not just mentally but physically. If he had a bruised lung, and he most certainly did, it wasn't helping his mood. But that wasn't the point...

First there had been the Red Meanie. The girl had been on the outskirts of the acorn's blast, but that didn't matter. It wasn't a true fire, it was the mystical creation of an Orc Shaman. He had used the heat from his Red Meanies to literally cook men before, such was their undeniably hot flame (in this case, 3rd degree burns due to no lesser heat variance). Yet the girl.. she was still acting as if the flames hadn't effected her in the least. Much like he had tolerated most of her attacks, but there was a key different in physiology between the two. Loppa was a boulder, a beast, a tank. The girl wasn't, she was soft, skinny, a twig. She wasn't meant to get into a scuff, or take the sort of wounds that Loppa could, and the weapons she had been using (for the most part) had appeared to be tuned to fight 'umies of similar ilk. On a lesser creature her little hand cannon would probably have been quite effective, her crossbow would have been able to crucify her targets, the big cannon able to pulp skulls, but not Loppa. During this entire fight Lola had needed more and more punch to actually find the threshold in which she could effectively harm him, but that was of no fault of her own other than her poor choice in weaponry.

His mind was diverging again, he focused in on the burns. They had been so intense that the girl's shoes had gone up in smoke, along with most of her pants and the back of her shirt. Her leg's skin would have been utterly grilled to a char, he could smell the burns after all. And yet, again, she seemed to move as if it were no big deal. Easily somehow able to outpace Loppa, and keep on fighting despite the horrifying pain that she must have been in. Loppa knew from experience, nothing quite matched up to a burn. Orcs had a natural aversion to fire. Choosing between being bathed in the flames from his Red Meanie and losing his hand again, Loppa would have gladly chosen to lose the hand. It just didn't make any sense to him. Then as a result of his Shaman Acorn, she had quite literally shit and pissed herself; which must have felt amazing on those open wounds. Only for her to soon after get hit so hard by Loppa (something that he hadn't even intended) that she was thrown a considerable distance through the air, had her helmet smashed in half, and... sustained no signs of damage? He mentally checked himself. She smelled like a 'umie, talked like a 'umie, fought like a 'umie, looked like a 'umie... she must have been a 'umie. And still he had so many questions. Then there had been the whole fiasco that had earned him the hurt lung in the first place. He didn't know how that bleedin' cannon worked, but at the time when Loppa had shown up only to get shot for his efforts, she had been stunned into complete and utter incoherent fear. He had to guess that she didn't even mean for the thing to go off, let alone hit him.

Even now, after the psychological hell she had been put through by Loppa, the unrelenting grind of his presence and systemic destruction of her tools, she still kept running. Even Loppa remembered that you could just say you gave up, and the match would be over. This made no sense, she was being a zoggin' git. And now, for whatever bleedin' reason, she had dropped the hand cannon and her infernal bag. He half wanted to stop and grab the bag to see if she had left anything behind, but there simply wasn't enough time. Loppa was thoroughly confused. From what he could see, all she had left was a tiny stabba. And she was going to use that to fight him? Or what? Meanwhile all he could do was keep pounding away at the dirt of the coliseum floor, trying in vain to catch the girl who refused to let herself ever come close to Loppa, always seemed to have somehow been able to create huge distances between herself and him, and never once had appeared to make some sort of tactical mistake in positioning. This had been why Loppa had to hop around this entire time. Otherwise he would have never been able to get anywhere near her, not once. Just thinking about this quandary turned his confusion into flaring anger. The Klaw continued winding up, it'd soon be ready for another shot at her. Perhaps this time, now that she was finally out of toys he'd be able to catch her. But something told the old Orc, likely not.

Ting!

The Klaw was ready. And Lola had finally, decided to stop and fight. What a waste of time this had been. The Black Orc continued running at her, closing the distance to a more than adequate range and set about finishing the battle in the most inglorious way possible. He fired the Klaw. She'd try to dodge, he had no doubt but it would come to down to the wire as to whether or not she could.