SMASH - 2nd Wager - Sharking

"YOU ARE BEING REFRESHED. DO NOT RESIST."

"I heard you the first time-argh!"

The first thing Arin felt that wasn't the glowing pain of her ribs was a strong jab right through the nanites and into her chest, the refresher having deployed a needle that had more in common with a stilleto. It replaced the glow with a raging inferno of pain.

Her senses were stretched by pain across forever, but she barely remembered she was not supposed to use her powers inside one of these, and so she endured as forever stretched and stretched. And when at last she started to feel like she had a normal skin on top of the inferno, the machine had the nerve to ask:

"WOULD YOU LIKE AN ANALGESIC?"

"Yes, damn you! DO THAT FIRST NEXT TIME!" Arin shouted.

"TREATMENT SEQUENCE PREFERENCE NOTED. APPLYING ANALGESIC."

A hiss was all Arin heard as a tiny poke in her neck came with the sweet relief of the roiling, firey pain within, which descended to hot needle stabs before fading completely.

After that ordeal, Arin just wanted to stay here and sleep-

"EJECTION COMMENCING."

With an unceremonious fwowrrr sound, Arin was dumped. through a portal at her feet, a meter above the stadium floor.

A quick look at her chronometer showed only ten seconds had passed...

Bwoosh

The wind of a massive fist greeted Arin from off to her side, the lhorza wasting no time getting back into the fight. Only her body's subconscious flicks of the ear had allowed her enough time to instinctively roll backward, and as she planted her hands on the ground she kicked upward, knocking the lhorza's arm up and away as she put his suit down another half-shade.

She had barely a moment to take in the new setup, which was now a big hexagonal taco bowl with a 90-degree drop to the pit area, before her opponent swept out with a low kick.

Jumping off of her fingers, Arin took another flip to avoid her opponent's strike before letting herself drop into the pit, flipping him the bird as she went.

He clearly knew what she meant, because the last thing she saw of him was his eyes going wide as he gnashed his shark teeth at her, chipping several of the disposable things.

Phoonk!

Arin heard the new capsule as it was launched, but she couldn't go for it with Bat Shit about to arrive.

A thinking opponent would have stayed away from the rim, but that clearly wasn't Bat Shit's strong suit. The moment his massive, nano-suit covered foot appeared, Arin leapt with an uppercut, propelling herself magnetically off the floor in a burst that would have let her pulverize a smaller humanoid's hip bone into their chest cavity. The nanosuits wouldn't let her, but when she tilted into a followup kick, she knocked him back toward the edge of the stage as she put his suit into red-orange.

He should have gone off the edge, but no, a set of concrete pillars chose that exact moment to rise up.

Still, he bounced off the new wall and landed chest first, which finished the process of putting his suit into dark red.

Arin hopped off her magnetic tether onto the upper tier, noticing now that the capsule had landed nearby.

I hope you're made of metal... A quick reach with her magnetism and she had the liter-bottle-sized and pill-shaped thing in hand, - Yes! - right as Bat Shit finished standing.

"You little... k-krkatchla!" The translator spat out 'parasitic ground worm.'

"I mean... better to be a worm than have a worm that doesn't work," Arin shrugged as he charged, swinging the heavy lead-alloy chain that had been wrapped around his fist.

As he lashed sideways, she jumped and threw the capsule in his face.

It popped open with a pwoff sound, but the more dramatic effect was that Bat Shit's nanites soaked the damage and translated it into a sudden, otherwise inexplicable launch into the concrete behind him where he bounced off the floor again and into an arc above Arin.

Suspiciously, across the stadium, more concrete pillars started to rise as if to intercept his likely path.

Guess I have to do this myself... Arin growled and jumped, pushing off the floor with a burst that let her flip into a near-vertical kick, right into Bat Shit's back.

The only thing she was sad about was missing the sight of him rocketing up and out of bounds. By the time she landed, she had only a glimpse of the closing portal.

Ten seconds... She told herself, looking around for the capsule she'd broken open on her opponent.

She didn't find it but she did find one of her four vogels on the ground.

"Oh come on, just one?"

She pulled it off the ground with a flex of her psionics and readied herself, watching for signs of where her opponent would land.

3... 2... 1...

Where the hell is he?

Only the slight tinkling scuff of metal on metal warned Arin as, from behind and above, the lhorza Paragon leaped from atop the first wall that saved him, slamming a brand-new chainball into the concrete as Arin dodged.

While she dodged the smash, however, she couldn't dodge the shards of concrete that broke from the impact, pelting her and dealing a light amount of damage against her personal shield.

Thank the stars the refreshers restored that, I guess...

Sadly, her opponent had been re-armed by them as well.

"So the kitty finally got herself a real weapon," Bat Shit sneered, looking at the floating shrike vogel.

"I'd say that makes us about even, Bat Shit." Arin launched the shrike and the lhorza caught it by the blade. The nanites were clearly doing their best to keep him from being directly harmed, but even so Arin watched a small amount of weirdly red-pink blood drip from the lhorza's palm before he jerked away and flung the shrike towards the edge of the stage.

Arin has expected him to throw it at her or at least try to dodge, but Bat Shit was clearly willing to put his suit into green just to show how tough he was. The shrike flew away too fast for Arin to retrieve it, and she didn't like how there was no effect from the portal bounding as it disappeared.

Might not see that one again...

Bat Shit kicked his ball at her, and Arin dodged backward beyond the reach of the chain before landing once more in the pit.

Guess I'm back to sharking...